Day 62-65: Cheesy is up in the air

     All of a sudden Cheesy was about to leave for Istanbul. All of a sudden Cheesy was absolutely, uncontrollably petrified. Just as Cheesy was getting to know and love the Balkans, she was leaving. It was only the second time on her trip that she felt truly afraid. The first time was when she entered Slovenia. But Slovenia was still more or less central Europe. For God's sake, Slovenia was EU. Now Cheesy was going to Turkey. Cheesy was a young female atheist with pink and blonde hair. She had no idea how it would be like in Istanbul. Cheesy wanted to stay under her covers in her cozy little apartment in the cozy little town of Struga, Macedonia. But instead,

Turkeyturkeyturkeyturkeyturkeyturkeyturkey

    And the bus ride would only be 18 hours….

Day 1,213,924: Cheesy’s Mind Begins to Wander, Too

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Part I.

    Once upon a time, a man named Oscar Wilde wrote a book that transcended all limits of time, space, and physicality to wind up in the mind of Cheesy Magenta. The book was called A Picture of Dorian Gray. In the book, there was a character named Lord Henry, who was by far the most intelligent fictional human being Cheesy had ever come across. Lord Henry said something, or Oscar Wilde wrote something, that Cheesy thought about often. It went something like this: a good artist puts all of his energy and creativity into his work, and as a result, has a personality that is totally empty and dull.

    In Trieste Cheesy had met a couple of Germans hitchhiking from Central Europe to South Africa. The girl became a bit of a fascination to Cheesy. She was tall, blonde, broad, and silent. She ate a lot. She carried around a backpack that nearly doubled her size. She had rosy cheeks and straight white teeth. She reminded Cheesy of health and stability, so let's call her Stable Sally.

    Stable Sally had gone on all sorts of fabulous adventures. Cheesy couldn't even remember half of them. The one that stood out was Stable Sally's month of hitchhiking alone in Mongolia. There were no roads in Mongolia and no cars. People got around on horse. Later on, in Zagreb, Cheesy would find out that there is also a beautiful culture of throat-singing in Mongolia. Stable Sally, a young blonde girl from a quiet German town, integrated herself into all of this without ever speaking a word of Mongolian (or whatever they speak there).

    But the strangest thing, Cheesy thought, was how silent Stable Sally was. A true adventurer was supposed to be bubbly, reckless, and aloof. Like Steve Irwin, the crazy Australian crocodile-hunter. Stable Sally was, well, kind of boring. Where was all the adrenaline? Where were the strange creatures hiding in Sally's backpack? Where were the dirty teeth and crooked haircut? Then Cheesy thought of Oscar Wilde. Maybe Stable Sally had directed all of her inner insanity into her journeys, and had nothing left to perk up her personality. Maybe Stable Sally was the traveling analogy of a great artist.

Part II.

    Cheesy most definitely did not feel at home in Serbia. Maybe that's why she liked it so much. After leaving Italy, everything had changed. She had begun to see all sorts of things, some of them more like Montreal and some of them much less. The biggest change was in the colours of Eastern Europe. She saw streets entirely covered in graffiti art; she saw orange churches, green palaces, and yellow houses; she saw pink platform shoes, pink coats, and pink hair (and YES! Cheesy desperately missed her pink hair too). Eastern Europe was all about people. History, politics, architecture, and nature were all secondary.

    Cheesy's host was a typical-looking Serb. He had big, deep-set gray eyes like the tete-a-claque cartoons, and full pink lips. He had a wide jawline and a bristly beard. He was short and stalky. He ate fried meat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Cheesy hadn't seen him eat a single bite of fruit or vegetable. He was the worrying type. He was small and awkward, which sort of reassured Cheesy since she often felt that way herself, but sometimes she also felt awkward that she made him feel awkward. Awkward is contagious. And it's a really awkward word if you say it enough times.

    Cheesy's host took her to his hometown of Novi Sad, a bit north of Belgrade. They were hit by a monstrous snowstorm and didn't get home until two days later, at 3 a.m., burnt out and hungover and grubby. But Novi Sad was gorgeous – half quaint and half commercial, like many Balkan cities. Zagreb was that way, too. There are zones of wide roads, blowing wind, and concrete. Then there are zones of blocky residential buildings, sometimes looking cramped and neglected. Finally there are the "pretty" zones with statues, markets, and cobblestone streets. Okay, so that makes three halves, but that's just how great Eastern Europe is.

    Sometimes Cheesy was nostalgic for her kitchen back home. She had secret pangs of longing for broccoli, soy sauce, and bran muffins. She was holding up alright, although she couldn't stop her stomach from turning when her Belgrade host would wake her up to breakfasts of deep-fried fish burgers, sliced ham, fried sausages, and chicken wings. On the other hand, she had made a life-changing gastronomical discovery in Croatia and Serbia: rakija! It was usually translated as "brandy," but in Cheesy's opinion, rakija couldn't be equated to anything else. She especially loved the ones made with honey, called medica or medovača (pronounced "meditsa," "medovacha"). Her host in Zagreb had made a big pot of his own medica, made with lemon and cinnamon, and they had drunk it by the bottle-full. In Novi Sad Cheesy and her host went to rakija bar where they drank rakijas made from quince, raspberry, and walnuts. And it was dangerously cheap…

    Cheesy was also working on her language skills. After finally buying a book about Serbian/Croatian, she had uttered her first whole sentence to a stranger in Serbian: "Ne govorim srpski," which of course means "I don't speak Serbian!" Also, she had met a guy at the fortress in Belgrade who spoke nothing but Serbian. They had managed to exchange phone numbers. Since then, the guy kept sending Cheesy text messages in Serbian, which Cheesy would frantically try to decode and then answer with the help of her book. Needless to say, misunderstandings were common… for example, he had asked her what time she would be coming back from Novi Sad and she replied that she hoped it would not rain (it snowed, anyway).

Part III.

    In fact, Oscar Wilde wouldn't have been the only one to agree on the analogy between traveling and art. Cheesy's good old friend Albert Camus wrote that art was the ultimate existential hobby: the artist constantly creates in order to bring meaning and magic to life, although in the end his efforts are pointless. Similarly, every city brought something wonderful into Cheesy's life, which she would then have to leave behind. If Cheesy was going to dedicate her life to meeting and then abandoning great people, she was going to have to build a bit of a backbone. Or just go back again and again, trying to re-create the initial magic. But should she risk the disappointment? Should good things stay in the past?

    Should good things stay in the past?

Day 47: Go east, young woman

    This afternoon, my hosts in Trieste drove me to the train station on the Slovenian side of the border. In the car, it dawned on me for the first time that I was far, far from home. Home has nothing to do with me now. Home is a concept whose meaning is gradually loosing footage in my mind. Right now I am on the train to Ljubljana, and within miles I'm the only thing I know anything about. The language is different. The trees are different. The fences are different. Yesterday I met a couple of Germans who were hitchhiking to South Africa. They had also hitchhiked in Mongolia, Iceland, Romania, Scandinavia, and Africa. They made me wonder whether having a "home" becomes more or less important the further you go.

    By the time I left Trieste I was finally beginning to feel at home in Italy. It is not the magnificent country that you learn about in school. Its glory is in its past. As a result, the people are afraid to move forward. Italians talk endlessly about how their country is too closed, how the people are too near-sighted, how the culture is too limited. But there is a reluctance to change. Italians are complicated, beautiful, and sad. I would go back without hesitation.

    Trieste was a lovely city. It has the atmosphere of in-betweenness. It is cornered between the mountains and the sea, between eastern and western Europe. It is sort of small, but sort of big. There are some tourists, but not many. It is decidedly Italian, but there is a significant minority of foreigners (due in part to the center of theoretical physics nearby, which attracts nerds from around the world). The architecture includes Roman ruins, baroque palaces, and modern art statues. There are areas which my host described as being "like beaches," where you can sunbathe but not swim, and where women and men have their separate zones. In Trieste everything is in between, more or less.

    I would like to tell you about the Slovenian countryside passing below me. It is a new world that I want to share with you. But I haven't yet told you about Padova and Venice, or even about Bologna. Oh, my poor reader, how I've kept you out of touch! Bologna was my favourite city in Italy. Instead of big piazzas, pompous white palaces, and gnarly oak trees, Bologna is full of archways. Orange archways. Yes, yes, I know the city is old, but I insist that it was totally 1970's. Bologna is groovin. Bologna got game. It's laid-back, it's open, it's orange. My host was, without doubt, the cook with the lowest stress levels that I will ever meet (yes Sarah and Dave, that one's for you!). Although he did tell me that he was showing me only one side of Bologna, and that there exists a whole other world of people who are all about "fashion."

    In Padova I had my first experience with one such "fashion" Italian (they use "fashion" as an adjective to describe these types of people, e.g. "He's a bit too fashion for my tastes"). At the Padova station, I was greeted in all my travel grime by a young man in smart, spotless clothes and brought to an apartment where I swear there was not a speck of dust anywhere. Coming from Bologna, all this was a bit of a shock to me. I felt as though I had suddenly been dropped into a world that I didn't want and that didn't want me. But as always, my reaction was too hasty. It turned out that my host was as strange as all the other Italians I'd met, and as such, we got along famously.

    … I'll tell you about Trieste some other time. Right now, it's all about Slovenia. It's the coolest thing in the world to walk down the street and not understand a thing on the posters and street signs. Let's get lost!

Day 39: The road out of Rome

    Ah my faithful reader, Cheesy has not forgotten about you. But as she was drifting on through Europe, real life was catching up to her. The thrill of embarking on a four-month voyage was subsiding to more practical challenges of every-day life in Europe. And in general, daily challenges are far less interesting to write about than epic voyages. Cheesy was not epic – Cheesy was cheesy.

    Rome, on the other hand, was epic. Everything was huge, gray, and ancient. But Cheesy couldn't help but feel that all the myths and monuments were a façade hiding the true character of the city. Rome was somehow more elusive than all the other towns Cheesy had visited. After ten days, Cheesy still hadn't discovered any particular neighbourhood particularly well. She had spent an evening in San Lorenzo, the student ghetto near the train station, where she played board games in a bar with other couchsurfers. She had spent two evenings in Trastevere, which is a bit like the Plateau in that you either go there because you're cool or because you want to look cool. For example, in one Trastevere bar Cheesy had had a shot called a "69" composed of chocolate, absinthe, cream, and peppercorns. But Cheesy still hadn't found a vibe that unified her memories of Rome, so she decided she'd just have to go back again one day to figure out Rome for once and for all.

    The Roman people were certainly nicer than the Fiorentini or the Torinesi. They smiled more and wore more colourful clothes. They talked less about politics and more about history. They hadn't caught on to the north Italian trend of wearing glasses the size of goggles. They looked at you in your eyes when you spoke, and actually seemed to be listening.

    Despite the countless monuments and tourists, Rome paradoxically gave Cheesy the impression of being empty. Maybe it was because the buildings were so big, they dwarfed everything around them. Rome was full of wide piazzas, wide roads, and wide parks. Cheesy couldn't really tell where everyone lived. When she asked, the Romans answered the "Periferia," the neighbourhoods forming a concentric circle around the center of Rome. Indeed, Cheesy's host was in the western periphery in an area called Casalotti. It took Cheesy an hour to get to the center of Rome from Casalotti using public transportation. (Rome only had two metro lines, although it was at least twice as big as Montreal. One guy claimed that the metro only covers 30% of the city).

    Life in Rome was a mixed bag. On the down side, having an education wouldn't guarantee a job. The jobs that were available were mostly short-term or menial. Rent was nearly as high as Paris. Salaries weren't great. The bread was lousy. On the plus side, having four or five weeks of vacation per year was normal. Food prices were reasonable. The winters weren't cold. It was easy enough to make friends. A bus ticket only cost one euro. So did a cappuccino. And it was Rome!

    On the train to Bologna Cheesy was already feeling nostalgic. She felt sure she would return to Rome one day. And next time she wouldn't be sick at home for five days – she would live amongst the Romans and discover all the secret corners she knew she'd missed. But she knew she'd have to plan it better. The Romans were bombarded by couchsurfers. A couchsurfer listed as a host in Rome received an average of 9 or 10 requests every day during the down season. During the summer it was basically impossible to find a host. And Cheesy was not, by any means, going back to the hostel she'd stayed in her first night.

    Nonetheless Cheesy was looking forward to Bologna. She had been told it was a great student town and the capital of left-wing politics in Italy (however weak it may be). She had also learned that spaghetti Bolognese was an American invention that did not actually exist in Italy (neither did fettuccini alfredo). Her host was a young pastry chef new to couchsurfing. So let the good times and the pastry dough roll!

Day 29: Cheesy visits a rut

    Experienced travelers know that, when you're on the road, all things go wrong at once. First, Cheesy couldn't find a host in Rome, despite having sent out dozens of messages to dozens of people. Second, she couldn't reserve a bed online at the only hostel in Rome, because reservations had to be 48 hours in advance and Cheesy had been hoping until the last minute to find a couchsurfing host. Third, Cheesy couldn't stay an extra day with her host in Florence, because he was expecting new guests. Fourth, Cheesy found out Monday morning at 10 that she had to be gone by 11 because the housekeeper was coming.

    So all of a sudden Cheesy found herself in the train station of Florence, heading to Rome with no idea what to do once she got there. But she still felt positive, because she managed to get on a train that she knew was heading to Rome (unlike in Marseille, where she got on the train not knowing when or how to get to Torino where her next hosts were waiting for her). On the train, she got into a conversation with an Italian man sitting opposite her, who actually knew quite a bit about linguistics. But Cheesy's good humour was premature. Cheesy hadn't marked the date on her train pass yet, since on the Marseille train she only wrote the date once the ticket-man came along. And so the ticket-man on the Roman train came along. And Cheesy hadn't marked the date yet. And the ticket-man fined Cheesy €50. And so began Cheesy's descent into Rome.

    Once arrived, Cheesy took the bus to get to the hostel. In Rome, there are crosswalks on the street without any traffic lights. So the pedestrian is expected to saunter out into the highway and hope that all the cars will stop. Cheesy had to cross such a street to get to the hostel. She was cautious. She waited until a bus stopped to let her cross. So she dashed towards the yellow line in the middle of the highway. The cars on the other side of the highway hadn't seen her yet. Once she arrived at the yellow line, the first car saw her and stopped suddenly. The car behind it of course hadn't seen anything, and went flying into the car that had stopped for Cheesy. And so Cheesy's entry to the Roman youth hostel was punctuated by a major car accident. Fortunately no one was hurt, and Cheesy was able to creep away from the scene to get to the hostel.

    The hostel was €19 per night. Internet use was €3 per hour. The wireless system was down. Breakfast was not included. Laundry cost €6. The lobby was unheated. There were no locks on the doors. There was no soap in the bathrooms. And in order to go anywhere, you had to cross the damn highway again. Cheesy was not pleased. But the employees were really nice, and placed Cheesy in the same dorm as another Canadian girl who had just arrived. So there was hope for Rome.

    However, the next morning, Cheesy began her tour at the hospital. No, dear reader, Cheesy is quite fine. But (and I'm sure you'll be very interested to know), Cheesy had developed an infected ingrown hair, and it had become so swollen that Cheesy thought she might do well with a prescription of some kind (Cheesy had learned early on from her parents working in the pharmaceutical industry: when in doubt, seek drugs). Cheesy managed to get out of the hospital by about 1 p.m. and was happy to have some time to walk around. Of course, it promptly started raining. So Cheesy found a café with a wifi internet connection and settled in. She had 64 new emails, breaking her previous record of 32 in Florence. Most were just couchsurfing business, which was taking up much of Cheesy's time.

    After tackling the emails, Cheesy braved the rain and managed to do some sightseeing. She stumbled across the Parthenon by accident. Not that it was hard: the Parthenon was huge. Rome was huge. In fact, with all the traffic and monuments and people, Cheesy was beginning to think that the only thing cooler than Paris was Rome. Cheesy was a city girl, no doubt. After the Parthenon, Cheesy visited the Castel Sant'Angelo. The castle was surrounded by more of the lovely Dr. Seuss trees that Cheesy had first seen in Marseille. Then Cheesy went to the Basilica San Pietro, which she did not realize was right next to the Vatican. She also didn't realize that she could actually go into the basilica without paying, so she lingered around outside for a while. She did manage to get into the crypts of the dead popes. That was nice, but not like seeing a real mummy, skin and bones, like in Torino.

    After her touristy afternoon, Cheesy returned to the hostel. She had managed to find a host, and was to wait for him there until 8 or 9 p.m. Italians have big days. They work from 9 a.m. until late into the evening, come home to have a multi-course dinner at 9 p.m., then maybe go out dancing until 2 or 3 in the morning. Maybe it's because they're always running late. In any case, Cheesy wasn't surprised when her host called to say he'd only be arriving around 9:30. Cheesy didn't mind. She was happy to be leaving the hostel and hopefully also the rut she'd gotten into since heading to Rome.

Day 28: Firenze to Roma

    Have I already been in Europe four weeks? When was my last blog post, anyway? Yikes time flies.

    Italy is slowly warming up to me, or maybe I'm slowly warming up to it. Maybe it's because I understand the language much better now, which means the culture and the people are more accessible. But what I'm finding out is strange. The Italians seem displeased with their country. My second host in Turin spoke to me for five days straight about the horror of Italian politics and the shame of a culture based entirely on soccer, coffee, and fashion. My host in Florence told me that work is hard to find, earnings are low relative to cost of living, work conditions are deplorable, and rent is high. He told me that the Florentines aren't so nice. In Turin, my hosts told me the Turinese aren't so nice. Everyone seems to think that all the nice people are in the south. But the further south I travel, the further south I have to go to find people who describe their city as friendly. So maybe I'll have to go right to the southern tip of Sicily to find the elusive friendly people of Italy…

    Not that my hosts haven't been nice. But Italians are surprisingly serious. I've met only two people who had an easy smile – one was from Sardinia, the other from Napoli – both of course from the "far south." Italians seem to age quickly, too. Thirty years somehow seems a lot older here than in Canada. I have yet to meet the bubbly and flirtatious stereotype.

    So why do Italians stay in Italy if they're tired of living here? At first (in my well-established naivety), I thought it must the charm of Italy sucking people in like magnets. But when I asked my hosts, the replies were curious. Italians are lazy. Italians are xenophobic. Italians are too attached to family and friends. One person even told me (please don't be offended, dear reader) that Italians are f**ed up. And after telling me this they admit that they have no real proof for characterizing Italians this way. So my impression is that Italians are a people of strange convictions and even stranger inclinations. Their actions don't match their beliefs and their beliefs don't match reality.

    I'm heading to Rome now, where I'm sure I'll be told that Romans aren't nice, and I should go further south. Actually I've had a lot of trouble finding hosts in Rome. Tonight I'm hoping there will be room at the hostel. Also, I got fined €50 for not having put the date on my Eurail pass before getting on the train. So my entry into Rome is starting out rough. Nonetheless, the countryside between Florence and Rome is absolutely gorgeous. I also asked my hosts to tell me something good about Italy (for God's sake). The first host had no answer. The second said, "the weather." Ha, ha. Well it's true – the sun is out and it's warm today. Although it rained for my first three days in Florence, and my first five days in Torino. So basically after two weeks, I'm still unable to attribute a single quality to Italy with any certainty. Oh wait, they eat a LOT!

    I suppose I should say something about Florence. Here goes: it is FULL of Americans. Everywhere, everywhere, everywhere. Honestly it's so bad that I was embarrassed to be an English-speaker in Florence. And it's full of college Americans. (No offense intended to Americans reading this, if there are any). So the streets fill up with twenty-year-old ditzes and jocks taking advantage of the sixteen-year-old drinking permission in Italy. And we're in the down season now. My advice: do not, under any circumstances, go to Florence in the summer.

    Still, Florence is a lovely city for walking. The streets are windy and cobblestony, there are tons of old churches, the Duomo is majestic, the river is lovely, and the gelato is goooood. The markets are big but more expensive than Torino. In general things are less clean and stuck-up in Florence than in Turin, and more charismatic. But then you hear someone squealing in an American drawl, and your shoulders sink a bit. Sigh.

    Alora perché non voglio essere una turista (i couchsurfers sono 'travelers' e non turisti), e sopratutto non voglio che la gente pensi che io sia americana, finisco questo blog in italiano. Ciao e baci a tutti!

 

    

Vi presento Torino!

Piazza San Carlo - a reflection of the grandiose architecture of Torino
Overlooking the city, brrrr
Fiume (river) Po, with kayaker, Alps, and the Mole
Silvio, my second host in Torino, filming a documentary about the darker side of Italian politics (assuming there is a lighter side)
My first hosts Piero and Eva

Day 19: Buongiorno, Italia

    I arrived safely in Torino on Thursday evening. My first hosts were Piero and his Bulgarian girlfriend Ewa. When I arrived at the apartment they were standing side by side in the doorway, smiling, the classic image of Italian hospitality. They took me to a huge restaurant / grocery store called "Eataly" (ha, ha) which specializes in local, organic, and slow food. The slow food movement started near Torino, although I honestly couldn't tell you in what way the movement is actualized around here. Not that Italians eat quickly, but it's not like there are timers on the table to make sure customers pace themselves. Anyway I ate a delicious pasta al succo di terra (tomatoes, eggplants, olives and pancetta), which I ate very slowly out of principle J

    By the way Lynda, now that I think of it, I've always made a conscious effort to spell Canadian so I don't know what you're talking about. Maybe my computer does auto-correct without me realizing?

    Anyway yesterday morning I took my first stroll through Torino, although I didn't get very far. On my way towards the city center, I happened across a huge market full of vegetables and clothes and jewelry. Of course I got promptly distracted, and then got promptly lost. It was great – that seems to be the best way to get to know a city. But Torino is laid out in a more straightforward way than Paris or Marseille. It is less frequent that a street suddenly changes names. The layout is less spiderwebby and more griddy. So it didn't take me long to get to the center, where there is a huge piazza surrounded by arcaded walkways. France didn't seem to have open squares like that. France didn't seem to have much open space at all. There are no more two-burner kitchens here, no more isolated chambres de bonne. Everything is clean, comfortable, attractive, spacious. No piles of excrement on the streets, no crowds of people anywhere, no stench of sulfur.

    But still, they call Torino a "little Paris," and with good reason. The streets are lined by trees, the buildings are stately and baroque, the skies are gray. And there's a weirdly shaped tower poking out of the middle of the city.

    Here, cafes are called "bars," and in Paris, bars are called "cafes." What's nice is that here you can sit to drink your caffe in the bar, and order a brioche (=croissant in Italy, but brioches and croissants are different things in France) if you like. But in Paris and Marseille, you don't sit to drink your coffee. You stand at the bar, or you sit and order a $15 meal with your coffee. I missed the middle-ground café in France, so I'm glad to have found it here (in the form of a "bar") (are you confused yet?).

    Yesterday evening Piero and Ewa took me to a big dinner party with a bunch of Piero's friends from work. Forgive the stereotype, but it was sooo Italian. Everyone was talking, yelling, laughing at the same time, there was tons of food (not a single fruit or vegetable in sight, all bread and cheese and pizza and pasta and coldcuts), and the wine ran out after an hour. I couldn't participate much because there were always too many conversations going at once, and within each conversation everyone was talking at the same time, andeveryonewastalkingsuperfastandsuperloudanditwasprettyoverwhelming. Fortunately there was a Russian guy who spoke English, but not Italian, so we talked a lot. And Piero was very attentive, trying to make sure I was having a good time even if I was a bit lost.

    The Italians strike me as being aloof. Their eyes are always moving, moving, moving. I have a feeling that the so-called Italian charm comes from the fact that it's rare for an Italian to sit down, look you in the eyes, talk to you, and pay attention. You're in trouble once they do. You get all high on yourself and start fluffing your feathers, because usually the Italians are running around talking to ten other people at the same time. Although I should hold my tongue - I've just met my next host, Silvio, and he seems to be a great one-on-one conversationalist. Still, the eyes are moving, moving, moving…

    Italy is not big on wifi, nor the internet in general (which is actually due to Berlusconi, so says Silvio, but that's another story), so I don't know how often I can write. It's also very difficult for me to post photos on the blog – it takes a long time, and I need a wifi connection to upload the pictures from my own laptop. So again, I'll have to redirect you to facebook. Mi spiace!

    
 

    

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 :(