Proceeding yet again with my week of reflections on my recent trip to Paris, I would like to inform everyone that homes in Paris do not have dining rooms. Not the apartments, not the condos, and not the houses (presuming there are any, I didn’t check). There are just no dining rooms to be had.
I assume this must be the case because every night I was there I saw thousands of people picnicking along the Seine. I do mean thousands of them. Some of them were pretty outfitted too, little tables, baskets, dishes, serving tools, wine, beautifully made food, everything. Some of them were in groups of two, like a date, but some were in much larger collections. They all looked like they were settled in for a while.
Now, you might think that it was just a fun thing to picnic on the Seine. You might also think these were tourists. Or, maybe it was just too hot inside their homes because it was 90 Fahrenheit and no one has air conditioning. The question to the second is a definite no, as all the tourists were in the cafes. As for the locals, it might be fun…but there were too many for that, and they were there every night. (The third one is still a possibility, but I don’t think it could explain everything.) Thus, they must not have had dining rooms and this is where they came to entertain.
Think about it, Paris is fucking expensive. Land there is even more so. Trust me, you don’t want to know what an apartment there goes for a month. As a guide-book needlessly informed me, long gone are the days that Hemingway could cheaply live there on his wife’s money. A dining room is probably an impossible luxury for most people, leaving them with few places in their home to entertain friends and set hors d’oeuvres.
Thus, the Seine.
So, the next time you feel jealous of Parisians, just remember that they don’t have dining rooms and have to have nightly picnics with their Parisian friends along the Seine. Those poor, poor Parisians.
