Paris Journal 2002

Shopping arcade in the passage way called St. Andre in the 6th arrondisement (above and below).

Place Vendome (above and below).

Altar at the church at Madeleine. It took years to carve it.

View from Madeleine toward Place de la Concorde.

We are pleased to see that the French seem to notice that there are fewer Americans here.   They acknowledge that September 11 is a factor.  They think that the slightly weaker dollar is a factor.  In reality, it is not.  The difference in the dollar this year means only a few cents here and there, and on big purchases, it means only a few dollars.  It certainly is not enough to keep any American from coming to Europe on vacation.  One thing that was a factor, I'm convinced, is that the airfares in the spring and early summer were too high.  The newspapers and tourism experts here seem not to know that, or to have forgotten it already.

The biggest factor in the decrease in American tourism, I'm convinced, is September 11.   And I want the world to know it.  Terrorism hits the poorest people the hardest.  Many people in France make a modest living by doing temporary jobs.   These "saisonaires" are finding fewer openings because of the decline in American tourism, and because of a recent change in the length of the work week in France (a change that affects how and when people take their vacations).  France, a relatively prosperous country, is not hurt by the decline in tourism as much as less prosperous countries like Turkey.  A sad irony about September 11 is that in the long run, I think it will hurt poor Muslims more than any other group of people, and that poverty in Muslim countries fuels terrorism.  It could be a self-perpetuating downward spiral if something doesn't change. 

This much is clear in the newspaper articles and editorials:  Bellicose, trigger-happy rhetoric from the White House doesn't help.  It is only alienating Europeans and others.

Americans are perceived as materialistic (among other things).  The two of us don't seem to reinforce the stereotype.  When we are here, we spend far, far less than 139 euros per person per day.  We don't shop.  We walk around, window shop, and watch shoppers, and we do buy some groceries or some odd necessary household item here or there.  But other than that, we don't shop.  We spend money on what we consume, and that's about it.  There is no reason to buy anything else here; all clothing, furniture, etc., seems to be a better buy in the U.S.  We dress plainly and simply in clothes that we brought with us.  We buy nothing new.

Exception:  Tom bought a watch recently at the Swatch store on Place Vendome.   His Swatch watch that he bought last year (one that replaced a dead watch) was scratched.  And it is a very, very casual looking watch.  We went into the little Swatch boutique and found that they had a special anniversary collection of watches designed in Switzerland just to celebrate the anniversary of this boutique on Place Vendome.  A limited number of each design were made, and they are only available here, on the Place Vendome.  When they're gone, they're gone -- or so they tell us at the boutique.  There was a beautifully designed, dressier men's watch that I liked, and Tom really seemed to want a new one, so he bought it for 70 euros.  The salesperson also polished out the scratch in the lens of his sporty old Swatch.  Even with that 70 euro purchase and dinner out that evening, we were still far behind the 139x2 average for the day.

The 2 days/1 night we spent in the four-star hotel in L'Épine, where we also had a fine meal, we may have approached the average, but when all was said and done that weekend, I think we were still behind.

These photos were taken before our trip to Chalons/L'Épine last weekend.  I seem to have a bit of a backlog of photos.  I have some catching up to do with this blogging business.

We're concerned about our friends from Germany, with whom we spent that fun weekend in Champagne country.  We don't know exactly where they live in Germany, since we met them in Sanibel and we've been corresponding by e-mail.  So we don't know how they are doing or if they are even affected at all by the flooding in the southeastern part of that country.  We sent an e-mail the other day.  Every day, I hope to hear from them.

The days are hot now, and we've changed our routine a bit as a result.  We read, write, and study our French all day long.  In the evening, we pull out the Zagat guide and other restaurant reviews that we come across.  We decide where to eat, and we call to make a reservation.  We take the Métro there, walk around in the neighborhood, perhaps visiting a bookstore (oh yes, we do buy newspapers every day and a book here and there), for a half and hour or so. 

Typically, the restaurant we have chosen is in the 5th or 6th arrondisement.  We have a long, leisurely dinner beginning at 8.  Afterwards, we walk home, down the stylish Boulevard St. Germain, through the elegant, quiet and safe streets of the 7th arrondisment, along the Champ de Mars with its brightly lit Eiffel Tower, and back into our very "real" 15th.  It takes about an hour and a half to walk home.   Walking after 9:30 at night is much preferable to walking during these blazing hot days.

I recently finished reading a book in French.  It was Ingrid Betancourt's memoir, la rage au coeur (The Rage at the Heart).  Tom is reading it now. 

(Ingrid Betancourt is a politician in Colombia who has consistently fought against corruption in the government there.  She was educated at Science PO, the political science college at the University of Paris, and she spent a part of her childhood in Paris when her father worked for UNESCO and for the Colombian embassy.  Her book was written in French, I think, and is available in Spanish and French.  I'm not sure if it is available in English.  After its publication in 2001, she was kidnapped in February 2002 by FARC, a Marxist Colombian terrorist group that is financed by the drug cartels.  At the time she was running for president.  Alvaro Uribe was elected instead.  The terrorists have tried multiple times to kill him recently, and Ingrid remains their hostage.  The book is gripping; highly recommended.)