Secrètes de Paris

I am not a fan of McDonald's (aka McDo, pronounced "mac-dough" by the French). But here I am, for the third day in a row, drinking a hot chocolate (not bad for €1.10) and checking my e-mail. There are no signs, but McDo offers free WiFi in almost all of its restaurants in Paris (notably not at Châtelet). It's not exactly the kind of place where they'd kick you out for sitting there all day on one cup of coffee, either. There are other WiFi accessible places in my 'hood, but Le Commerce (Rue Cinq Diamants, 13th) won't let you surf when they're serving lunch or dinner (which seems to take up most of the day), and Le Sputnik Bar (Rue de la Butte-aux-Cailles) is a tad too smokey and loud at night, not free, and usually disconnects every five minutes. Lame. So voila, I'm a McDonald's customer. As soon as my Freebox gets connected ("10-21 days") I'll be able to return to homesurfing. Nothing gets done quickly in France, though. Patience....

Every weekend, in and around Paris, no matter how cold, how hot, how wet, how muddy it is, there is the Hash. Not the smoking kind. That requires a very specific microclimate. The Hash only need one thing to be a success: beer. As the official brochure says:

The Hash House Harriers: A Drinking Club with a Running Problem.

Last Saturday the Paris Hashers met outside the lovely Chateau de Vincennes. Originally we thought we'd have a picnic, since the Parc Floral is very nice for picnics, and hey, we had beer! But it was f***ing cold, so we decided to run to keep from freezing to death.



The best part about the Hash is that you can combine exercise, socializing, sightseeing and beer drinking all in one afternoon (only psychos run before noon). And all you have to do is show up. But in case you were curious how it works...

1. There are Hares. The Hares have the beer. The Hares leave a trail of flour behind them so the Pack can track their asses down. (the Hares on this particular Saturday happened to be sisters)



2. Sometimes there are false trails or Hash Views. This slows the Pack down. Particularly the FRBs (Front-Running Bastards).



Voila the lovely Lac du Daumesnil in the Bois de Vincennes. (HV means Hash View)



3. About halfway through the trail is a Beer Stop. When the Pack gets close, the Beer Near sign appears.



4. The Beer Stop isn't just about Beer. We're athletes, after all, not a bunch of drunks. There's also vin chaud, Twix and Mars bars*.



* Note: snack and beverage selections may vary depending on the alignment of the planets.

5. At the end of the run, the Religious Advisor makes sure that all crimes committed on the Hash are appropriately punished before the feasting can begin (here, Hasher "Fruit of the Clue" is being punished for his loud running shorts, and for hiding the loud running shorts under sweat pants).

Did I mention it was f***ing cold?



If you're up for some abuse, check out the latest run schedule online at http://parishhh.free.fr/

If you've ever wandered all the way down to the end of the Galerie Vivienne, one of the beautifully-restored covered passages in the 2nd arrondissement, you would have seen the Librairie Jousseaume. I love this book store. I've never been inside. I don't dare. I might actually have enough cash on me to buy every single thing in the window if I was brave enough to ask the price. Last week when I went by they had a collection of kitsch cookbooks, including a few English ones like "Clémentine in the Kitchen" from 1943, and an original "I Hate to Cook Book" from the 1970s series.



In the other window was a collection of neighborhood guides to Paris, 18 small books "pour connaitre Paris" with titles like "St-Germain-des-Prés et La Coupole", "Le Paris Classique", "Comment Paris s'est Formé", and "Vieux Hotels du Marais" most certainly written before the Marais district was rescued from its slum conditions in the late 1960s! I was recently looking at a Paris guide book written in the 1980s and didn't recognize 75% of the restaurants and hotels listed. Just goes to show that as much as the city seems to stagnate in "museum" mode, it really is constantly changing.