Wifi Gardens, Internet Blues, and Homecomings!

Dear blog fans,

Sorry I have not written recently but I have been without internet at the Paris apartment for days and then took a quick journey up to Oxford, England in between my internet blues. More on that trip in another blog. Not having access to the internet at my home away from home forced me to hit the streets and discover what other internet options Paris has to offer. I quickly found that McDonald's offers free wifi and so do most cafes. Believe it or not almost all the parks in Paris offer free wifi too! Yes, you can sit, picnic and read your latest email in your local park. The nice thing is the internet is free.

Unfortunately for me wifi connections requiring I provide my own hardware would not work as my computer is so old that the battery no longer keeps the charge. This can easily be solved by buying a new one of course or better yet fixing the internet at home. Yet, I ran into another interesting French phenomena. Most stores are CLOSED in August for the entire month. I mean quite literally the entire month.

I had always heard that the French go on vacation in August but I did not think the entire city of Paris would be absolutely empty. I took a quick survey of the restaurants listed in the Michelin Restaurant Guide for Paris and 85% of them are closed in the month of August. On our market street of Rue Daguerre, over 70% of the shops have signs saying closed until Sept. 1st. It's a new surprise every day on which ones will be open. Sundays mean even the stores that are open in August may be closed. Most of the tourist sites are still open but quite honestly it somehow does not feel like Paris without all the noise of the Parisians. However if you don't like crowded Metros, August may be a great time to visit Paris. This unique French tradition presented yet another obstacle to resolving my internet blues.

Little did I know that the light at the end of the tunnel was the great Parisian Reentree! (this word is not correctly accented) . The advertisements through - out the city changed from Soldes to REENTREE! In case I had not mentioned this before there are two months in France in which stores can have sales - January and July and Soldes means Sales in French.) According to the locals Reentree is like Welcome Home! Welcome Back! Happy New Year! Let's celebrate your return! Similar to the Back to School celebrations and store sales except it's for everyone. How fun! I am sure the shop keepers are very excited to have their customers return. And thankfully, the landlord made his reentree back to Paris and fixed up the wifi for me. Goodbye internet blues! In a few weeks I will be celebrating my reentree as well.

Be well, do good work and keep in touch!