What's going on

My parents are going to land at CDG in about three hours. I'll be going out to meet them.

My brother reports that we can, get this, claim Italian citizenship, due to our great-grandfather not having been naturalized as an American citizen until after our grandfather was born. Wouldn't it be great if I didn't have to wait in the "other passports" line? Bro is actively pursuing this.

JD and I met for a meditation session last night in the 6th. I got off line 4 at Saint-Placide, and saw a bunch of protesters in the street and numerous police cars. It didn't look like a planned march. After the meditation, as we walked back to my place, we saw -- in the 6th, which is a fancy district -- a few cars with shattered windows. We had dinner around St. Germain des Prés, and then walked down boulevard St. Germain into the 5th until about Odéon. At which point it looked a bit dicey up ahead; people and some police. So we got on the subway, and had dessert at Amuse-Gueule in my building.

It's so weird, these demonstrations. Le Monde says that Sèvres-Babylone, an intersection that is home of one of the fanciest department stores, was a center of activity. That's in the 6th; we looked down the street at one point and saw the Le Bon Marché sign. Can you imagine students rioting in the street in any city of America? Throwing Molotov cocktails, smoke bombs, cobblestones? (The article translates this last as "pavés," which first gave me the amusing thought that the students were throwing steaks at the police, but I bet it was stones.) 46 police-type people hurt, 11 of those needing to be hospitalized.

Also, this being France, there was a demonstration against the demonstrations; students telling the other students to let the universities open again. I'd be all for that.

Meanwhile, the city goes on pretty much normally otherwise.