DonTopaz

> Is it raining in Paris today?

Orly reported light rain until 11am local time, then light drizzle for the rest of the afternoon through 6pm.

artsnletters

I'm apparently experiencing some delayed jetlag, as I had a hard time sleeping last night and a hard time waking up this morning. Consequently I was only out this afternoon, when it was indeed persistently drizzly. I took Stu's advice and explored Ile St-Louis. As he said, a number of shops were open, although the majority of them were out of my price range and/or didn't have merchandise that appealed to me personally (although a lot of it was very nice stuff). I almost immediately stumbled onto Berthillon, which was on my check-out list. It was indeed exquisite. Just to be fair, I tried Amorino's too when I stumbled across that one, but it was no competition although it was good. I walked around Notre Dame's exterior and then, tired and cold and damp and tired of being cold and damp, I found a Metro station and went home. The Anvers market was in progress, so I made a few purchases on my way from the Metro to the apartment. Incidentally, apparently lilies of the valley have significance on May 1/Labor Day, and they were being sold everywhere. Since they are one of my favorite flowers, I bought a few to put on the dining table and enjoy.

And that's the story of my rainy day out.

artsnletters

Frankly, when it rains at home, I go shopping (warm car, warm stores) or the movies or a museum, or I stay home and do chores. Although since I live in California, where we're having a terrible drought, that isn't exactly much of a restriction on my activities.

kerouac

<<I've seen nuns for years wearing long skirts and no one complained.>>

Pal, you confuse the issues from time to time. Nuns are not attempting to attend public school. That is where long religious skirts (and black gloves) are banned. You might be interested in knowing the 75% of the students of the Catholic schools of Marseille are Muslim, the main reason being due to stricter discipline but another reason being that private schools do not ban head scarves, even if just a small minority of the Muslim girls want to wear them.

Back to May 1st: today was absolutely miserable, not so much because of the feeble rain, but because it was <b>cold</b>!

PalenQ

kerouac - that is an interesting stat about Marseille private schools. And I applaud the French government and people for banning anything to do with religion or other mystical nonsense in public schools - Bravo as my French friends may say - as you know I am a strident atheist. But in public I'm in favor of individual freedoms to wear even the veil.

Bye and thanks for your thoughts on the nuns - makes sense.