14°C, the sun is out, the jacket is off and the jumper is only on so
I don't seem too German.
Sitting here one the
île-de-St.-Louis on the banks of the Seine blinking in the sun, it's
kind of hard to imagine that last week it was all covered in snow.
Not much, just enough to slow the whole city down. After the
obligatory snowball fight that really brought together all
generations, the streets were almost empty.
Though the white dress
looks great on Paris, the problem remains the same as with everything pure: it spoils very easily. So after one afternoon of strolling
around the sugar-coated city and a night during which the absence of
a howling siren for more than 15 minutes almost made you feel like
something was wrong, the next morning came. Paris spoiled its dress
and it spoiled it good. Streets, sidewalks, houses, even the sky, all
the same colour. A dirty grey that got darker as the days went by.
And still there was hardly anybody on the streets, which makes you
wonder: Where the hell is everybody? They can't all just sit at home
watching TV, playing cards ranting about gays and taxes.
The solution is actually
quite simple: The metro.
It's an almost
surreal feeling going down the stairs from the empty and quiet
streets to the station and all of a sudden you are standing in a
hectic and noisy sea of people, an underground society that reminds
one of dwarfs in their mines. Seems there is no need
to buy winter tires but somehow a
lot of people decided it was inevitable to purchase full body Eskimo
costumes so they wouldn't freeze to death on the way from the metro
to work, which in Paris, by design, is never more than 500 meters
away.
Well, now the whole spook
is over. The streets are black again. You can tell the dark grey of
the sidewalks apart from the light grey of the houses and the sky is
actually blue. Even the Eskimo invasion is over and everyone’s
clothing went back to normal: Tight jeans, striped shirts with a
neckerchief and a beret framing the moustaches. I prefer it that way!
Greetings from the
Arctic Circle
