J'aime un Défilé

On Wednesday Ashley and I walked down to rue de Rivoli for some peace and quiet. On any other day this would be foolhardy. Rivoli is a main thoroughfare linking Bastille and place de la Concorde, in the center of Paris. Usually the sidewalks are teeming with tourists, forcing faster walkers like us to dart in and out of the street, which itself is usually full of speeding cars. But Wednesday was le quatorze juillet -- Bastille Day -- and the street was blocked off. No cars. Some pedestrians, but few tourists. It was refreshing and relaxing -- almost peaceful -- the way a mid-week bank holiday should be. Sans voitures, the only sounds on Rivoli were the occasional clatter of a loud pair of high heels on the wet sidewalk and the homeless man at his usual post in front of the Hôtel de Sully. He's given to sporadic loud ranting, which startles passers-by who don't know him to be the fixture in the neighborhood that he is. On Wednesday he was ranting in English (maybe he always does but it's just too noisy to hear). He was dressed quite well, in a fashionably rumpled white oxford tucked into jeans, and dark-green suede boots that I might have to get a pair of myself. The only sign that he's homeless is his face, which is unwashed and sunburned. Ashley says he's kind of handsome.

Our day did not begin so peacefully. We awoke, as we often do, to sounds from the street outside our open windows. But this morning it was no ordinary noise. As if some cruel joke, city workers chose this day, when most people aren't working, to begin jackhammering on the sidewalk in front of our building. This forced us to begin our day earlier than we would have liked, so, after breakfast, we decided to try to catch some of the military parade that was making its way down the Champs-Elysées. On our way over we ended up doing some shopping on Rivoli. This must be one of the better-kept secrets of Paris: shop on Bastille Day to take advantage of the surprising number of open stores, remarkably few other customers and the ongoing, government-mandated soldes (sales). "2eme" or "3eme demarque!" some of the signs read.

En route we caught sight of some of the air-show portion of the military parade: sleek jet fighters flying in formation, followed by huge bombers and a succession of older aircraft, including prop planes. Then some camouflaged military vehicles rumbled by: tanks, missile-launchers, amphibious vehicles. There was even a truck towing a raft with two men in scuba gear. By this time it was pouring rain, so they were well equipped for the occasion. They waived as they passed, each man steadying himself with his free hand on the steering wheel of the raft. A little while later, after stops in a few more stores, we looked up in the sky, above the Hôtel de Ville, and saw parachuters drifting silently toward the ground. They looked fake, like G.I. Joe figures or miniature soldiers with napkins tied to them that kids play with. A military parade seems out of place in the post-Cold War West -- but then again so is jackhammering and shopping on le quatorze juillet. Sometimes you just have to go with it. And anyway, the parachuters unscored that this parade not about flexing military muscle but about entertaining the crowds. (I doubt France's enemies were cowering at the sight of the scuba divers.) It was not the start that I was expecting to my first Bastille Day in Paris, but entertaining it certainly was.

Oh, and since the seemingly urgent jackhammering Wednesday morning, we've seen no further work being done to the hole in our sidewalk -- and don't expect to until Monday, November 1. That's All-Saints Day, the next French bank holiday.

-- MBB