Today, for some inexplicable reason, it wasn't raining...such a surprise! After spending one week in planning how many raincoats and umbrellas and boots I should have packed to go to the Bois de Boulogne, all of a sudden I realized that a simple t-shirt would just do it. I've never been to this park, even thought it's just around the corner where I work. So I thought that the regular planning with my interactive metro-line application would be enough. Soooo wrong. As soon as we were out of the metro, I looked at the directions on my smart-phone...and I realized that this stuff is not smart at all. How on earth can a GPS application give me directions when it can't locate me without less than 4 km approximation? That's the entire Bois de Boulogne. As a matter of fact, we got lost. We went all the way north just to realize that we were heading toward the wrong direction...the blue arrow still immobile on my screen. Stupid app! Finally I got in touch with a friend of mine who was already at the Jardins de Shakespeare and she gave me some advice. So we walked...approximately half an hour.
It was 2 pm and there were thousands of families in the park, playing, sunbathing, reading or just having their picnic. Kind of an awkward setting for prostitution, right? In fact when Josh asked me what was that "lady" doing, with her short skirt, sitting right in the middle of the curb...I didn't even have the time to come up with some ridiculous and totally false explanation...I just splatted the truth right in front of him: nothing, honey, she's just selling sex for money! Yeap! Like that....Just the time for him to turn around and give her another quick interrogative look, that the "lady" was carried away by a client in his car. No more comments from my son. I know I can't hide him forever from the ugliness of this world, but I wish I was less direct.
It was 2 pm and there were thousands of families in the park, playing, sunbathing, reading or just having their picnic. Kind of an awkward setting for prostitution, right? In fact when Josh asked me what was that "lady" doing, with her short skirt, sitting right in the middle of the curb...I didn't even have the time to come up with some ridiculous and totally false explanation...I just splatted the truth right in front of him: nothing, honey, she's just selling sex for money! Yeap! Like that....Just the time for him to turn around and give her another quick interrogative look, that the "lady" was carried away by a client in his car. No more comments from my son. I know I can't hide him forever from the ugliness of this world, but I wish I was less direct.
We finally joined the group of parents from the school, had a quick lunch then we entered the open-air theater where the "Midsummer Night's Dream" was played. Four girls from Josh's class were acting in the play and they were absolutely wonderful. The setting was incredible: the Théâtre de Verdure is considered, for good reasons, one of the most
beautiful open-air theatres in the world.
The audience sits on a large lawn around which are planted the flowers, trees and plants, so that the stage is completely natural and perfect for the play: the actors came on stage from different entrances and exits, and there are all sorts of narrow paths and steps for the cast to gamble around. The Théâtre de Verdure is worth a visit even if no performance is scheduled. Of course, you'll have to work hard to find it, first!
The audience sits on a large lawn around which are planted the flowers, trees and plants, so that the stage is completely natural and perfect for the play: the actors came on stage from different entrances and exits, and there are all sorts of narrow paths and steps for the cast to gamble around. The Théâtre de Verdure is worth a visit even if no performance is scheduled. Of course, you'll have to work hard to find it, first!
The picture above? There is an explanation: the weather, this crazy Parisian weather, as usual played a trick on us: this time it wasn't the rain, quite the opposite. We spent 2 hours and 15 minutes burning and sweating under the torrid sun. Some of us literally collapsed!
Can't we just have a regular day? Can't there be something in between a thunderstorm and a Saharan sun? I'm puzzled...
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