You are currently browsing the daily archive for May 17th, 2008.
or, if you want to be technical: Band’s and the songs they shouldn’t cover:
Shania Twain – You Shook Me All Night Long words fail me.
There are many simple pleasures of which I’m a fan. A perfectly brewed cup of Colombian, a nice ginger biscuit to dunk in it (any mention of my beard colour will result in suffering), and a good lie in at the weekend. Perhaps it’s because of the long hours I work, perhaps it’s the stress and worry I’m under, perhaps it’s because I’m lazy but regardless of the reason I slept very late this morning. Or should I say.. afternoon?
I fell asleep last night watching Rambo 3, giving up on wakefulness just as the village elder was informing Rambo of the reason behind their reluctance to help him. Having initially awoken somewhere around 10am (I didn’t even bother with my weekend 9am alarm) I decided that I could stay a little longer and soon drifted back though to a different and more vivid dream.
I dreamt I was back in Paris, that wonderful city where I found myself just around a month ago tomorrow. It’s no surprise that my dreams took me there as it is where I find my thoughts still drifting as my visit really had a huge effect on me.
There’s something different, a feeling in the air there, that made me feel so much more at ease. While it is busy, packed to the brim with French denizens, there was also a sense of calm even at the most busiest places. The people are different too. While there’s a stereotypical approach that would label them all as arrogant I don’t think it’s the right word. From what I saw it’s more a case that they genuinely don’t care what other people think. There’s an inherent pride and assurance in being French and a Parisian.
Things seemed to make more sense there too; the metro is a whole lot nicer than the bloody tube, buses are so much easier and nicer to use and while the street cleaning wasn’t so thorough it didn’t bother me as I spent so much time with my mouth agape at the architecture.
Food and eating I found a whole adventure. Not just what was eaten (though bugger they do know their grub – oh if I could find somewhere here that made crepes or a milkshake as good as the one at the place near Bastille I’d be happy) but when. Here I think we eat whenever, there it’s more.. structured. Breakfast, a good large and filling lunch and something light in the evening. I also got used to not having coffee with my meals despite my earlier complaints.
I loved waking up and knowing that outside it was Paris. There was a city FILLED with things I didn’t know, hadn’t seen or didn’t even understand. I loved being surrounded by people speaking a language I didn’t know. I loved the sense of the unknown. Sitting with my coffee and French style breakfast, watching Linda eat hers and listening to the neighborhood waking up and the occasional raised voice in french was a perfect setting.
Shopping for food too… wow. Linda, who lives in Paris for the unobservant reader, has often told me how crap supermarket shopping is and while I’m far from it’s biggest fan it was all I knew. Until know. Shopping for food at the market on a Sunday morning is an amazing experience. The sights, smells and sounds leave the senses alive and desperate for more while the vendors are characters straight out of a Sempe sketch. While the sight of the chickens still with their heads, feet and tails in the chiller might have made me think twice about eating them, the wonderful cheese and bakery stalls made me dribble at the mouth and then, then.. then there’s the desserts. Oh my. Such things created with sweet sweet icing and creams and chocolates I had never seen, let alone tasted.
On a personal level I’d never felt happier than walking through Paris. Especially at night an in the evening! I’ve walked through London countless times and at numerous points of the day and never felt or seen anything as.. alive. Walking through Bercy and the shopping centre there to the cinema was amazing. Though what’s going on with the piscine in the Seine? Watching The Darjeeling Limited in a cinema there with Linda in it’s original language (subtitled for those lazy frogs that can’t learn english) was wonderful. It was pretty surreal though to watch trailers that were in French (not subtitled for the lazy rosbif that couldn’t learn french). Watching it in English after a pint of the black stuff from a British pub (the Frog) at Bercy felt like a little bit of home in the middle of a wonderful city in which I was already feeling at home.
Don’t get me wrong: there were things I missed. My family. I missed playing my guitar and listening to certain music. Yet there was nothing I missed that was specifically English with the exception of my family. I didn’t even miss chips. Have only had them once since I returned and that turned out to be a disaster.
Those who know me know my disdain for this town I was born and still live in and as my disatisfaction with this country as a whole and my love for the Parisian ways grows, don’t be surprised if I’m soon an ex-pat. Don’t get me wrong, I know Sarkozy isn’t exactly doing so much better than Gordon Brown but so much more about their system makes sense. At least their premier lands himself a model for a wife.
Paris opened up a creativity in me which is one of the reasons I missed my guitars, I could feel my fingers shaping chords and melodys as I basked in the odd ray of sun that hit me walking between the huge buildings and walking past people sitting outside the boulangeries with their small cups of black coffee. My notebook has never seen as much use as it did over there and even now while I try and write the book I took the notes for I can’t rekindle the spark I felt there. Not only that but the sense of calm and ease I had there soon left – about a week and a half after being back in the English system.
I miss the city, I really do. And the people. Especially one of them in particular. I feel a real sense of nostalgia while I look through the Sempe book that Linda kindly left on her last visit through which I’m improving my French. I will be going back and I will be going back soon.
