The thing about Paris is nothing's open when you need it to be.
Never has this been more clear than at 2am last Sunday morning (/Saturday night???) when a friend of mine exclaimed that she "needed" a nutella crepe (in a very dramatic fashion, I might add).
Madness! You're thinking, if the bar's closed, no crepe for you! And anyway, nothing's open on a Sunday! This is solid logic, my friend. SOLID logic. Except for the fact that there was a (24 hour?!) crepe place open and I was, as it turned out, still sitting in it at 0330, my dreams of an early night dashed and any hope of having ONE SINGLE SUNDAY in Paris in which I actually do something productive shattered before they could even properly form (no charcoal drawing for me, I guess).
Yes.
This whole experience has added another layer to a problem I've had with Paris for a while now, nothing may ever be open when you need it to be… but it's not closed when you need it to be either. As someone who's used to the (morally ambiguous?) working hours in London, the fact that most businesses close their doors on Sundays (and many during lunchtime during the week) seems like a strange inconvenience. The only places (in my experience) that host shops that are open post midday on Sundays are in the Marais (an historically Jewish area) and the Champs Elysées (respecting the power of the tourist euro). This also means that these places are PACKED. Which is annoying.
In my experience, Sundays are for shopping, hanging out with friends and maybe even checking out a few exhibitions. Here, they seem to revolve around sitting in parks or living rooms (depending on the time of year) staring blankly (I assume) at assorted family members whilst eating elaborate home-made lunches. To this I say, SOME OF US ARE ALONE IN THIS WORLD, let us enjoy our weekends you demons! Because, at the end of the day, as much as I appreciate the Sunday trading at BHV Marais, I don't appreciate being clustered together with the other young singles, eyes cast-down in shame, aimlessly circling the various curiosities of the Beaux-Arts section; wrestling with the cognitive dissonance of feeling sad to be left out of the familial Dimanches whilst, in a more real way, willing to literally murder someone for a 11am bottomless brunch…
Happy not Sunday!!!