PARIS APARTMENTYOUR PARIS HOTEL
Book Online,
Or Telephone
Discount Code 91351
USA: 1-800-780-5733
In Europe Call
00-800-11-20-11-40
MOST POPULAR
Paris.Org Hotels
In The Last 3 Months
In The Last Year
AIRPORT SHUTTLE
Reservations Online
All Airports to All of Paris
PARIS RENTAL CARRAIL EUROPE
Specials & Promotions
EUROSTAR TRAIN
Under the Channel
Paris/London in 3 hours
DISNEYLAND PARIS
Includes Train Pass To
Disneyland Resort Paris
CALL-IN-EUROPE
European Wireless Solutions for North American
Travelers
CELLPHONE IN PARIS
1-800-287-3020
Save $10 Promo
Code: "Paris.Org"
TGV TRAIN BOOKING
Europe's Fastest Trains
It Doesn't Get
Better Than This!
RAILPASSES EURAIL PASS FRANCE RAIL PASSSAVE UP TO 50%
On your next Rail Europe purchase
Your Hotel In Paris - Immediate online confirmation of
your reservation, often at up to 70% off! And we have included people's comments to help you
decide for yourself. Telephone from the USA: 1.800.780.5733 (code 91351) for reservation;
From the EU telephone 00.800.11.20.11.40 (code 91351).
Or make reservations online - with immediate confirmation.
The Arc de Triomphe; 23 March 1995
Champs-Elysées, 23 March 1995 12:00 - 12:30 CET/MEZ
by Richard Erickson (erickso@world-net.sct.fr)
The Météo announced at dawn that today is springtime
on the Champs-Elysées.
Although the day started off somewhat cool at O degrees C., the Ministry
spokes-mademoiselle confirmed that it would probably be spring all day and
might even become warmer than Patagonia by noon.
This correspondent was able to confirm these claims of a sometimes
reliable
Ministry press statment by going outside.
Spring was indeed gloriously present on the most famous boulevard on the
planet at noon today - which is GMT minus one hour until next Sunday.
Soaking up the sun on the Champs Elysées; 23 March 1995
Hundreds of thousands of office workers, visitors, shoppers, street
sweepers, tree-fixers, Japanese businesspeople, 'chomeurs', school
children, petty functionaries, les flics, illegal parkers, aging movie
stars, and pickpockets were on hand to bask, gawk, snap photos of each
other, window shop, look for parking places that disappeared 18 months ago,
sell trinkets, shoot major production videos, eat French and foreign takeout
junky food and real genuine sandwiches, and generally goof-off on Paris'
newly re-decorated
Champs-Elysées; boulevard of dreams and tears, and broken heels; desires,
nightmares, monumental vistas; while cooly determined parking-ticket ladies
in their distinctive 'designer' not-unchic Cornflower-blue costumes,
performed their disagreeable duties with aimable good humour.
After a winter of unrelenting grey and everlasting wetness, not to
mention
stupifingly boring politics; the mood of this mob of the moment was
positively giddy.
With a bass-line laid down by idling motors of thousands of vehicles,
occasionaly punctuated by brief 13000 rpm 86 valve screaming Kawas, the
piccolos of scores of motorized cameras, the gentle shuffle of sneakers,
loafers, sensible shoes, boots, stilletto heels, and roller skates, the
orchestra of the boulevard was indeed joined today by the fluty peeps of
just arrived sparrows. If they were not in fact noises made by trinket
sellers.
The whole scene was made more than perfect by the scents of pizza,
frites,
diesel, perfume, cigars, exhaust from both overheated surface verhicles and
seriously overheated disk-brakes rising from Paris' first Métro line
underneath:
the ultra-slam-fast Défénse-Vincennes line: in sum, an agreeable and totally
Parisienne stink.
View from the mid point of the Champs-Elysées toward Place de la Concorde; 23 March 1995
On the Internet, the netzis like to rave about multimedia as if it
were the
world's eighth wonder. But it is nothing nearly as multi compared to the
sensory excesses of the Champs-Elysées on the first real and truly
sunny day of the
year: March 23rd - today.
Check it out world: the Champs-Elysées is open! You can be in it,
near it,
over it, under it, but best of all, on IT.