Don’t Like the Weather? Just Wait a Few Minutes! - Monday, 15 June

Back in my hometown of Duluth, the weather taught us to be very hopeful people. We’d say, “Too hot for you? Just wait a couple minutes, it will change!” (Of course, we could only say this in August, but you get the idea….) Maybe that’s one of the reasons Paris has always felt like home to me. Don’t like the weather? Just wait a few minutes – it will change! [Fun fact: Paris is at 48 degrees N latitude, farther north than Duluth at 46 degrees N!]

We descended through thick clouds, and by the time I got outside we had “liquid sunshine” (as my mom used to call it), a.k.a. a downpour. While waiting about 20 minutes for my shuttle it changed to a drizzle, then rain again, then just overcast, then….

But the rain doesn’t seem to dampen Parisians’ spirits. Just outside the immigration hall at Terminal 2E of Charles de Gaulle airport is a fairly dingy “arrivals” hall with a small Illy coffee bar. It’s always mobbed with confused people trying to figure stuff out. The people in front of me were taking forever to find the sugar and coffee stirrers, so the young black man working the bar looked over their shoulders at me and asked for my order. I said “café noir, s’il vous plaît” (black coffee, or espresso), and he chuckled and pointed at himself and nodded his head in approval as he said “noir, comme moi” (or something like that, in any case a reference to “black like me!”). Just the warm and cheerful welcome I needed!