We have finally had a sunny day- it’s amazing how quickly the streets fill up. I was among them the masses during my Sunday morning walk. A few scenes of Christmas.


This is in front of the Hotel DeVille.






They have a skating area for kids where they’ve placed an obstacle course- when the children fail, which of course they will, we all point and laugh. It's a win-win for everyone...well, except maybe the kids but I sure had fun. The look on their tiny faces when they've been publicly humiliated for trying is priceless.



The Christmas Tree is set up in front of Notre Dame. As people admire the tree and the church their pockets are picked. Don’t the tourists, with their fat wallets, look like little presents under the Christmas tree? God, I love Christmas.

“Excuse me, do you speak English?”

The 4 different gypsies women asked me this question. Strangely, they all had English accents and I suspect that was the only English they spoke.

“Excuse me, do you speak English”

If you say “non”, they walk to the next person, If you say “yes” they give you a postcard to read which, presumably, has some hard luck story with a request for money. I took a break from writing to go to Notre Dame. I’ve already seen the church but I wanted to look for pickpockets I thought it might be fun to film them in the act and put it on the blog. My days are pretty much mine and that’s how I chose to spend them, sad I know but a good pickpocket can be more interesting that another cathedral I did not see any pickpockets but I was mesmerized by the gypsy women.
First of all, in my opinion, they are beautiful and not in that white bread, Princess Diana way. Secondly, they are seemingly immune to the fear of rejection. Everyone fears rejection- that’s why successful salespeople are so few. It’s hard to not take “no” personally. I watched these women for a couple of hours while keeping an eye out for suspected pickpockets and loud Americans. They are rejected constantly and it doesn’t affect them one way or the other they go right to the next person. They are constantly moving through and working the crowd and from what I could gather rarely take a break. It’s really very impressive- some telemarketing firm needs to hire the lot of them.