When summer comes to Paris, those who are still cooped up in the city flock to the nearest park in search of a quiet patch of shade. And soon the capital's espaces verts become dotted with picnickers and sunbathers, making them a fountain of free sociological information--and entertainment.You can really learn a lot about a quartier from a park bench. Peering over the pages of an open book, you can innocently people-watch for hours, taking in everyone from the endimanché elderly couple sitting one bench over, quietly bickering, to the bare-chested, middle-aged man standing up and yelling on his cellphone to a flustered mother trying to remember how to play with her children again now that the nounou is on vacation. Unfortunately, as you are in a public, neighborhood park, you can't expect to hide behind your book indefinitely. At some point, someone will manage to squeeze herself and her summery spirits down next to you and begin some banal banter ("It's sure a hot day, isn't it?"). How can you break it to her that there's no fun in people-watching a good-natured Parisien?
Kristin Davis as Charlotte York Goldblatt. [Online image] 2004.
