Back and ready to a-go-go

DICK SAYS: Sorry for the absence. It could be helped, but it wasn't. Anyhow, Liz has been keeping you up to date on all the goings on, so I won't backtrack. Today the City of Light is empty. At least relatively so. Parisians take off for their 3-week summer vacations in either July or August and in August the place really empties out. Restaurants close. The local boulangerie shuts down and gets a physical update. Smaller shops pull down the steel shutters and don't open them again until the last American tourist hightails it back to the States for a summer-ending Memorial Day picnic. The local market on Place Monge also takes a hit. I'd estimate that two thirds of the normal vendors just didn't show up last Sunday. And that's usually the busiest market of the week. On the upside, while you hear a lot more English, Italian and Spanish in the streets and a lot less French, the Seine still flows, the flowers on the square still bloom and the free views remain, well, free.

So we're not complaining. The rain and the intense heat have also stayed away for now (fingers crossed), which makes the whole diminuation of Paris thing a lot easier to take. Oh, and the gym doesn't close either, even much of the staff has taken off for points south. So we won't be slacking off. Don't worry about that.