There must be something in the air, but parks here are just unbelievable. I am constantly impressed with Paris's insistence on letting no square foot go to waste; I've found three parks within walking distance of my little corner in the 15th arrrondissement, squeezed in tight between apartment buildings. My favorite thing to do is grab a sandwich and a carbonated water flavored with grenadine (from, you guessed it, Monoprix) and wile away the afternoon on a little patch of park, thankful that I'm a girl so it's not awkward when I just sit back and watch the little children play.
Parks here often hold historical merit, too. The one below, up away in Batignolles, provided Monet with the western vantage point needed to paint the train tracks stretching from the Gare St. Lazare (which I'll hopefully see tomorrow in the Musée d'Orsay).
As I lounged on a park bench, mulling over the thought that Monet could have sat in this very same spot, my view was soon blocked by a dark, young man who felt the need to sit down next to me and inform me that I was very beautiful.
Uh oh.
No, I don't want to go get a drink with you. Pourquoi pas? Because my boyfriend probably wouldn't like that very much (yeah, I went there). Vhhy do you like vhis park? Because it izz beautiful, like you? Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking.
Do these lines ever really work?
And when he tried to kiss me, that's when I wasn't so thankful that I was a girl. He left, finally, after grazing his grubby cheek against mine, and so I sat there for a while afterwards pretending to read my Zola novel but silently going over pronunciation for Go Away, Help!, and the number for the police (Allez-vous en, au secours!, and 17, respectively), just in case the guy was hiding in the bushes somewhere on the park's periphery.
I'm sure Monet never had this problem.
So far, walking the streets of Paris alone has not been too bad, except for the occasional "Mamma Mia!" (which I expect to get a lot more of in Italy). Or my personal favorite, "Ça va, mademoiselle?" accompanied with a greedy stare telling me that if I wasn't ça va, he'd be glad to make me. But I wasn't prepared for that invasion of personal space or persistence. In a public place, at that.
It could have been worse though; I could have been accosted by this guy:
My finest piece of voyeurism to date.
And while I didn't see the guy again, he shook me up so bad I just had to do something to calm me down. Eat. These:
Macarons!
So, you know, all's well that ends well.
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