I wrote this over the summer, but never posted it. What better time than now?
~*~
"Tout d'un coup," as the French would say, fall has arrived in Paris. The skies are dredged in cloud, the sporadic showers forcing the street performers to nudge their electronic backup musicians under the cover of their case to protect wires and bundle up in nearby shelter until the rain comes to pass. If you thought the French looked grumpy before, you'd notice even more smiles have disappeared as the city resigns itself to another gray winter.
~*~
"Tout d'un coup," as the French would say, fall has arrived in Paris. The skies are dredged in cloud, the sporadic showers forcing the street performers to nudge their electronic backup musicians under the cover of their case to protect wires and bundle up in nearby shelter until the rain comes to pass. If you thought the French looked grumpy before, you'd notice even more smiles have disappeared as the city resigns itself to another gray winter.
Though the whiff of piss is more than occasional in Paris (the rains replacing it with scents of drains), it still maintains all the illusions of elegance. Unlike Madrid--where the city's underbelly of dissatisfied youth is much more visible--the middle of Paris sees little roughness around its edges. Apart from the skateboarders in La Place de la Republique and the occasionally eccentrically dressed group of young people, you'd hardly notice anything at all. I had been hoping to catch a glimpse of parcour or at least a sign of the burgeoning French hip-hop culture, but apart from the occasional ACAB (all cops are bastards) scrawled here and there, it seems that all is well. The people on the street are getting money put in their cups. It would likely require a trip to the suburbs or a targeted journey to see more of the underside of things--perhaps partially attributable to Paris' enormous size and spread.
I wrote very little about this last trip to India--mostly because my companion, as a first-timer, wrote enough for the both of us. (I did write some travel advice which will be going in a new travel blog we're making, but that's for another time.) In stark contrast to the neat, buttoned-down dispositions of Paris and London, nothing is hidden from you in India--this is one reason I am fond of India, and another reason why so many people leave hating it. Seeing the Parisians' lips curl at the distasteful sight of the Roma family that lives on a mattress on my street corner makes me laugh a little inside and also makes me sad, in the same way that I get angry when I think about how the homeless are always shooed out of sight in the States. We are always so hurried to brush the evidence of our social problems under the rug...but if we can't see them, there will be little or no impetus to change them.
At any rate, it's for this reason that I'm not sure I could ever live at length in Paris or London. While both are beautiful cities, full of wonderful tastes and experiences, they lack a little of the chaos that I've come to need and love.
While I'm here, though, I'm going to eat all the financiers that I can fit in my stomach!
