Marion's Miscellaneous Musings

Gardens in Paris

I have been in four gardens in Paris.  Ask any physicist, this is enough data points.  I can now expound with authority on the subject.


SIDEBAR
The physicist comment:  ask a mathematician, an physicist, and an engineer to prove or disprove the theory that all odd numbers are prime.  The mathematician comes to 9, says that it is not a prime number, and declares the theory false.  The physicist come to 9, says the data point may be in error, stops at 13 and says "That is enough data points.  The theory is probably true."  The engineer says "1 is prime, 3 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is prime, 11 is prime, 13 is prime, 15 is prime, 17 is prime..."
END  SIDEBAR

First, Parc de Sceaux.  Notice the trees?  They are in a line.  very orderly.


The next one was behind Notre Dame

Too bad the name "boxwood" is already taken.

Then there is the Tuileries, the garden on the west of the Louvre.

Once again, very orderly.  I would not be surprised to find the trees directly across from one another.

Finally, the gardens at Versailles



Ordered.  Trimmed precisely.  Boxed in. (OK, we do see a sense of humor at the space alien trees.)

Now the streets in Paris are...random...curved...renamed at odd places.  There are few grids.  (In fact, when I mentioned that I had directed some Japanese tourists to Notre Dame by saying "Go that way a few blocks," Guillaume told me "We don't have blocks!"  And traffic!  I was at the Place de la Concorde at rush hour, everybody at a complete standstill, thinking  "Someone, somewhere has a green light."  (Later I was told that it is a mess in the snow or ice.  And what I saw was not?)

In a number of intersections are signs saying (in French) "Pedestrians, attention, cross two times."

This means stop in the middle of the street, on the island provided, and wait for another signal.  The problem is that some people stop where there is no island AND no signal at all...while I learned to jaywalk (thanks, Sebastien) with all the other jaywalkers (a way of life in Paris), I was never so stupid as to try that!

I have come to the conclusion that gardens are one way of having order in a chaotic city.

posted by Marion @ 1:33 PM