Paris cold snow and rain (Random thoughts again, stuck at home because of the weather)

2009-2010 could probably be considered one of the coldest, longest and wierdest winter in my memory. Wierd because the temperature yoyoes so much...one day you could be walking along the canal with a light jacket and the next day you have to cover yourself in wool from top to bottom with nary an inch of skin shown and still feel the cold.
Rainy Paris could still be romantic. Indeed my most romantic memory was of a rainy Paris, traversing le pont des arts with my boyfriend. Rain was falling lightly but it was very very foggy. My boyfriend kissed me then amidst the fog and the falling rain with his lips that felt at first cold and then warm and then definitely hot. That was also the last time I kissed him so romantically since in the months that followed, he decided he wanted to be het, married a woman and got fat.
But when Paris gets too cold, it was difficult to go out and walk and enjoy the city. If you decided to take the boatride, go early to secure the seats in the glass protected part in the bottom. Trust me, even if you think you could handle the cold, after 5 minutes in the open deck you would freeze and could not care less if you had just passed the narrowest house in Paris or the Palais de Tokio.
Streets tend to be empty, and just neighborhood bars with regulars might be full (the thought of not seeing each other for these regulars even for one night was too much to bear). The saddest part is that many cafés might be empty simply because smokers decide not to go in the cold cold nights because it was not even possible to sit in the heated terrace to enjoy a cigarette between dinner courses. Yes, ever since the anti smoking law, smokers desert cafés in cold nights because it was just much more comfortable sitting in one's own heated home in front of the telly and smoke to your heart's content.
Talking about heated home (and watching tv), a sad recent observation is the more and more homeless people that could be found in many corners of Paris. Many avoid shelters provided by the city (and in any case, there ware not enough shelters in the city. Sometimes metro stations are left open all night to be used as shelter by the homeless)and opt to camp in parks or in street corners maybe near street grills that let out warm steam. This is one social problem that France has to deal with maybe in more recent times compared to the US, but the cracks are definitely there. The atmosphere that reigns over France today seems to be more of tension, desperation and pessimism. The rich as in many societies of course are spared...but more and more of the French people who are not rich seem to be feeling the pinch.