Springtime in Paris means the trees are budding, the grass is sprouting, and the plucky con man is shaking off his winter doldrums to once again fleece piles of euros from clueless American tourists.

Me, I have other fish to fry. After checking into my hotel, I head straight to Ladurée on rue Royale and pick up a grocery bag full of macarons. From there I march straight to the Tuilleries, where it'll take me six hours to get to the bottom of the bag.

I bask in the presence of this culinary marvel. Two pastel-colored cookies surrounding a dark, creamy filling. Bite through the crisp cookies -- like breaking into a creme brulee -- and the most intense flavor in the universe explodes on your tongue.

Lime basil. Raspberry. Bittersweet chocolate. Each more pure and intense than the last. It doesn't take the pigeons long to catch on. Yeah, we're not big fan of museums either, they're thinking. What have you got in that bag?

A cheaply-dressed young man strolls by feigning casualness while simultaneously scratching away at a lotto ticket. "OHMIGOD!" he shouts suddenly. "I've won a MILLION EUROS! Unfortunately I am here illegally, so I cannot claim this fortune. If only there were a legal visitor here who would buy this ticket from me for, say, two or three hundred euros! That way we'd both be winners and everyone would live happily ever after!"

I dig into my bag and pull out a Salted Caramel flavor. "Congrats!" I tell the guy. "Good luck with that!"

His face falls, and suddenly a pregnant woman appears who starts hitting him with a baguette. "You idiot!" she screams as he tries to dodge the blows. "This year, why don't you just get a fuckin' job?"

Ten minutes later a young woman throws herself in front of me to retrieve something she's spotted on the ground. "OHMIGOD!" she gasps. "I have found an incredibly expensive man's ring, made of pure 24-carat gold. Surely this ring is worth many thousands of dollars, but as I am a woman I have no use for it. If only there were a man around who'd like such a fantastic demonstration of the jeweller's art for a mere pennies on the dollar."

In my sugar high I barely register what's happening. Hey, this ain't Union Square. What's with the big tower? "Maybe they've got a lost-and-found department here," I say.

Springtime in Paris. Yup, that's why they write the songs. The sun slowly lowers as I pull more macarons from the bag. Paradise. The trees. The birds. The young woman who tosses an oversized ring in front of every dude she passes, and the man who circles the park scratching away at a lottery ticket while the pregnant woman trails behind holding bread.