Sundays – or ‘le Dimanche’ chez le français.

08.26.07

Now I am aware that Sunday is the day of rest, supposedly, technically, really only a Christian/Unionist invention.

And I understand that in the early 1900’s, in the good old days of the Progressives, getting Sunday off and taking the newly-constructed tramways into a suburb, or the countryside perchance, was the sublime conclusion to a 70-hour weekly toil in the factory.

Still, this is 2007, not 1911. Thing should be open on Sunday.

Again, I would understand if I was in, you know, a suburb of Little Rock, AR; where the only thing open would be the Walmart.

But I’m in the middle of freaking Paris—there’re more tourists here than residents, (especially in August).

Why do I rave bitterly? Probably because after walking for 30 minutes around Montparnasse, a fairly well-to-do and hip districts with people around during the middle of the day Sunday, I wanted to eat. Natural I suppose. Now by eat I didn’t mean plopping down 25€ for some sub-par pasta, or oysters (that I can’t even eat anyway), and sitting there and eating for 2 hrs, because once again it is Sunday, and only one waiter is working. Everything else was closed, and I passed at least 35 other eating establishments.

Needless to say, I solved my hunger problem indirectly—I went to a sculpture museum for 1.5 hours and then, after another 15 minutes of walking stumbled upon a hole-in-the-wall with exactly what I needed: Panini or Sandwich + Sweet Crêpe + Orangina = 5€. Golden, why couldn’t it always be like that?