Not just for the cheapest markets in Paris... an insane mass of sound, scent and colour that give you the impression of being in a North-African Souq.
But everywhere the sadly elegant buildings, crumbling and peeling...
of a Paris slowly fading from the pages of history and poem, overtaken and injected with the vivid and varied.
In a city that has existed in a constant state of evolution for 3,000 years... in La Chapelle you can walk through the streets and see the becoming of whatever is next.
Canalside Petanque of corsicans, africans, arabs, sri-lankans ... mixed in with the old fat-bellied french cliches with their galoises and bushy moustaches.
Basketball under the blue-line underpass. A scratch game that surely represents at least 4 continents, fed by sri-lankan street vendor roasting fresh corn cobs in a shopping trolley.
Kids on scooters zipping in traffic.
Afternoon fruit sales at the metro exit...
and everywhere the hum of a vivid new world growing right out of the slowly fading beauty of the old.
Happy hour is conversations with burly tatted metal heads that teach music to 10 year old school kids
... a dash across the road for a crepe
... and a doughnut.
And after happy hour, a night of happily random new friends.
Conversations and exhortations to come to Australia over 3 am martinis.
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