N and R played petanque

Petanque is a french game similar to italian bacci ball, where you have these heavy metal balls that you throw to get as close as you can to a smaller wooden ball. It is kind of like horseshoes, except in this game you can knock other people's balls out of the way. While I was introduced to it in the US, I was really excited when R decided to buy me my own petanque set while we are here in Paris. Apparently, getting a true french-made set of petanque balls is pretty tough in the US. Anyways, I was really excited to have my own set, which looks like this:


There are places to play petanque all over paris, and unfortunately many of them are occupied by old french men who are very good at petanque and rather intimidating. We decided to go to the Luxembourg gardens, a really great garden on the grounds of the Luxembourg palace, in search of petanque grounds. After finding go carts and pony rides and table tennis and just about anything else one might want to do in a park, we eventually found the petanque area, which was mostly occupied with some pretty serious petanquers. Serious petanque looks alot like old people standing around, aka this:





I asked the friendliest looking among them if the courts were reserved or if we could just play, and he directed me to the ones that were ok for commoners like me and R. R and I got started, playing petanque according to how we've played petanque at lab picnics every year for some time now. Within five minutes an old french man lumbered over grumbling at us about something or other. I quickly assumed he was coming to kick us off the spot, but then he stopped grumbling, and seeing i was confused, asked in french "should I speak French or Arabic?"

Unfortunately, when I suggested English, it turned out that was not an option. Luckily his french was quite clear, and he basically told us we were playing all wrong. He then proceeded, in a very hands on way, to show me the correct way to throw a boule (the metal ball). Before I knew it he had one hand firmly on my wrist and the other pinching the nape of my neck, and he pulled my arm through the motion of a proper boule toss. I was struggling with keeping a straight face, while R was not even trying to. Nonetheless, it was great to actually get lessons on petanque from an expert. I'm guessing he was an expert because when he went back and sat down by the reserved courts, lots of players would come over and shake his hand and say hello. Anyways, it was pretty comical and the type of random experience that only happens when you stay somewhere for more than a couple days. I feel like our trip has been full of experiences like this (for example being invited for drinks at a real florentine palace) and they're the types of things I wont soon forget. R and N trying to play petanque look like this:




Finally, a few days later I cam across Place de Dauphin, a really charming little park that is close to all the tourist spots, but somehow appears completely undiscovered by tour groups. It was really quaint, quiet, and best of all....full of people our age playing (and often failing at) petanque! Some were even worse than us. So tomorrow we are planning to go there to play petanque with people our own age. Because it's a younger crowd, it is totally normal to show up with some beers and maybe a baguette or two, and make an afternoon of it. Place de Dauphine looks like this:

N and R are troubled by a new trend in tourism...

In our previous years of travel in Europe, we've seen alot of pigeons and alot of tourists. But it was not until this year that we saw the two come together in a very wierd way. Both in Italy and in France we've now seen multiple times tourists feeding pigeons....not in the conventional way, but by hand! Since I consider city pigeons to be alot like rats with wings, I was pretty grossed out by this. Tourists with pigeons look like this in Venice:


And tourists with pigeons in front of Notre Dame in Paris look like this:

Happy May Day!

I'm still not sure what May Day is all about here. It is a national holiday so everything except places of food and drink (which is basically everything excluding museums) are closed. So really that's just leisure as usual. But I do know that the French May Day tradition is to give the lady in your life a bouquet of "lilies of the valley." Had I not known this, I would have figured it out within minutes of leaving the apartment this morning for my coffee, as I passed nearly a dozen people on the street selling them...school children, gypsies, even the fake-tan orange guy who is usually seen on the subway yelling at people to buy his pineapples, all were selling this flower. I bought some for R, and they look like this:

They dont look like much but they smell quite good. Anyways it was the first day of great weather in a while so we, like everyone else in the city, took advantage. We spent the morning in the Luxembourg Gardens playing a french sport called petanque (a post will follow with pictures), then had a small picnic for lunch in the Tulier gardens in front of the Louvre. Both gardens were packed with people, I would guess that not a single parisian stayed in doors today, everyone was out relaxing in the great weather. We walked around some more, had drinks at a cafe, then got falafel for dinner from what is supposed to be the best falafel in Paris (L'As du Falafel). It was messy and garlicky and quite good. We ate them as they are supposed to be eaten, standing in the street with sauce all over your face. While we enjoyed them, I'm partial to our falafel place in philadelphia. Anyways it was a really nice day and I hope the weather stays this way, at least for the next 12 days.