It was nice to go back to Paris again. It was my best friend's wedding so there was a purpose but it's also because once in a while I am pleased to return to where in the end I belong. One of my close friend never stops telling me that sooner or later I will move back. At this point I have no answer. It is true that it is an amazing city. How many people I met from abroad saying that I was so lucky to be born there. "But why did you leave ?" because ...
Every tourist will tell you how nice looking the city is, how nice looking people are in the streets, how nice looking are the monuments, shops, department stores, restaurants, bars .... Of course. When you're a tourist, you only feel the positive vibrations of the place. But try to settle yourself in Paris :
- people : we are the most arrogant and selfish people I know. It's all about how you look and how much money you spend. You belong to a class or you don't belong at all. It's probably why there are so many bachelor and lonely people in the city because meeting people is not that difficult, what is difficult is to maintain a relationship because sooner or later there is something better and nicer on the other side of the street or you met someone at this cocktail or dinner party and informed in a delicate way that everything you do or tell is so "passé, darling". In one word, if you have no agenda, no social life : forget.
- money : you have to understand that you find the city nice looking because we give the money for that. I can't afford leaving in Paris anymore. The price of the flat, food, drink, taxes, transports, .... is so expensive that "credit card" is suddenly a plastic thing you can't live without and takes all its sense (and for your bank as well). and if you don't live at the right place, I'm afraid you will not keep your so called friends.
- city : look at a map of the city. You will notice a left side and a right side settled by the river Seine. This is also a frontier. "... and where do you live" ... "15th" ... "ohhh left side" (lucky me, and in an area which is told as "bourgeois". It's just that I always stayed there, I like it and it was close to work). But once you told where you live, people figured out they know you by heart because it's only a matter of clichés. I know people who will never move right side. I know people who will never move from the 5th because the rest is unknown or not good enough following their criterias. I know people leaving on the left side who will never have dinner with other people, even if they're close, because those live on the right side. and in the middle ? have an ice cream at Bertillon at sunset.
It is also understood that we love our city, we have this special attraction to it. We love people saying that it's wonderful (please throw more flowers and compliments to me please, you might have the right to sit next to me... but not sure yet) but it's also understood that we pay enough taxes to not clean the poo of our dog which is now under your left foot (if you're lucky) just when you arrive at your job interview. Just because we expect someone to do it.
- public transports : try a friday afternoon at 5.00 p.m. when the only idea is to go home, pick up the kids when you're already late at school, you need to go shopping (at la Grande Epicerie of Le Bon Marché, of course) because you had the wonderful idea to organize a dinner at home (of course social life oblige) and you thought It will leave you the week-end free, that you did not manage to clean the house, all those things. One advice : make yourself as small as you can because in this particular time and space, you have no right to be there nor being alive. My second advice : walk or sit on a bank in a public park and don't move. All people are tired of all this agressivity in the metro, bus, RER. The atmosphere is bad, the smell is awful, no air conditioned, the light is not at your advantage, and you look so tired, dear, in the rear window of the bus. And of course, it rains. So that leads us to :
- traffic : don't even think about it. I was driving once with my friend from Germany and took Place de la Concorde in the late afternoon and then drive the Champs Elysées up to Arc de Triomphe (sounds romantic, isn't it?). Don't try. My friend told me after that drive that he was remaining so silent not because he enjoyed the view but because he was scared to death in less than 5 kms. Which is for me a normal way I can take everyday (but frankly said, I have my own route). Public transports make the people take their car. You preffer to spend a third of your salary into car, insurance, gas, maintenace ... and a third of your day time as well, instead of smelling for 20mn the arm pit of your seat neighbour (if you're lucky to be sat, again). You also have to understand that Paris is not made for the cars. Read Raymond Quenau who translated very well the absurdity of the traffic situation in the city. If you go to other cities, you will notice the plan of it. Again take a map of Paris, you'll understand nothing. My advice : bear in mind the nearest metro station.
In winter (otherwise it's not funny) 1995, there was this uge strike (that's another story but we love to demonstrate for whatever, but generally it's mostly public administration because they want to keep their advantages that working private we don't have. Well anyway, this winter : no nothing. The townhall could not face the situation. They tried to establish a service by boat and they failed too (I never understood why it was never developed, like the tramway newly built : the railways already existed a bit more inside the city, I can show you). When I spent almost 3 hours to nearly drive 2 kms, I sold the car the next day and bought my motorbike. It was more dangerous but much faster as well and I could scared other car drivers, finally. So how do you go from one point to another ?
- taxi : ah ah ah, you are so funny ! did you ever have one ? and even if you did, they lead you to the wrong place and they will charge you for that. Even if you can argue or not. It happened to me too.
My advice : walk. Everyone will tell you : we walk a lot in the city. It is in the end, the easiest and sometimes the quickest way to go from one point to another.
- bike : oh yeah, that's a funny one too. we saw last week-end that Bertrand (the mayor of the city) picked up the wonderful idea (we have the system in Barcelona since..., I saw it as well in Berlin) to create bikes stations, like metro stations. You register yourself for the year and pay the use of the bike every 30 mns. But where are the cycling paths ? Trust me and my experience, I will never drive a bike in the city. And it will be stolen or damaged anyway. But I love the idea. I wish it will be a success... . that's typically the contradictory way of thinking of the parisians.
- and to chear you up, enjoy the city as much as you can because it will cost you so much money that you won't be able to afford it a second time shortly. The food at café terrase is good, the fashion in the street is really there, bla bla bla ...
Every tourist will tell you how nice looking the city is, how nice looking people are in the streets, how nice looking are the monuments, shops, department stores, restaurants, bars .... Of course. When you're a tourist, you only feel the positive vibrations of the place. But try to settle yourself in Paris :
- people : we are the most arrogant and selfish people I know. It's all about how you look and how much money you spend. You belong to a class or you don't belong at all. It's probably why there are so many bachelor and lonely people in the city because meeting people is not that difficult, what is difficult is to maintain a relationship because sooner or later there is something better and nicer on the other side of the street or you met someone at this cocktail or dinner party and informed in a delicate way that everything you do or tell is so "passé, darling". In one word, if you have no agenda, no social life : forget.
- money : you have to understand that you find the city nice looking because we give the money for that. I can't afford leaving in Paris anymore. The price of the flat, food, drink, taxes, transports, .... is so expensive that "credit card" is suddenly a plastic thing you can't live without and takes all its sense (and for your bank as well). and if you don't live at the right place, I'm afraid you will not keep your so called friends.
- city : look at a map of the city. You will notice a left side and a right side settled by the river Seine. This is also a frontier. "... and where do you live" ... "15th" ... "ohhh left side" (lucky me, and in an area which is told as "bourgeois". It's just that I always stayed there, I like it and it was close to work). But once you told where you live, people figured out they know you by heart because it's only a matter of clichés. I know people who will never move right side. I know people who will never move from the 5th because the rest is unknown or not good enough following their criterias. I know people leaving on the left side who will never have dinner with other people, even if they're close, because those live on the right side. and in the middle ? have an ice cream at Bertillon at sunset.
It is also understood that we love our city, we have this special attraction to it. We love people saying that it's wonderful (please throw more flowers and compliments to me please, you might have the right to sit next to me... but not sure yet) but it's also understood that we pay enough taxes to not clean the poo of our dog which is now under your left foot (if you're lucky) just when you arrive at your job interview. Just because we expect someone to do it.
- public transports : try a friday afternoon at 5.00 p.m. when the only idea is to go home, pick up the kids when you're already late at school, you need to go shopping (at la Grande Epicerie of Le Bon Marché, of course) because you had the wonderful idea to organize a dinner at home (of course social life oblige) and you thought It will leave you the week-end free, that you did not manage to clean the house, all those things. One advice : make yourself as small as you can because in this particular time and space, you have no right to be there nor being alive. My second advice : walk or sit on a bank in a public park and don't move. All people are tired of all this agressivity in the metro, bus, RER. The atmosphere is bad, the smell is awful, no air conditioned, the light is not at your advantage, and you look so tired, dear, in the rear window of the bus. And of course, it rains. So that leads us to :
- traffic : don't even think about it. I was driving once with my friend from Germany and took Place de la Concorde in the late afternoon and then drive the Champs Elysées up to Arc de Triomphe (sounds romantic, isn't it?). Don't try. My friend told me after that drive that he was remaining so silent not because he enjoyed the view but because he was scared to death in less than 5 kms. Which is for me a normal way I can take everyday (but frankly said, I have my own route). Public transports make the people take their car. You preffer to spend a third of your salary into car, insurance, gas, maintenace ... and a third of your day time as well, instead of smelling for 20mn the arm pit of your seat neighbour (if you're lucky to be sat, again). You also have to understand that Paris is not made for the cars. Read Raymond Quenau who translated very well the absurdity of the traffic situation in the city. If you go to other cities, you will notice the plan of it. Again take a map of Paris, you'll understand nothing. My advice : bear in mind the nearest metro station.
In winter (otherwise it's not funny) 1995, there was this uge strike (that's another story but we love to demonstrate for whatever, but generally it's mostly public administration because they want to keep their advantages that working private we don't have. Well anyway, this winter : no nothing. The townhall could not face the situation. They tried to establish a service by boat and they failed too (I never understood why it was never developed, like the tramway newly built : the railways already existed a bit more inside the city, I can show you). When I spent almost 3 hours to nearly drive 2 kms, I sold the car the next day and bought my motorbike. It was more dangerous but much faster as well and I could scared other car drivers, finally. So how do you go from one point to another ?
- taxi : ah ah ah, you are so funny ! did you ever have one ? and even if you did, they lead you to the wrong place and they will charge you for that. Even if you can argue or not. It happened to me too.
My advice : walk. Everyone will tell you : we walk a lot in the city. It is in the end, the easiest and sometimes the quickest way to go from one point to another.
- bike : oh yeah, that's a funny one too. we saw last week-end that Bertrand (the mayor of the city) picked up the wonderful idea (we have the system in Barcelona since..., I saw it as well in Berlin) to create bikes stations, like metro stations. You register yourself for the year and pay the use of the bike every 30 mns. But where are the cycling paths ? Trust me and my experience, I will never drive a bike in the city. And it will be stolen or damaged anyway. But I love the idea. I wish it will be a success... . that's typically the contradictory way of thinking of the parisians.
- and to chear you up, enjoy the city as much as you can because it will cost you so much money that you won't be able to afford it a second time shortly. The food at café terrase is good, the fashion in the street is really there, bla bla bla ...
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