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.