Paris Photo Album Q & As

I've been back at work for a week. Here is a photo-essay Q and A of all the conversations about Paris I've had.

Q: Did you meet Justin Trudeau?

A: No, but I went to the press conference he called and took a picture of his big-screen-projected-picture. He seems nice.

Q: Were there larger-than-life-sized translucent plastic sculptures of animals all over the place?

A: Yes.

Q: How many times did you see Al Gore?

A: Three times, including at a press conference where Quebec announced it was providing francophone Africa with a pile of money to help it adapt to climate change.

Q: Did you see anything else as weird as the stuffed winged fox?

A: Yes. In a display of faux-fur covered animatronic animals off the gaudy "Christmas Market" by Place du Concorde, there was a moose (at least I think it was a moose) with its antlers on upside down and backwards.

Q: Any other large animal sculptures?

A: Of course. Just past the intensely-security-monitored entrance to Le Bourget, Greenpeace parked Aurora, a massive steam-punk polar bear puppet that takes as many as 48 people to operate. It was truly beautiful. In the photo below, the Ontario Environmental Commissioner and the Ontario Minister of the Environment and Climate Change have been added to show scale.

Q: How was the air quality in Paris?

A: 'Way better than it was thirty years ago, the last time I was there. On the back of the photo below of Bruce taken on 28 September, 1986, I wrote: "Bruce on the Pont Neuf. You can barely see the Eiffel Tower on his left. Paris was very smoggy." 

A: (Cont.) But as you can see from the photo of me on the Pont Neuf taken on 11 December 2015, even on a cloudy day, the Eiffel tower is clearly visible. That's progress.

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen