Paris Sketchbook #2: Christmas Day Orphans at Café Vaudeville

Eavesdrawing the wandering Christmas orphans

👆 Play this while reading. It was recorded on location.

December 25, 2023
Rue de Vivienne, Paris

Paris is closed for Christmas Day. With few exceptions, the shopfronts and bistros are dark. We wander the deserted streets after seeing a movie, looking for coffee and maybe a bar to perch at.

After 3 hours, we find a place called Vaudeville on Rue Vivienne and plant ourselves at the front bar, ordering just enough not to get shooed away by the staff. A varying cast of fellow Christmas orphans rolled through the bar as it got dark.

We saw an old man riding a Triumph, a guy with a pipe staring at a bookshop, motionless, and a woman in red trying to part her way through the sea of people in line at the movie theatre to go and see Aquaman 2. Seeing it in French did not make it any better. It is yet another truly terrible DC movie. But I digress… here are the sketches: