French friend of mine: Hugs are catching on here more and more. Have you seen those people giving "free hugs" in the street?
Me: Yeah, I've seen them, but I've never taken them up on the offer. I figured that if I did, they would probably just steal my wallet.
French friend: That's very cynical and Parisian of you.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Love Hate Relationship
So, in personal relationships I don’t look for a love-hate roller coaster of passion but prefer laidback drama free dating. However, geographically, it’s a different story.
Typical question from Americans back home: how's Paris? Even after being here a year, the answer still depends on the day and its various living-in-your-second-language challenges...
On Thursday, it was: Well, I thrive on hardship, urban misery and surrealism, so I enjoy Parisian life. It's kind of a similar taste to bitter espresso, dark chocolate or smoking unfiltered cigarettes. If you're neurotic, anxious, pessimistic and only happy when it rains, you would enjoy Paris. It rains a lot here, the summer of 2007 widely acknowledged as the worst June-August weather in French history and attributed to global warming. Paris is kind of teen angst but in a more glamorous and sophisticated form in your late 20s (latest possible 20s, if you’re facing your 29th birthday like I am) and that is why great writers, philosophers and pretentious intellectuals alike lived and continue to live here.
However, Friday’s answer was very different, as if the French national healthcare system that filmmaker Micheal Moore is so enamored with slipped everyone some government-subsidized prozac overnight: I feel like I’ve made so much progress—I can now read a French book in one evening and I'm starting to feel like I have some real friends here who understand my French and even claim that I speak it well. My students are all absolutely lovely and even though I speak a lot of English in my job, I now have more contact with the French than I did last year and we often discuss French culture. My students love explaining Symbols of France to me, like the car the deux chevaux and singer Michel Polnareff, and you have to admit that the Fete de Musique is one of the all-time greatest urban events. Paris in August is also incredibly pleasant because it contains fewer Parisians (even if more rain) since everyone is out of town on their European annual month of vacation, leaving the metro uncrowded and the supermarket checkout lines on Saturday afternoons remarkably short.
All I can do is enjoy the highs and try to be prepared for sudden rollar coaster drop off lows. I catalogue the good days-- like pasteries at Angelique’s and riding the ferris wheel at Tuilleries with Kim and Cory, champagne tasting in Reims, Music Day with Tiffany, swimming in the lake at Annecy with my cousins, Bastille Day with Kate, and every single delicious dinner I’ve had at my favorite Ethiopian restaurant-- to remember on the rainy days.
Typical question from Americans back home: how's Paris? Even after being here a year, the answer still depends on the day and its various living-in-your-second-language challenges...
On Thursday, it was: Well, I thrive on hardship, urban misery and surrealism, so I enjoy Parisian life. It's kind of a similar taste to bitter espresso, dark chocolate or smoking unfiltered cigarettes. If you're neurotic, anxious, pessimistic and only happy when it rains, you would enjoy Paris. It rains a lot here, the summer of 2007 widely acknowledged as the worst June-August weather in French history and attributed to global warming. Paris is kind of teen angst but in a more glamorous and sophisticated form in your late 20s (latest possible 20s, if you’re facing your 29th birthday like I am) and that is why great writers, philosophers and pretentious intellectuals alike lived and continue to live here.
However, Friday’s answer was very different, as if the French national healthcare system that filmmaker Micheal Moore is so enamored with slipped everyone some government-subsidized prozac overnight: I feel like I’ve made so much progress—I can now read a French book in one evening and I'm starting to feel like I have some real friends here who understand my French and even claim that I speak it well. My students are all absolutely lovely and even though I speak a lot of English in my job, I now have more contact with the French than I did last year and we often discuss French culture. My students love explaining Symbols of France to me, like the car the deux chevaux and singer Michel Polnareff, and you have to admit that the Fete de Musique is one of the all-time greatest urban events. Paris in August is also incredibly pleasant because it contains fewer Parisians (even if more rain) since everyone is out of town on their European annual month of vacation, leaving the metro uncrowded and the supermarket checkout lines on Saturday afternoons remarkably short.
All I can do is enjoy the highs and try to be prepared for sudden rollar coaster drop off lows. I catalogue the good days-- like pasteries at Angelique’s and riding the ferris wheel at Tuilleries with Kim and Cory, champagne tasting in Reims, Music Day with Tiffany, swimming in the lake at Annecy with my cousins, Bastille Day with Kate, and every single delicious dinner I’ve had at my favorite Ethiopian restaurant-- to remember on the rainy days.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Every day is a holiday
There are lots of holidays in France-- a record 3 long weekends in the month of May alone. The impressive thing was that these were 4-day and not 3-day weekends because various catholic holidays that I am not familiar with fell on Tuesdays and why not take the whole week off or at least the Monday before? This strategy allowing the maximum vacation time possible is called 'making the bridge.'
People not from catholic countries always point out the excess of holidays as the most tangible advantage of catholicism.
Tomorrow is another holiday (Assomption) although this is almost redundant as the entire country of France is on vacation for the entire month of August. Paris is empty and very pleasant now, despite rain and tourists. Everyone here is horrified that in the US, you only get 2 weeks of vacation per year, which is admittedly quite horrible. The "per year" is always an important qualifier for the French-- it suggests that alternate possibilities like 2 weeks per month or every 2 months would be acceptable...
Hope you're all enjoying your vacation-- however long or short it might be per year.
People not from catholic countries always point out the excess of holidays as the most tangible advantage of catholicism.
Tomorrow is another holiday (Assomption) although this is almost redundant as the entire country of France is on vacation for the entire month of August. Paris is empty and very pleasant now, despite rain and tourists. Everyone here is horrified that in the US, you only get 2 weeks of vacation per year, which is admittedly quite horrible. The "per year" is always an important qualifier for the French-- it suggests that alternate possibilities like 2 weeks per month or every 2 months would be acceptable...
Hope you're all enjoying your vacation-- however long or short it might be per year.
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