Goodbye and Hello To All This

If you want a seat at the Bastille Tuesday
evening, come early.

Ed Goes Into Limbo, Just South of Paris

Paris:- Monday, 12. July 1999:- After last week's sad showing concerning the deadline that came and went and went, this week I am on time because I have none to spare.

As soon as this is finished, I unplug and pack up to head for my new home in Paris. There is one slight hiccup though - the present tenant of the apartment I've rented does not hit the road until Monday, 19. July; while I have to be out of my suburban village apartment... today.

With the pack-up and move out, with Bastille Day in the middle - which is a serious national holiday in France - and my planned move-in next Monday, I am just going to forget the idea of doing an issue.

The server-lady Linda Thalman has prepared a mattress on the floor beside the Web server and invited me to flop there for the week. Besides air- conditioning and a 24-hour buzz, I'll get all the grape juice I can carry down there to drink.

It is not going to be all fun and games though. Metropole's Links.page is far out-of-date and we are going to go over it to add new links and cut ones of minor interest. There will be other changes too, but these will happen over a period of time as I dig into Paris and its sidewalks on a full-time basis.

If I survive this upheaval, I will take a peek at my bank account and if it is in the black, I may try one of the last-minute travel auctions and head off for someplace - warmer, with palms - for a couple of weeks in August. About everything, you will be alerted in this space.

I hope all of you have a good holiday and can get away from your computer monitors for some ten-minute periods. Maybe to read some 'summer' novels - if you have any good tips for me, send them in.

Metropole's Summer Guide:- appeared in the last issue in the form of two extra pages in addition to the 'Scene' column. You can quickly get to these by hitting the links to them in this week's 'Scene' column.

How-To Do Bastille Day Rehash Rehash:- the fête starts tomorrow already! Bastille Day is here, nearly. Below is a rehash of a rehash of last week's comments for those who missed them - to help you avoid showing up for the bash a day late.

Parisians and the French are more used to Bastille Days than their own birthdays. A lot of people will do what they've done the year before and the year before that.

At the Place de la Bastille the cafés do not plan on having anything special, because it is all going to be happening right in the place in front of their terraces. For this, see the Bastille café photos on this page.

Note that the Café des Phares is a Café Philosophe which has its gab sessions starting at 11:00 on Sundays; even throughout the summer. "They never stop talking," the manageress said.

One thing to get straight, first: the majority of public Bastille Day parties and fêtes take place on the eve of Bastille Day; that is, this year, on Tuesday, 13. July. There will be some big general street affairs - maybe another at Place de la République, which is closely linked - in name at least - to the revolution. This place is big too and can hold a lot of people. If you don't care for large crowds, it is better to avoid République and Bastille.

Montmartre, with its revolutionary tradition, will also be an area where fêtes may be expected. Many bars and cafés throughout Paris will also have their own programs, from elaborate to just having a bash with their regular clients. I imagine many dance clubs will also have special events programmed.

The official Bastille Day parade takes place on the Champ-Elysées in the morning of Wednesday, 14. July. This will involve a considerable display of military pomp, but is worth watching for unusual features such as the engineers of the Foreign Legion, their leather aprons and their beards.

When this hoopla is over, you have the rest of the day free to see soldiers wandering all over Paris, until the official fireworks time of just after sunset. Although the Parvis of Trocadéro is closed, I expect the big fireworks show will be viewable from the Champ de Mars as in pat years.