Parisians Still Like to Smoke

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After more than 12 years since my last sejour in Paris I was curious to see what had changed and what stayed stable. I had forgotten just how much, by and large, French culture is one that holds fasts to its traditions in certain areas. A few standouts still appear to be going strong.

To begin with, yes, my impression is that Parisians continue to enjoy smoking and talking in cafes - or, more correctly, when they sit outdoors at a cafe. I don't know how they manage in the winter. We ate dinner yesterday evening at a brasserie where drinks were being offered at a 2 for 1 deal as an aperitif. Next to us an entire row of Millenials puffed away, chatted away, and imbibed away before heading home, I suppose, for dinner. No one seemed in a rush on a warm Monday evening and very few were hanging onto their cell phones. Instead, I observed - rather nostalgically I confess - the face to face conversations of urban dwellers unwinding after a day of work. This remains a city where the tradition of lively and engaged conversation remains vibrant.

It also remains a location where the appreciation for the humanities has not gone underground in the competition to legitimate the need to study ideas as part of being human rather than only to advance the newest technological innovation. Granted, our hotel is quite close to the Sorbonne and the law faculty, and so perhaps it is a special niche, but there are independent bookstores one after another, including one that specializes exclusively in philosophy! I am incredulous. How does it stay in business in 2015?

Finally, for now, I am struck again by the sense of history that pervades Paris. It is not just evident in the churches like Notre Dame but in the small signs posted here and there recognizing events in the more recent history of the city. In particular, World War Two continues to occupy the imagination. A current exhibition at the Pantheon on four lesser known French Resistance fighters is but one small example. From my own perspective, we took the RER city-suburban train and on the same line as ours was a stop for Drancy. Drancy was the train station where the Jews living in Paris were sent before they were shipped off to Auschwitz. History lives in the every day here in a way that is not easily ignored.

But it is a city that also welcomes the new. We spent the day in the Bois de Boulogne, the wonderful park that dates to the 1870s and in which there is now a remarkable recent architectural creation - the Frank Gehry museum (see photos).

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Photos

The cigarette lives
sign on a garbage truck in our neighborhood

Cafe Culture
Enjoying the summer

Philosophy lives
Nearby bookstore

Love to read!
Philosophy in Translation:
la jouissance - pleasure
l'obstination - obstinacy
le snobisme - snobbery

Remembering the Past
Exhibition at the Pantheon on four Resistance fighters

At the Pantheon
Writers are commemorated

In Memory
Plaque for a fallen World War Two soldier

RER B
Drancy on the line

Frank Gehry Architecture
New museum in the Bois de Boulogne designed by Frank Gehry

Comments

[laurie Baumgarten]

Hello
Well, Sarah, your entry makes me want to return to Paris, even though I am a reluctant traveler- especially would love to sit in a Parisian cafe and roam the bookstores. But the smoking ??????

[laurie Baumgarten]

Hello
Well, Sarah, your entry makes me want to return to Paris, even though I am a reluctant traveler- especially would love to sit in a Parisian cafe and roam the bookstores. But the smoking ??????

[laurie Baumgarten]

Hello
Well, Sarah, your entry makes me want to return to Paris, even though I am a reluctant traveler- especially would love to sit in a Parisian cafe and roam the bookstores. But the smoking ??????

[taubertravels]

You'd love it
Yes, you'd love strolling the streets and sitting in the cafes. There's even a beautiful public pool around the corner from the hotel that only costs $4 to use for anyone! Social democracy is not dead yet!

[Sarah Siegel]

Bonus Vacation
Sarah, reading your blog, I feel like I'm getting an extra vacation this summer -- practically traveling along with you!