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I took these on the way to work yesterday. |
| I was already running late, as usual, so I thought twenty more minutes wouldn't hurt anyone. Usually I just walk from my apartment straight to the Alma-Marceau metro station, but I took a detour past the Eiffel Tower and crossed the Seine to the Palais de Chaillot. |  |
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Parisians don't really know how to walk on snow, and they don't have the clothes for it. Neither do I any more, I suppose; I've been away from the country I grew up in for eight years now, and the winters I knew then are only memories now. |
| Paris being Paris, most of the people I saw walking around the Champs de Mars were walking tiny dogs more appropriately dressed for the weather than their owners, wearing little dog sweaters and little dog boots. I didn't take any pictures of little dogs. |
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Looking at these pictures now, I like how deserted everything looks. In fact there usually aren't all that many people in the park around the Eiffel Tower, despite the mobs of tourists milling about between the pylons waiting to go up. I rarely see anyone on the winding, grassy paths except for local residents walking their dogs and joggers in the early morning. |
| It was neither raining nor snowing when I got to the tower, but I had to open my umbrella as I passed underneath; melted snow was dripping from all over the tower, making a tiny artificial rainstorm. |  |
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The traffic is always heavy on the Pont d'Iéna and around the Trocadero. It's noisy and it seems as though it's perpetually being repaired. It ought to be a lot nicer place to walk than it is. |
| It seemed odd to me to see working fountains surrounded by snow and ice. I liked it; it jarred memories of Niagara Falls in wintertime, where the flowing water keeps the river from freezing over, even in the heart of winter. |  |
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Sometimes seven hundred and forty-five days seems like a lot to me, and sometimes it seems like nothing at all. |
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