My apologies about this post. I wrote it and published it and there was some error in the app API and it lost everything except one picture. So I am re-creating the post.
I spent one week in Paris. I enjoyed several major activities: including Bastille Day and the final World Cup playoffs.
Since I was in Hungary for the American Fourth of July, I missed the fireworks. But I got fireworks on Bastille Day! Our gang set up with hundreds of Parisiens on the cobblestone square at the foot of the Pantheon. We looked down the street and saw fireworks set off from the Eiffel Tower. The designers used the entire height of the tower in there fireworks display. Fireworks ran up and down the entire length, bursting from the top and the sides as if the structure had been designed for it.
Football enthusiasm in Europe is everything I’ve been led to believe by the media. I experienced the final playoff football game between England and Croatia and then the final match between France and Croatia. In the final playoff game most of Paris was rooting for England because they wanted to see a France versus England showdown in the ultimate match. That was not to be. Instead, it was France versus Croatia, which France won.
It was such a unified cacophony! Music blared from a car parked outside the bar. Arabic youths sit on the car rock out with Coca Cola. People blared vuvuzuelas! They sang, they hollered! The people shouted, Allez les Bleus! Viva Griezmann! Viva Pogba! Liberté, égalité, Mbappe!”
I’m awfully glad France won! Not just because I was there and it made everybody happy, but because the feeling in the streets after the game would have been much different if they lost. As it was, everyone was happy, cars honking, people singing, people marching. I saw a guy rolling by on a one wheeled scooter waving a giant French flag, it was amazing! People partied all night long, some of my gang didn’t get home until daylight.
My favorite thing about Paris is la Défense. It is a new modern area of the city. A bit west of Central, it rises like science fiction out of the city. A vast plane surrounded by tall modern architecture built by some of the greatest multinational firms. All sorts of activities happened there. There are concerts, and right now a big playground with games and music, stalls for food, and goods from all over the world. I spent two days there I liked it so much. There are shops in the surrounding buildings, clothing, makeup, food, a big mall.I even went to see a movie, the Incredibles.
This is where I will come the next time I visit Paris. But now my thoughts are on London. I have one day there and then home to Colorado.
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