Souvenirs I

It's not the prettiest thing we brought back from France, nor is it one that we'll keep for all that long. But in terms of utility, it ranks up there with cocoa from La Bonbonnière and pullovers from Galeries Lafayette:

Yup, it's a poop bag. We only saw two poop bag dispensers in 9 months, and both were in rich suburbs of Paris. The bag above (and the other 10 that we took as "souvenirs") comes from Sceaux, where we visited the lovely park and said goodbye to Damien. It reads, "A small, daily gesture . . . a big gesture for the environment and for other people. Thank you."

The other bags we saw - but didn't take (stupid, stupid, stupid) - were in Versailles.

I want to criticize Paris for not offering poop-bag dispensers, but I know they don't have the spare cash that Versailles and Sceaux have. So here's a cost-effective idea: after having already coordinated bike-sharing, and now car-sharing, would it really be so difficult for the City of Paris to promote poop-bag sharing? People with extra, appropriately-sized plastic bags could bring them to drop-off points, where dog owners could pick them up, and use them to pick up after their dogs. Simple! Safe! Socialism! Petition your arrondissement council today!

Farewell to Damien

Our plan for our last few days in Paris went like this: say goodbye to friends, check out a few new places, and tire out Panda so she sleeps on the plane and doesn't relapse into separation anxiety. (Final grades for each component of this plan: A, A, and F, respectively.) In an attempt to kill three birds with one RER ride, on Monday, May 31, we headed about 15 minutes south of Paris and met Damien at the Parc de Sceaux.

Damien lives in Antony, so the Parc de Sceaux is "his" park just like the Parc des Buttes Chaumont is "our" park. It's always fun hanging out with Damien, but it was especially nice also having a guide to what turned out to be a much larger space than we expected. Originally the grounds of the Château de Sceaux constructed by Jean-Baptiste Colbert (great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather of Stephen), the park includes a rose garden, a number of grand canals with fountains, a reconstructed château that houses the Île-de-France museum, fancy outbuildings, playgrounds, a sports complex, and lots of shaded paths.

Despite all this baroque beauty, we will always remember the Parc de Sceaux for the exciting discovery we made there: the park has not one, but TWO - count them - TWO off-leash dog areas.

This is clearly only possible because it's outside of Paris, and because the community of Sceaux is the 44th wealthiest in France. Paris can't even conceive of dedicating greenspace to dogs, even though it'd go a long way towards getting people to use leashes and ramasser. The off-leash areas were especially amazing because they were in wooded areas, rather than within gravel or dirt enclosures, so they seemed remarkably and sustainably clean. Needless to say, Panda was jumping for joy. Literally.

At the end of the day, we were sad to have to say goodbye to Damien, but happy to have discovered the Parc de Sceaux. We'll have to include a special appendix in our "Year in the Herbe" coffee-table book for superior and dog-friendly greenspaces outside the city.

PS

Just in case the last post left any confusion - yes, we're back in the States. But that doesn't make Panda-à-Paris obsolete. Au contraire, we expect that continued posting will help ease our transition back into American culture. Here's one way to think about our situation: like Panda in this picture, we're still on a Paris high.

We hope you'll keep checking in as we work through a massive backlog of material, thus warding off Paris withdrawal while gently making our way back down to solid ground.