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Millennium Bug? Not if the Weather Gets Here First!

© Heather Stimmler-Hall

While big happenings in Paris don't tend to make it onto the international news programs, you all may have recently seen news about our little wind storm. Sure, it's been a particularly cool and soggy winter in Paris, and on Christmas Eve I recall hearing the CNN newscaster say "gale-force winds," but Mr. Hall and I were still a bit surprised to wake up before dawn the day after Christmas to the sound of my potted plants crashing on the balcony. We ran around and checked all of the windows, wondered briefly if we should tape them, and then tried to fall asleep again through the howling winds, the sounds of things crashing off of everyone's balconies in the building, and the constant ringing of the security alarms at the commercial center below us.

A City of Broken Trees Our plan for the Sunday after Christmas was to check out the Village de Noël at Trocadero, where tons of snow had been hauled in and a little village constructed so that people could ice skate, snow toboggan, and buy a cup of hot cocoa. We had already heard that the airports were a mess, and that the Metro lines that ran above ground wouldn't be working, but we weren't prepared for the huge amounts of debris all over the streets. Broken glass, pieces of construction, twisted gutters, tipped motorbikes, shop awnings on the ground, and lots of huge old trees with broken branches. Needless to say, the Village de Noël didn't fare too well either, much to the disappointment of many of the small (and big) children gathered around the closed gates.

As an alternative way to amuse ourselves and walk off Christmas Day's dinner (we ate at Le Train Bleu at the Gare de Lyon, a beautiful authentic Belle Epoch restaurant), we decided to check out the pre-Millennium Celebration preparations on the Champs Elysées. More downed trees, overturned benches, tangled Christmas lights. It was drizzling rain, but all along the street workers were constructing the line-up of ferris wheels and windmills that will be lit up at the stroke of midnight on December 31st (known as St. Sylvestre here). I have to admit I'd never been a big fan of this street, but even I was getting excited.

Damage Worse than We Thought Just hope the weather will be more agreeable, and that some of the mess from the storm will get cleared up in time. As I write this, Mr. Hall is stuck at home watching a Bond film in French, because the storm blew the satellite dish off of the bar where he was going to watch his Manchester United football game. At least we haven't lost power. Apparently, quite a few folks around Paris have experienced what one might call a 'Y2K Practice Outage.' If they don't get back on the grid by Friday night, I guess it won't matter if the city's power company falls victim to Le Bogue (a great example of reverse franglais). But even as I say this, the storm was actually quite more devastating than we had realised. To get the whole scoop, drop in on long-time Paris resident Ric Erickson and read his storm report.

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