100th anniversary of the start of WWI

Once the summer interns left, I picked up a book, and it seems that's all I've done since then.  And in my current "I love my life" phase, I can't seem to get enough of France.  I've read French history books.  I've read novels that take place in France.  I'm currently reading a French culture book.  What has been interesting is that while reading this:

 and this:

 and this:

and novels that take place in France as well...the timing of my reading coincided with a few specific dates during the summer.  This summer was the 100th anniversary of the beginning of WWI.  This summer also marked the 70th anniversary of the Liberation from the German Occupation.  And sandwiched between those two major events...Bastille Day, celebrating the beginning of the Revolution.  

While I have never, ever been one to be interested in war--any war--despite my love of history, I have become more interested in WWII France.  I wonder what German Occupation looked like?  When the Germans took over Paris, people fled to Marseille to be able to catch boats to freedom.  I can't imagine Marseille being the place to be, filled with Parisians, artists, philosophers, and more.  Then, the Germans took over Marseille...and Hitler ordered the bottom half of the Panier to be blown out.  When I think of the Panier (the part that remains) and how much I love that old area, I can't imagine what the Vieux Port would have looked like with the Panier extending all the way down the hill to the water.

It's just so interesting to live somewhere that is still so affected by wars that happened 100 and 70 years ago...

Right before I began my summer reading spree, I ran up to Paris for a weekend to pick up a friend at the airport.  You may remember (or not, haha), when I wrote a few years ago about how I've often imagined what Paris would look during other time periods, and that the lesson I learned from Woody Allen's movie, Midnight in Paris, is that you have to love where (and when) you live...even if it's in the rain.  And Paris is almost always in the rain.  My friend saw that in full while we waiting in line to get into Notre Dame...and there was not just a typical shower, but a full deluge.

As we walked through the Tuileries, I was delighted--thrilled!--to see a display of war memorabilia, to mark the 100 year anniversary of WWI.  Not just cars and tents and cannons...but people dressed in costume.  Soldiers, generals, nurses, and citizens.  All of sudden, my own "Midnight in Paris" moment was happening!  I finally got to see just a smidgeon of what Paris looked like in a different era.

Note the kid with the blue backpack in this photo.  Honestly, I was surprised to get all the photos above with no tourists in them at all.

Because it actually looked like this:

A week later, I returned to Paris to take my friend back to the airport.  I had about 8 hours to kill before boarding my train, and so I returned to the Tuileries, pulled up a chair and sat and read a Christian spy novel about smuggling Jews out of Germany into Switzerland during the war.  The garden looked different than the week before, filled with tents and cannons and soldiers and nurses...and I'm sure different than 70 and 100 years ago as well.

I'm thankful for how it looked this particular Saturday: green, sunny, calm, and peaceful.  Thankful that, while I got to see a glimpse of what it looked like in the last century, I get to live in France during this one.  I like when and where I live...in the sun and in the rain.