Shorts-Sighted

Once upon a time, we thought shorts were a no-no in Paris. We read in guide books that only tourists wear shorts in this oh-so-fashion conscious city, and for a long time, our personal experience reflected this rule. But soon after another American-in-Paris blogger reinforced Paris' no-shorts policy, we visited Nature Capitale and noticed exceptions. Lots of them.

First, there is an epidemic of man-capris in Paris, which comes as no great surprise.


We know these aren't the same thing as shorts, but once you start wearing capris, it's a slippery slope down . . .

And just in case you thought this was the work of rogue Frenchmen, flaunting their pasty legs in the face of fashionability, think again. The Champs-Elysées boasts some of the most coveted window-display real estate in Paris, and even there, shorts are beginning to appear.

Normally we'd be excited about this liberalization of men's wear, since the unspoken ban on shorts has always seemed unfair. But as we said, it's a slippery slope from capris down, and we saw evidence of the unsightliness that often accompanies shorts-wearing.

Short shorts remind us that as France transitions into a shorts-wearing nation, it must set a new standard for warm weather clothing. I recommend we call it "comfortable chic." Emphasis (as always) on the chic - sorry, short shorts fans.

Should We Stay Or Should We Go?

One sign it may be time to leave Paris: in the Parc des Buttes Chaumont today, we saw a mom encouraging her child to poop on the grass next to some bushes. She did not heed the message of the signs placed all over the city.

This is much, much more disgusting than the several times we've witnessed parents educating their children in the joys and conveniences of public urination. Just gross.

On the other hand, we've had 5 days of gorgeous weather, which is helping us remember why we fell in love with Paris in the first place. There are things you do in fine weather that beat all the museums, tea rooms, and restaurants in Paris. Yesterday, for instance, we indulged in a cherished summertime ritual: savoring a cone of Berthillon glace on the banks of the Seine.

(The Paris) Life is good. Maybe we'll stick around after all.

Overdressing

As the weather gets nicer and people-watching gets easier, we've been amazed at how many people haven't made the transition from winter clothes to ones more appropriate for spring.

There are so many overdressed people in this picture, you probably won't believe that it was 70 degrees and sunny.

This woman must have been worried about catching cold, but only from her knees up.

In most cases it seems to be a conscious fashion decision. I frequently make the equally conscious fashion decision to dress entirely according to the weather, which means wearing shorts when it's warmer than 75. Which is generally a no-no in Paris, no matter how hot it gets. At least I'm not sweating through my scarf and fur-lined coat like these two chic ladies.

Oh yeah, I forgot. Real ladies don't sweat.

April Showers

A mix of sun, borderline-chilly temperatures, and brief but violent storms: the weather's been pretty consistent the last few days. It's not uncommon to see one half of the sky - over the Louvre, for instance - robin egg-blue, while the other half - looking towards the Eiffel Tower - angrily announces an approaching shower. Time to take cover!


Mostly we're just glad that the grisaille is gone for good. And we're ecstatic that our pictures of the city can now fully reflect its beauty. Diffused by wispy, swiftly-moving clouds, sunlight ricochets off buildings and puddles, bathing our eyes in brilliance and guiding our gaze in new directions.


We're even starting to enjoy that mix of sun and storm, especially in comparison with what once was, when winter reigned, when all we could see from our living room window was grey, grey, grey . . .

Now, sunlight succeeds showers, blue sky chases clouds, and the moisture-laden air sparkles with the colorful promise of spring.

I love Paris . . .

Ella Fitzgerald (among others) crooned her love for Paris, no matter what time of the year she found herself in the city. Cole Porter, who wrote the song, tried his hand at composing for the ballet in Paris in the early 1920s, so presumably he knew something about the subject. (Paris Hilton, on the other hand, does not seem interested in considering the song's relationship to reality.)

Maggie already posted her agreement with Porter and Fitzgerald about Paris in the fall, and I've disagreed about the pleasures of non-stop winter drizzle, but we're all back on the same page now that we're starting to see the first signs of spring.

Thanks to these flowers and the astoundingly blue, sunny skies we've been having recently, even the cold snap of the last few days and the freak storm that buried Southwestern France in 16" of snow can't diminish our delight. Spring is really, truly, finally! almost here.

La Grisaille Parisienne

To everyone who's buried in snow right now, I am either sorry for you, or extremely jealous. Whichever you prefer. If it makes you feel any better, we're supposedly experiencing one of the worst winters in decades here, and that means six snowfalls of an inch or less. And a few weeks of highs in the low 30s. Terrible!

Clearly I can't complain too much, since Paris boasts a pretty mild winter by Boston standards. So consider what follows not as a complaint, but as a report. Only true facts. When people warned us about how rough the Paris winter is, this is what they were talking about. And they were right.

It's called the "grisaille parisienne" - the endless days (stretching into months) of gray (gris) skies. "Grisaille" is technically a term from the art world - it means any monochrome painting. It also refers to the gray color used in a lot of stained glass.

We sense the grisaille parisienne as surely as we sense that Panda smells bad. But it's also measurable. The French weather service keeps track of hours of sunlight by day and by month. In January, we had 47 hours of sunlight. That's out of roughly 273 possible hours of sunlight (calculated based on average sunrise/sunset times for the month). So we had sunshine around 17% of the month, or about 1.5 hours a day, or about 5 full days out of 31. That's pretty awful. (I can't find any data on Boston's sunny hours in January, but if anyone else can I'd love to have something to compare.) The sunlight-hours measurement was up in January from 46 hours in November but down from 52 hours in December. So far in February we've had 9 hours of sunlight, and we're on track for the least sunlight yet, despite the days getting longer. Hooray!

The grisaille parisienne makes even beautiful things look drab. It turns happy days into sad ones. It stamps out fun, hope, good health, and contentment.

In full daylight, St. Augustin looks like your typical neo-baroque cathedral. The grisaille turns it into a hulking, sinister fortress. I heard Darth Vader lives there.

I'm not the first to spend some time describing the grisaille parisienne, nor will I be the last.

Even Jean Nouvel couldn't design the Institut du Monde Arabe to withstand the tyranny of the grisaille, which washes out contemporary architecture, sucking windows that normally reflect the brilliant blue sky into a gaping gray hole of clouds and darkness.

Eden and JP Care Bear Stare the grisaille, but to no avail.

I wouldn't mind the gray skies if there were only 2-4 feet of snow on the ground to watch Panda frolic through. But nevermind. Tomorrow will be a brighter day.

La Conciergerie

Once upon a time, when my mom and Cathy were here, we tried to go to St. Chapelle. The über-gothic "second" cathedral of the Île-de-la-Cité (the "first" being Notre Dame), St. Chapelle boasts some of the oldest and most beautiful stained-glass windows anywhere. It's tough to get into, not just because it's a prime tourist destination, but also because it's hidden away within the Palais du Justice, a complex that houses (among other things) the French Supreme Court. In addition to waiting in line for tickets, you have to wait in line to go through security, which they take very seriously.

Once upon a time, when my mom, Cathy, and I woke up early on a Monday morning to beat the rush and be among the first in line to enter St. Chapelle, our plans were thwarted by unforeseen circumstances.

The fine print on this sign blames the weather for management's inability to open the church to the public. Keep in mind that it wasn't snowing, and there was no chance of icing within the church. We concluded that the "bitter" cold (temperatures hovering around freezing) were behind the closing, but never really figured out why.

Our back-up plan was to visit the Conciergerie, so visit we did. Famous as a Revolution-era prison that held Marie-Antoinette for several months before her demise, the Conciergerie also includes the largest medieval room still in existence in Europe, and serves to teach visitors about the royal stronghold on the Île-de-la-Cité whose origins stretch back to the 6th century.

The "Men-at-Arms Room" (above, constructed 1302-1313) served as a gathering and lodging space for the King's servants. Originally, these columns supported an even larger space above, called the "Great Hall", where the king and his court did their thing. When the palace was abandoned in 1370, the "Men-at-Arms Room" became a prison and the "Great Hall" became the meeting-place for Parliament. During the Revolution, this room was known as the "antechamber of death" - in other words, it's where those condemned to die spent their final days.

The beauty of the first room we saw was rivaled only by the corniness and sensationalism of the room you see above, which is a recreation of Marie-Antoinette's cell. (She was imprisoned separate from the riff-raff in the "Men-at-Arms Room.") See the veiled figure? That's Her Majesty. The resemblance is unmistakable. Today, she'd still be in jail, assuming they succeed in passing a ridiculous anti-Burqa law here.

One of the most interesting parts of the Conciergerie was the room that serves as a memorial to those who lots their lives after being imprisoned there. If you click on the picture and scroll to an area that's in focus, you'll see that each person is listed with their occupation, and that the Revolutionary tribunes went after people in every walk of life. Fascinating. ("Ex"-nobility and clerics may have borne the brunt of Revolutionary vengeance, but servants, shoemakers and fabric salesmen also apparently attracted some attention.)

If you try to visit St. Chapelle and it's closed, you might pop into the Conciergerie. But if I were part of a modern-day, museum-focused Revolutionary tribune, my verdict on the Conciergerie would be "guilty." You have to walk through a gift shop to get from the medieval part to the exhibits on the Revolution, there is no attempt at interactivity or multimedia, and even though the "Men-at-Arms Room" offers a wonderful opportunity to explore the lives and lifestyles of non-royalty during the 14th century, we learn little more than the architectural merits and original floor plan of the palace. Shameful. They should lock up this former prison/historical monument/"museum" and throw away the key.

High Humidity

Paris is an incredibly humid place, as we've mentioned before. With the colder temperatures we experienced last week, not to mention the presence of visitors, it's been harder to open windows and air the place out. The result? Condensation! Moisture! MOLD!!!

What our bedroom window looks like most mornings. Yes, that is all on the inside.

On rare days, there's so much water on the window that it actually runs down to the floor in tiny rivulets . . .

We discovered some mold growing on the window last week, and swiftly cleaned it off. No respiratory ailments here, please!

The basic problem is one of circulation; there is none in this apartment. That's why we need to alternate opening windows in each room for a little bit every day. That's also why it's good to keep a fan running sometimes, even though it makes it feel colder. Finally, that's why we invested in a déshumidificateur (dehumidifier), which manages to keep water off the windows, but only if it runs all night.

This little guy can only dehumidify 17 square meters at a time, so unless we empty it once over the course of the night, it fills up after running 5 or 6 hours.

Thanks, trusty déshumidificateur! Here's looking forward to spring!

Météo France

As the weather has turned colder, we've taken more interest in weather reports. Will it rain today? (Usually, the answer is yes.) Should we wear ugly American winter coats perfect for Boston-like temperatures, or stay stylish (and a little colder) with the black midweight coats that seem to be the uniform in Paris? (Forget assimilation: when I take Panda out in the morning and it's 25 degrees, I want my ugly Columbia ski jacket.)

We tend to get our weather reports from two different places: the French equivalent of weather.com, http://france.meteofrance.com/; and tv weather reports we watch streaming online.

Météo France has the advantage of showing us exactly what's going on in Paris, arrondissement by arrondissement, while the tv weather reports give the whole nation equal treatment (which in itself is a pretty foreign concept - I'm too used to how national news programs usually cut to local weather forecasts). On the other hand, the tv weather report teaches us French geography and weather vocab, not to mention the added bonus of watching the extremely stylish and always chipper "meteorologist" (scare quotes because she never studied meteorology, which leads me to believe she was hired for being peppy and photogenic).

If you made it to the end of the report, you saw a brief informational graphic letting the public know which Saint's day it is. The Saint's day also appears at the bottom of the Météo France report, as you can just barely make out below. This boggles my mind: publicly-owned news services advertise Catholic Saint's days, but kids still can't wear headscarves, yarmulkes or cross-necklaces in public schools. Seriously!?

Other than the Saint's day thing, we only have one complaint about French meteorology. Both the website and the tv report lack one important component of American weather forecasts: "real-time" radar. As far as I can tell, French radar only shows up to six hours before the present time, which is not very useful when I want to know whether it's going to rain in the next twenty minutes. Instead of up-to-the-minute radar, Météo France offers "Prévision de pluie à 1 heure," a decidedly lo-tech presentation of the likelihood of rain over the next hour.

Yellow is no rain, light gray is light rain, medium gray is moderate rain, and dark gray is heavy rain. White would mean no information available. I guess this is just as scientific as the "40% chance of rain" descriptions we get in the US, but for some reason it strikes us as quaint and imprecise.

Snow day!

We woke up this morning to a glorious and rare Parisian sight: snow!

Of course, we had to run right outside and play!

We even caught a glimpse of a certain jolly fellow's most famous eco-friendly flyer.

Cold Snap

As Maggie mentioned, we're in our first cold snap of the winter. By Boston standards, it isn't much: highs in the low 30s, at night it gets down into the low 20s, and if we're lucky we might even see some snow showers.

It turns out, though, that a difference of 10 degrees (the winter average high for Paris is about 44) is both seen and felt in Paris. For instance, those gutter gushers seem to have been turned off. Finally! It makes sense: this morning, on my way back from walking Panda in the park, I saw the frozen trickle of one that had been left on a little too long. I even stopped to take a picture (imagine Panda straining at the far end of the leash, me trying to hold the camera steady with one hand, both of us shaking from the cold). Unfortunately the picture didn't look great, but it inspired some conversation - a woman standing a few feet away asked why I had taken a picture, and I got to rant (live! in French!) about the city's wasteful street-cleaning techniques. I pointed out that they have to turn off the spigots when it goes below freezing because otherwise there'd be ice everywhere, and the spigots would probably break. The woman admitted she'd never thought about any of it before, and I walked away proud that I'd helped her see the light.

We notice the temperature difference in our apartment, especially, since we've finally been forced to turn the heaters on. No, that wasn't a typo - each room has a separate thermostat that runs a single electric radiator, which doesn't quite warm a whole room like baseboard heating, and especially not like central air heating. Oh well - it's not like it's going to be like this all winter. Forecast for Christmas: high of 48. Balmy!