Freedom of Life in Paris

Yesterday was my last full day in Paris. I write to you from the Rotterdam train station. Anyway, I woke up late (the last blog post took until 0230) and decided to go to the botanical gardens/zoo... Here is the old "don't touch me" one-inch poisonous frog from south america

and some flamingos (one leg, two leg, and zero leg sleeping styles)

and the "no one told me lying would make this happen" lizard

There were a lot of large mammals too, mostly from Asia. Some of them looked OK, like llamas, llamas always have a good time,

but many others looked pretty depressed. IGNORE THE SMILE, it's an illusion.

That's a mountain goat, native to the Rocky Mountains just like me, which normally has a range of hundreds of kilometers. They need space to live (unlike bighorn sheep...), and here this guy has an enclosure about twenty by thirty paces. No vertical spots at all. I think this zoo, being a pretty old one, is worse than most in North America.

So I was feeling kind of out of place here, and I realized I was wearing my "Free software / free society" T-shirt... the only thing I was missing was a peace sign tattooed onto one arm and a PETA logo on the other. Time to leave.

Freedom to Work

Even though the Euro 2016 is happening, there are a lot of protests organized by the labour unions. I'm not sure exactly what they are fighting for but I think it's increased wages. (As an English visitor said, "the French are fighting for their freedoms rather than watching football? what is this??"). Here's the cgt flag that all the protesters are waving:

There are also slogans posted all about:

"Des barricades entre les flics et nous / des ponts entre nous tou-te-s [toutes]" or "Barricades between the cops and us, bridges between all of us" (I've adapted the google translation).

"La nuit debout plutôt que le jour à [genoux]" (the last word has been erased but you can find it online), or "All night standing rather than all day kneeling" (my adaption).

I went to the Bastille, location of the (now destroyed) royal prison, the storming of which began the French Revolution. There's a pretty interesting statue there now, holding broken chains:

Traditionally a lot of protests happen here, but I didn't see anyone during my visit. I did visit a very nice square nearby, which had a lot of young people

just hanging out

with all the time in the world. This one girl was taking lots of selfies and handed her phone to a boy, who tried to take one too. Alas, he was not as practiced at selfies and apparently failed miserably, and was then coached in this art.

I envied them for a moment, wishing I had that freedom to just do nothing, and then I remembered that I did in fact have that privilege while on vacation.

Here is a pretty self-explanatory picture

and almost my favourite bird shot yet

After this I wandered down rue Saint-Antoine, and the sun came out from behind the clouds briefly.

As I was eating dinner it clouded over and was soon pouring rain. The guy beside me smoked three cigarettes and I kept leaning backwards or forwards to try to breathe easily. During the worst of the rain he got up and, though I didn't notice it til later, smoked beside my backpack, leaving it strewn with ash as if on the outskirts of a volcano. Somehow I always forget that eating outside = smoking, when in Paris.

Then I walked along the Champs-Élysées, getting closer and closer to the Arc de Triomphe...

For some reason, nearly every person begging for money was an Islamic woman, wearing a hijab. I came across four or five separate women in my walk down the Champs-Élysées. One of them was lying down in the middle of the sidewalk, maybe tired but I think trying to stay warm, with a cup in front of her. It made me realize that there are refugees here even if France doesn't really want them, and they're maybe not fitting well into the society.

Anyway. The arc was pretty busy, the confluence of twelve roads...

Yeah, I think that cyclist is pretty lost. I also took pictures of several tourists and got this one in return:

which is a little overexposed but I'll take it. There was also a fairly heavy military presence here, I guess the French army is taking all this seriously

with trios of soldiers making rounds throughout the area. When they aren't smoking cigarettes, of course.

So yeah. Lots of freedoms happening or not happening in Paris on this day. To finish:

That's it. I caught a 7am train to Amsterdam the next morning. Au revoir, Paris.