Paris Under Attack



Okay, call me naive. It was July 13. I was sitting here, in the apartment we rented on the top floor of a building in the first arrondisement (district) in Paris, when there was a huge foundation-shaking rumble.

Planes -- three military planes in formation -- flew really, really low overhead. This is weird, since you don't usually see planes low over Paris, and you certainly don't feel them.



I figured some foreign dignitary's jet was being escorted out of French airspace.

Then more planes, and more planes flew low over the buildings; one of which looked like a passenger plane flanked by a small fighter plane -- so close to the passenger plane's wing that it looked like the fighter pilot could reach out and get crème for his coffee.

"Oh no," I thought. "Hijacking! Or maybe we're under attack!" My boyfriend was out gettting wine, so I would have to find any remaing bomb shelters all by myself.

Hmm, maybe a bit of investigation was in order before getting in a total panic. I turned on CNN. A soccer match.

Hmm. Obviously, they hadn't heard the news yet. I turned to a few French stations. A cooking show, a game show, and a French intellectual arguing about the usual retrograde topics (the relevance of Marxism in feminism today).

I called my old New York friend, Mark Gaito, who lives across Paris. "Amy," he laughed, "We aren't under attack. It's Bastille day hoo ha, starting a day early." Right. Of course. Okay, I feel stupid.