Cultural Narrative- 6/3/11
By Sam Lee




Today for my day off I visited the Parc des Buttes Chaumont, which is on the parks on the other side of Paris from my apartment. It was built as part of an effort to bring more nature into the city and it has many large hills. The middle of the park has a giant man-made lake and a towering island with a classical style temple on top. The only way to reach the temple is to take one of the two bridges over to it.

I was really excited to go to an actual large park. I had been led to believe that Paris was full of sprawling parks, but had not found one yet. All I had seen were little teeny parks with fences and lots of dirt; none of the picturesque parks you see in paintings with people picnicking. I did some research and there are many parks like the ones I had heard about, they are all just tucked away in corners of Paris. I chose to visit Buttes Chaumont because it was heavily inspired by Romantic ideals, and we have been studying that movement in class.

Everywhere I have been in Paris so far has been relatively flat, so I was pleasantly surprised to find real hills in the park. In some places the walk was quite steep. Every patch of open grass had picnickers on blankets. I was also surprised by how many joggers there were. I hadn’t brought anything to eat as I had just eaten breakfast, so I sat on a bench and watched people. Two things I have observed about French women. First, they have ankles of steel. I see women walking up these steep walkways or across cobble stones, and they are doing it in five inch heels. I am truly impressed. I would fall flat on my face. Second, no hats. I have seen one women wearing a visor, and I have seen many wearing head scarves, but I have not spotted a women wearing a hat yet. I wear hats all the time so I’m really curious about the hat issue. Why can men where them, and women don’t? Is it rude? I will have to ask someone or do some research.

I people watched for an hour or so and then wandered off to the canal and lunch. The atmosphere in the park was really relaxing, even though it was busy, and I plan to have a picnic the next time I visit a park, that way I will fit in better.