A French summer.

Temperature is stupidly high. 40 degrees and counting. 
The AC is blowing in the house but we don't have any in the tattoo parlor. We try to keep it fresh in a different way. 

There are tourists everywhere. 
So many different skin colors, langages, behaviors… Us, French, are not as blasé as the New Yorkers but we're pretty high on the league in our indifference about the oddities from outside our borders. 
I think, deep inside, we don't care too much. We're busy eating ice cream and planning our next trip to the beach. 

Were I leave, beach is at 40 minutes by car. Everyone goes there. (I'm pretty intolerant to sunlight so I don't but people in my city enjoy doing that very much) 

Sun sets at 10pm. Ish. Now more 9h45 pm. But it's the days are very very long, considering they start at 6Am.
People dance in the streets and at the terasses from 5Pm until late in the night.
During the days, musicians plays loud music in the streets. 

I don't know what's considered to be typically French but… 
If eating bread at the cafés by morning is considered typical, well, now my City is very typical. But I don't know if it's because the tourists mimics what they think being French is like or because of real people living here do that. Maybe a bit of both. 

It's the season of barbecues. 
Like some harcore Yakiniku but with HUGE pieces of meat and too many sausages. Cheese. And enough bread to choke on. 
Everyone is doing barbecues. Nearly all summer long. 
With half naked people in their garden. 

The main summer sport is to find a friend with a pool. Lots of people's parents have pools out of the city. So we go there and spend the day dipped inside fresh water. 
(with beers. Always beers.) 

We tend to party more. 
Some people's houses are the olace to party. 
Considering our flats are between 40square meters (24 tatamis) up to 80 square meters (49 tatamis) , you have room to host a lot of friends. 
For example, my flat is not that huge based on french criterias, 65 square meters, but we usually are the ones hosting parties. 
It's often that we have evening or even nights with friends in our own places. Especially in summer. 
Even in old buildings, walls are thick as hell. 

Covid is merely a bad memory here. 
People are vaccinated, in the vast majority, and we have learned to live with the remnants of the disease. 
No more masks. For now. 
So… people go nearly shirtless and without  masks in the streets. It's very free and colorful. 

Mainly, it's warm. 
It's sunny, warm and people wait for the fresh air to come back. Even of they like this sensation of freedom that the southern summer carries. 
It smells like holidays. 

With my job at the tattoo parlor I got no holiday yet but it's not a bad things. 
French people are very tattooed. Even the ood ladies now want a tattoo. 
A lot of them come to our tattoo parlor to get tattooed in summer because they know we are not as busy as we are in winter. 
My real holidays will be in October. When I'll hopefully be able to come to Japan. 
(see concerts, eat a lot, and see the mountains a bit.) (maybe buy a guitar?) 

I'm pretty convinced than traveling during your holidays is the most tiring thing to do but… 
Well. No regrets, I guess. 
I'll sleep later. 

French summer is a very… strange period of time. Very unique. 
Quite filled with melancolia. With a layer of golden light that makes everything glimmering. 
It's like a painting. Or an old memory.