Day 17: Some departing thoughts on France

 

    Admittedly I've only been to two French cities, and so I warn you to generalize at your own risk. Nevertheless I give myself permission to comment on France, since (a) that's what blogs are for – exaggerated and biased commentaries that misrepresent the world to the world, and (b) with couchsurfing I've had the privilege to live amongst the locals and get a better glimpse of what life is really like here.

    According to the Parisians (according to the Marseillais), France consists of two regions: Paris and everything else. The everything-else part is called "province." Non-Parisians find these terms insulting. I don't blame them - I know I'd want to hit someone of Canada suddenly became Toronto and everything else. But it's true that when foreigners think of France, they usually think of Paris first. Maybe they'll think of the Cote-d'Azur next, basking in sunshine and money.

    In Paris life is like this: you live in a room that fits a bed and a desk. Your bathroom fits one square shower, one toilet and one sink. Your kitchen is either the size of your bathroom, or is actually in your bedroom – it is a half-size fridge on top of which are two burners for cooking. Full-size fridges and stoves are a luxury. Baths are a luxury. Space is a luxury. You pay at least $1000 per month in rent. You navigate through the immense spider-web of metros every day to get to your menial job on the other side of town. You work six days a week. It's cloudy. You're a smoker. You've paid $15 for one drink in a bar several times. But! Wine and cheese are cheap. You eat pastries and baguettes and brioches every day. You live on a beautiful old street in a cool building with creaky wood floors. You meet boys who actually like to dance and cook. You meet girls who are classy and crazy. You have lost your inhibitions. You go to parties in boats on the Seine. You go for walks and get lost in the parks and walkways. You have forgotten what boredom feels like.

    There is something addictive about Paris. You ride its energy, you leave in relief of peace, but you are soon hungry for more. In Marseille it is the opposite. You arrive strung-out and needy. You leave numb and satiated. In Marseille, life is like this: work is a luxury. You go for boat rides down the coast and organize barbeques on the beach. You have paid $2 for a drink in a bar several times. You eat Arabic specialties every day – honey cakes and doner sandwiches and mint tea. You listen to local music and speak to your friends in the local accent. You are part of a community. It's sunny and breezy. On the down side, every day you navigate through piles of dog excrement instead of metro lines. If you have a job, you work in a poor and isolated suburb. And some things are like Paris. You have a two-burner stove and a half-fridge as your kitchen. You're a smoker. For breakfast, coffee and bread are basic necessities, along with jam or Nutella, but never eggs or cheese. You don't complain, nor feel the need to.

    I'm going to miss France sorely. I'm on the train, and with any luck I'll arrive in Torino tonight. But you'll either chuckle, cringe or roll your eyes when I say that there actually is no train to Torino from France today. I botched my plans. I was under the impression that I would be able to just hop on the train and sail merrily away to Italy today, but the train schedules are apparently irregular. So I'm going to the French-Italian border and from there I'll cross my fingers (an expression which I tought to a young German named Norbert with whom I went hiking on Tuesday) that a train will take me to Torino. A couchsurfer is waiting for me to arrive tonight, so it's kind of important…

    I realize that I haven't written much of what I've actually done in Marseille. The photos will be self-explanatory (when I'm finally able to post them). It's also true that the best moments are sometimes photo-free – no subliminal messages there, but sometimes a camera spoils the moment.

    Just arrived in Cannes, so if you'll excuse me I must go saunter with the great comédiens français, à bientôt!

 

 

 

 

Day 14: Cheesy waxes philosophical

After a week basking under the provençal sun, Cheesy’s thoughts had begun to drift towards the more abstract. In Marseille the only thing higher than the rate of unemployment was the rate of drug consumption. One person told Cheesy that the reason he did so much drugs was to feel tired in the evening as if he’d just finished a hard day’s work.

Some might call Marseille a paradise. The unemployed receive €1300 per month in welfare. They can sit on the beach all day, smoking cheap product from North Africa, without having to worry about paying the rent or getting up early for work the next day. But Cheesy was not convinced that the Marseillais who lived like that were fully happy. If a person sits at home all day, it doesn’t necessarily mean he doesn’t want to go out. Humans are pathetically susceptible to inertia. The more of something we do, the harder it becomes to do anything else.

Cheesy was also coming to believe in the existence of social inertia. She had always thought of herself (with displeasure) as one of those shy, quiet, naive, and basically boring young women who sit waiting for more interesting people to come along to spice up life. Cheesy was meeting plenty of people, Cheesy was being sociable, Cheesy was having a grand time, but Cheesy was still Cheesy. She wanted to be more open, so what was the problem? It was slowly dawning on Cheesy, to her absolute horror, that maybe people don’t change. If the shy are all envious of the bold, then the shy should just go out and be bold. This was what Cheesy had had in mind when she set out for Europe. But what if Cheesy had once again built her plans around naïve hopes? What if the reason that the shy are envious is that they can’t change?

And so Cheesy felt a bit sad but also a bit at home amongst the Marseillais. Everyone here was caught in a lazy inertial flow that led nowhere. On the other hand, inertia can realize itself in many ways. Cheesy thought about people who couldn’t stop moving. Cheesy knew people who had almost 700 friends on Facebook. People like that must be insatiable. Nothing gives them a sense of satisfaction or calmness. Was there no middle ground? Cheesy dreaded that she would be boring her whole life. Or whether she would become caught in a travel-inertia, constantly trying to improve her life without ever changing herself. These thoughts made Cheesy sad and scared, and for that reason she decided to change subjects.

After her first night staying at the hostel in Marseille, Cheesy had moved into the apartment of a fellow named Julien. Julien lived in Vitrolle, a town in the outskirts of Marseille. Julien introduced Cheesy to rap marseillais and taught her all the local lingo. The accent was strange and there were many Arabic loanwords in Marseillais. While Quebecois pronounce “tu” as “tsu,” the Marseillais say “chew.” (For the wino’s interest, Parisians say “van” (writing with a Quebec accent), Quebecois say “vin” and Marseillais say “vinne” or “ving.” Anyone wishing to hear marseillais first-hand should listen to “Je danse le mia,” a famous marseillais rap song that came out in the nineties.) (Oh and apparently it’s not cool to drink red wine if you’re a meuf (girl, young woman) in Marseille. Emma will be pleased to hear that it’s all about rosé and white here)

Julien first brought Cheesy to Notre-Dame de la Garde, a basilica perched on a hill in Marseille. From there Cheesy could see the whole city, which sprawls out endlessly along the coast. The center of the city is the Vieux Port, which is a rectangular harbour jutting into the city. Opposite the city, in the Mediterranean, lie the Frioul Islands. One of the islands is occupied by the Chateau d’If, which is where the Count of Monte Cristo took place. A solitary highrise stood on the opposite side of the harbour. Cheesy thought it was pretty ugly, but voilà, gotta stick with the times.

Marseille was a strange city. It had the feel of a small town, although it was one of the largest cities in France both in terms of area and population. The public transit system closes at midnight at the latest. They had recently built a tramway system, which was more or less useless because it followed the same path as the metro. The metro didn’t cover even half of the city area. Cheesy was told that the north part of town is basically a massive selling ground for drugs – if you go walking in the streets there, you’ll be approached just as if you were a shopper in a marketplace.

Marseille was known for having one of the poorest city centres in France. The rich live along the coast in the south part of town, and ironically the poor get to inhabit the more historical areas. One such area was the Panier, where Cheesy stayed for a few days after leaving Vitrolle. The Panier was where Marseille was first founded (as ‘Massalia’) in 600 B.C. There were huge gnarly ‘platane’ trees (oak?) everywhere, little madonnas carved into the corners of buildings, and remnants of old windmills that once produced olive oil. The streets stank of sulfur, fish, and excrement. Fanny, Cheesy’s host in the Panier, said that there were plans to gentrify downtown Marseille. Fanny was convinced that this was the best time to be in Marseille, because in a few years it would be as snobby, expensive, and soulless as Paris (Julien had well informed Cheesy of the undying animosity between Parisians and Marseillais).

While Cheesy missed busy, bubbly Paris, she had a few good nights hitting the town around Marseille. She had tapas and mulled wine in Aix-en-Provence, danced up a storm at the Cours Julien in north-central Marseille, met up with other couchsurfers for pastis, and wined and dined with Fanny and her friends. She had only two more items on her list of things to do before leaving for Italy: play tarot cards, which were invented in Marseille, and walk along the calanques, the famous cliffs overlooking the sea. She had plans to do both, and was trying hard to remain optimistic despite her high rate of failed travel plans. Oh well, if all else failed, at least wine was cheap in France!

PS Still no net on my own computer so pics will have to wait :(

Day 7: Au revoir Paris

If you ever go to Paris, make sure you're there for at least one weekend.

Friday I went to stay with Tama, the sister of my mother's colleague in Philadelphia. I was glad to move out of the 16th district - it's easy to feel out of place there unless you're rich or trying to look rich. Tama explained to me that the place I'd stayed in was fairly typical of the 16th - a small apartment that comes with an extra room elsewhere in the building, once meant for the 'bonne' (maid). Nowadays the chambres de bonne are used by the children of the families who live in the apartment. Often the families aren't rich, but have the apartment as family inheritance. I think that was the case with the place I stayed in, since Rafael had hinted at his disapproval of the 'chi-chi' lifestyle of the 16th, and seemed like a simple, down-to-earth kind of guy.

The 19th is more ethnic, with lots of arab and asian stores. It reminded me more of Montreal than anywhere else in Paris I'd seen. Tama has a nice little apart and she was very welcoming. I went to browse through the Cité des sciences, a big science museum which almost tempted me to email my old cosmology prof and ask if he was teaching any courses in general relativity... but I regained my common sense after leaving the building.

Tama and I cooked a nice dinner, got all dressed up Parisian-style, and went down to a peniche on the Seine for drinks. The peniches are stationary boats that have restaurants, bars, and dancing. We were right in front of the Notre-Dame Cathedral, such a great spot. We danced up a storm, but Tama was being 'draguée' by a guy who didn't interest her, so we headed back home.

Saturday I tried again unsuccessfully to meet up with another couch-surfer. It's been a bit of a rough start with CS, a bit hard to plan everything right. Finally I managed to meet up with a musician named Simon Carrière (I'm sure he doesn't mind the pub :) ) who is slowly taking Paris over by song, starting in the metro.

We left with the harmonica-player, Constantin, and the flutist, Anatoly, to go to a couch-surfing polyglot meeting. The idea is to share linguistic exchanges in the cafés and bars of Paris. I got to practice my German and Italian. I also taught a bit of jouale to two Parisian blokes whose goals in life were to become gym teachers. Hmmmmm. Anyway it turned out to be another great night hitting the dance floors of Paris.

Sunday the weather was finally sunny and warm. Simon took me on my final tourist's trip through Paris: the Basilique Sacré-Coeur, Montmartre, Pigalle, the Tour Eiffel (with crêpes! mmm) and an amazing raclette dinner that put to shame all the poutines and fondues I've ever eaten.

After such a fantastic weekend I left Paris literally in a cloud of fog, running at the last minute for the train to Marseille. Dare I post whether or not I paid for the train ride? You get it. The TGV train is so fast that my ears kept popping. Within just a few minutes, we were out of the fog and under blue skies in the countrisides of central France.

Marseille is eden. Warmth, sunshine, palm trees, mountains, beach, cliffs - I haven't even explored much and already it's a dream. Since it's winter, everything is deserted and peaceful. And the people seem great so far: a man strolling down the street in a top hat and suit, smoking a cigar, approached me out of the blue and asked whether I was looking for the hostel by any chance. I have a feeling he was a little drunk. But he enthusiastically pointed me to the right direction and here I am.

Tomorrow I will go find my first couchsurfing host, who lives in the outskirts of the city. New adventures in southern France await!

P.S. Photos are really slow to download to the blog, so for now you can see them on facebook.

Notre-Dame

Ile-Saint-Louis near notre-dame

Walk to the Bastille along parkway

Bamboo shoots in my brief overlay in China


Naked women on apartment buildings, only in Paris

Another random carrousel (haven't these people heard of amusement parks?)

Random carrousel

Day 4: Cheesy gets swanky

Cheesy's first stay in Paris had come to an end. She would be moving to the swanky 16^th district on the other side of town, probably to live in the closets of rich people. She packed her 30-lb knapsack (it was 30 lbs, she was sure of it!) and wobbled out the door. She emerged into a fresh, sunlit Paris as a hunchback once again.

A few blocks down she decided to put her bag down and fish out some sunglasses. A man approached her and commented (quite astutely, Cheesy thought) that her bag looked heavy. Cheesy and the man started talking about their travels. Apparently Torino, one of Cheesy's next destinations, was a favourite of Nietzsche's. Cheesy wasn't sure whether that was meant as a warning. The man was in his 60's and seemed to have lived a full life. He'd been to Quebec once, after falling in love with an ethnologist from Lac-Saint-Jean while travelling in Acapulco. He'd once produced a movie starring Gerard Depardieux. Now he was a semi-retired painter. Or something. He gave Cheesy his address and phone number and welcomed her to stay with him if she needed. He was living with a young woman, who was somehow both a university professor and writing her thesis. Cheesy thought this man was exceptionally bizarre and wonderful, and felt that she'd had her first truly Parisian experience.

Cheesy then wobbled to the Gare de Lyon, where she reserved a seat on the TGV train ("très grande vitesse" – you'd think the French could have been more creative than that) to Marseille. The woman at the booth pronounced "Eurail" as "Oy-rile."

Cheesy took the metro to the aptly named Arc de Triomphe. It was a massive, pompous piece of rock that screamed of extravagance. Cheesy was impressed, naïve little tourist as she was. From there, it took her a long time to find apartment of her next host. She had a bad feeling about him. His emails had been curt and cryptic, and he'd insisted that she call him before arriving even though she had no phone and Parisian payphones don't accept cash. A cyclist was kind enough to lend Cheesy his cell. Her call had obviously woken up her host, but he agreed to go down to meet her.

Cheesy waited at the entrance gates to the apartment. Women with square jaws and fur coats kept coming out of the building. With her hunched back and crumpled coat, Cheesy felt like a street bum waiting for the rich to toss her change as they left their homes to saunter down the Champs-Elysees. Finally the door opened, and out bounced a skinny young man with eyes and hair the colour of old copper.

The young man was absolutely incomprehensible to Cheesy. He kept babbling and smiling, and took Cheesy's bag for her. He led her into a tiny apartment where a woman was watching TV. The woman appeared to be his mother. He kept saying something to Cheesy, and it finally dawned on her that he was offering her a coffee. He made her the best espresso Cheesy had ever had, all foamy and yummy after Cheesy's long haul. The young man was named Rafael. He struck Cheesy as being absolutely out of his mind. But Cheesy had always liked crazy people. It was the straightforward ones who had something to hide.

Cheesy was wondering where she'd sleep, given that the only couch in the room was occupied by another woman. Rafael explained that he lived upstairs. He led her through a lovely courtyard to another building in the complex. They went through a back door and climbed five stories through a narrow, creaky stairwell. Then they entered the smallest apartment Cheesy had ever seen. It was even smaller than her Quebec City jail cell in the university residences. It contained one bed, one desk, and one woman on the bed. The toilets were down the hallway.

So that was how Cheesy came to stay in the closets of the rich during her trip to Paris. But she loved the little apartment. There was no room for Rafael, of course, so he went to sleep at his girlfriend's. She had a whole room to herself, in a gorgeous apartment building steps away from the Arc de Triomphe, the Champs-Elysees, and the Eiffel Tower. Afterwards she only had to walk two hours to find an affordable place to eat. Vive le Paris!

Parisians BBQ-ing and eating outdoors in hats, coats and gloves.

Skating in front of the Hotel de Ville

Random carrousel

Tour of Saint-Jacques. In 1382, an alchemist claimed to have turned mercury into silver here. (He was probably just crazy from mercury poisoning)

Hotel de ville in all its nighttime pomp

Tacky neon lights on historical buildings

"Pressing de 4 filles"

This is where you go to get your four girls pressed

Another random carrousel

Bastille at night.

Alley off the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. There are motorcycles everywhere in Paris.

Graffiti on a truck.




There are duckies in there, Emma!

Day 2

Yesterday evening I played boardgames with my couchsurfing host, his girlfriend and his roommate. I won the second game, but only because they were being polite :)

This morning I woke up, checked my watch and was pleased to see it was only 9 a.m. My host bid me good morning, told me I'd slept a lot, and asked me what I was planning to do today. I said I was thinking of walking to the other side of the river, where there is a university area. I asked him what he thought and he said, "Well you might not see much there at night." I tried react smoothly to his bizzare response by commenting on how dark it was outside. He looked at me flatly and said, "It's 5 p.m."

So there you go, my first real day in Paris and I'd slept right through it. I went out to walk around anyway. Paris is gorgeous at night. They love their neon lights and flashy signs here. There are also random carrousels scattered around town, which you can see in the pictures.

I ate dinner in a Chinese place, once again avoiding the brasseries full of men. There are lots of cool asian restaurants here - you can buy the food by weight from counter displays, so you can get as much you want of what you want. But I had soup because it's coooold. Remind me why I'm not backpacking in the Amazon? Oh yeah, bugs.

Day 1: Cheesy Flies to Paris

 

    The airport hummed, buzzed and beeped with the sounds of modern travel. The loudspeakers announced one last chance to board flight S7751 to Amsterdam. A TV in the waiting area preached the virtues of Crest toothpaste. A group of bored passengers were placing bets on how many districts there were in Paris. An airport car honked uselessly at the swarms of people stumbling their way down the corridors.

    Cheesy could not hear the song of the airport. She sat thumping her foot and bobbing her head to the reggae music blasting in her earphones. She watched the people around her opening and closing their mouths silently like goldfish in a jar. Here was a nun dressed in pale blue robes, clutching a bible and pressing her eyelids shut. There was a skinny young man with piles of dreadlocks bunched under his hat, as if a giant yellow egg sat on his head. To Cheesy, everyone looked like puppets in a show whose soundtrack only she could hear.

    Cheesy was on her way to Paris. From there, she would backpack across Europe to Istanbul. Most people tackle vacations the way an athlete tackles a fifty-meter dash, but Cheesy was in no rush. Efficiency and speed were overrated. So while everyone crammed up against the gates leading to the airplane, Cheesy remained seated, relaxing to her music and exchanging glances with the skinny egg-head. She finally strolled into the plane once everyone else had settled in.

    Only later would Cheesy appreciate how smart it had been to board as late as possible. The plane was a torture chamber. When Cheesy entered, hundreds of faces stared at her, blinking, indifferent. Legs and arms stuck out everywhere like twigs. Luggage poked out from under the seats and loomed in the rafters above. A baby was wailing from somewhere in the depths of the cabin. Cheesy squeezed into her window seat, joining the mass of staring faces. Cheesy managed to fall asleep eventually, but she awoke with her mouth feeling like sandpaper and tasting like horse. She could not breathe through her nose. She could not shift her legs. It felt like someone had hammered a rusty nail into the back of her neck. A pang of ecstasy ran through her when she found out they were only an hour from Paris.

    Although Cheesy's body insisted that it was 2 a.m., the sun came hurdling across the horizon and suddenly it was day again. The plane descended into the clouds, but never came out. Paris was covered in thick, rolling fog. There was no Eiffel Tower to be seen, no Tower of Bastille. All was gray.

    Cheesy only had to change metros and trains about five thousand times before arriving at her destination. She was staying in the apartment of an artist in the 12^th arrondissement. He was an interesting-looking fellow, with big blue eyes and long blonde dreads. A constellation of piercings dotted his face. He was business-like but helpful.

    Cheesy walked to the Bastille. It turned out to be just a big green spire, upon which was perched a gold figure so high up that Cheesy could not even appreciate its details. Contemplating the banality of travel, Cheesy decided she should look into the history of Bastille before concluding her judgment. So she set off to find a café. There seemed to be an endless supply of exactly two types of cafes: brasseries filled with middle-aged men guzzling espressos and brandies, and Greek kabab houses. Cheesy tried walking into a brasserie and was stared down so hard that she fell right back into the door that had just closed behind her. She backed out, feeling awkward about how awkward she felt as a woman there.

    So she went into a greasy-looking kabab house instead. She was greeted by another room full of males, but no one stared this time. She ordered a "Greek sandwich and salad" and was brought a bun filled with two pounds of meat and one leaf of lettuce. Cheesy shrugged and gobbled it down with great satisfaction. The owner approached her curiously and asked her where she was from. When she replied that she was Canadian, his eyes grew wide and he exclaimed, "Ah! So cold!" Then, as if to compensate for her answer, he brought her a steaming red drink in a shot glass, which he claimed to be mint green tea. Cheesy had her doubts, but the Greek man's tea and generosity had made her first day in Paris.