Gilt

(Courtesy of author)
Took a nine day trip to Paree.
Visited and re-visited many sites.
Discovered pesto Gouda! In Montmartre.
Paris is populated and run by a people of diverse origins. I am not sure I ran into a single person of Gallic descent.
In addition to the multiple art and architectural treasures, I enjoyed seeing how a pre-electricity, even smallpox vaccine culture could “tame nature”, i.e., sculpt a mountain into the terraced landscapes of Versailles.
But…
The drive from Charles de Gaulle airport was sobering. Miles of ugly graffiti on mildewed concrete deface the road.
Why can’t they pressure clean it off? Surface the walls with spray-paint repellant coating? Plant trellises?
It’s as if the government didn’t care.
They get the tourist dollars anyway.
Forget struggling to convert dollars to Euros. Everyone speaks “card”. They can really whip out those hand-held terminals.
I went through multiple password controls to leave France. I kept thinking of the hundreds of thousands of people who walk across the southwest United States border, unvetted, with no documents, not even luggage. They know they will be welcomed by Biden and the Democrats. As a result, human trafficking and fentanyl deaths have skyrocketed.
It’s as if the government didn’t care.
Democratic led states will get cheap labor and the voters who put them in power will get giveaways such as illegal “student loan forgiveness” anyway.