In front of the Louvre new caryatides, live ones this time stand on construction blocks to pick between their fingers the tip of the pyramid. There are probably 5-6 blocks and it was a waiting line for each of them. It took me a while to understand why people were lining up in the middle of the square. And surprised in way that the guys who were selling umbrellas did not come with a milk crate to rent it as a photo studio. That’s a good start-up though based on the demand on a day when the museum was closed.
Otherwise Paris had stalls installed everywhere. Or at lest it seems so. Bleachers were raised in all places where there will be olympic competitions and as a result the entire center city looks like a building site up for an encompassing renovation.
But even with no olympic competition at the moment, a city in a beautification process and the whimsical April’s weather the city is flooded with tourists. And all take photos or selfies that at one point becomes more interesting to watch them than the objective they take photo of that you already have seen it many times before.
Everywhere in the city are offered bike tours that seem enchanting in a sunny day. Only that the sun in Paris shows up occasionally just to be followed by several downpours after which it shines again for a bit. But if you look on the weather app the showers or even constant rain is not mentioned at all. But everybody, locals and tourists, expects the downpours and carry with them an umbrella.
Right in the heart of the symbol of cuisine refinement, on Champs Elysees very close to Arc de Triomphe got inserted the utmost peak of refined food; “Five Guys, burger and fries”. I don’t know if the fries are marketed as “French Fries” or “Liberty Fries” 🙂
“Paris 1874 Inventing Impressionism” @ Musee d’ Orsay has beside a super-extremely crowded but interesting exhibition, a virtual reality one-hour show. I’ve had to see VR content several times for the media companies I am dealing with in NY but never had the patience to sit for an entire segment. But, in Paris wearing this time a tourist hat, I decided to join the crowd bellow and walk blindly through an empty room painted with weird signs. What I found interesting is that after the one-hour show ends and you take off your VR contraption the people you see around in the museum and exhibition you associate with the virtual ones in the show that seemed more real.
The other people, the crowd you joined the tour with, look like ghosts that trespass in front of you and no matter how tangible they are (because you may bump into them) are still perceived as just …phantoms. And ourselves may have felt like ghosts as long as we could not see our bodies and the moment we touched anything our hands were passing through the object! It’s like the Matrix again and again. So you have to get out on the street to feel again what is real and what is not. Watch the bus coming your way!
Roaming the world 
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