Barricades and balloons

Celebrating Sports with Creating Art

This is Concorde. And this lion is how we all feel.

“Please don’t come today, you will only complicate your life,” the kind—yet annoyed—seller at the Sennelier shop next to the Seine told me yesterday morning. The river is officially blocked for anyone who is not living within the restricted area or doesn’t have a business there. If you look at any of my maps, you will notice that the Seine cuts Paris in two. In order to pass from one bank to the other, you either need to take the metro, walk all the way around the blocked zone, or have a QR code that I like to call an ausweis. Police are omnipresent and sirens are heard over and over again. Last evening, I waited for 10 minutes for the metro—usually, I wait a maximum of 6 minutes. All the sane people already left the city without any sentimentality. Here we are at the Olympic Games in 2024. Wish us luck!

Do you see the flame and the Olympian wearing white? Hint: on the bridge. Keep reading for the video!

I saw the flame! I was very excited about that! For the last couple of months, the flame has been traveling around France—it crossed mountains, rivers, and seas. Since I love maps, I carefully followed its journey since April 16th. In Paris, there were 340 torchbearers, and the torch itself passed through most of the arrondissements with various activities: CanCan dances in front of the Moulin Rouge, concerts around the city… I knew that the only logical place for me to see