La sociedad sería una cosa hermosa si se interesaran los unos por los otros.

Chamfort

......more to come on this topic.....

The parisian trap - Finding an Appartment

Paris is beautiful, specially by night illuminated. As all cities it is even more beautiful when on holidays than when you actually live in it. When you come on holidays and you like it- the streets- the alleys- the architecture- you might think "wow if I could get an appartment here" Be carefull, finding an appartment in Paris is like going thorough a beauty pagent. If you have an objective, if you try hard you will find something, but the path aint easy and you better not be too picky, specially if you are a foreigner.

In Paris there is an undersupply of appartments, in addittion many landloards are afraid that tenants will not pay up so they ask you to proof that your salary is at least three times that of the appartment. Many people end up moving to a chambre de bonne, which used to be the old maid rooms. These ones have a separate entrance in the builduing and are genearally cold and not too well equiped (at least the ones I visited). They are mainly rented out by wealthy parisians who have a large appartment in the same builduing and rent out their chambre de bonne in a way to invest. You only have to go to www.pap.fr or any website to find out that a shared appatment rents for 500 euros a room, somtimes if lucky 470. If its cheaper its that you are either in an extremly dangerous zone or that something in the appartment is clearly not working well. To continue many lanloards will ask for a granty of you parents or somebody, photocopies of all kinds and proof that you will stay for a long time.

Due to the undersupply of appartments you find yourself going to visit places and being literally interviewied by people- what do you like to cook, what are your habits, what do you do in life, where do you work, how long will you stay. I was even told if I cook using fire or microwave and if I shower more than once a day. Every single one of my interviews finished with ´thank you, we have 10 more visits today and 10 tommorrow´ we will call you if you are selected. It even happened once that I was told " see this girl over here? she came 5 minutes before you and she took the room". As you go back to your hostel you realize that the task aint easy. The demand is so high and the supply is so low that future teanants have no bargaining power, if you ask for anything you are not going to be selected, the landloard is able to choose any other tenant. It is for this reason that many appartments and chambre de bonnes are sometimes in a decading state, and the search for appatments becomes a big neightmare for people who rumbles the streets with their ´dossiers´hoping that the day when they will be chossen will soon arrive.

...Ready to Fly Away?

I think you know it as well as I do - Im leaving France. Not yet, still 4 months to go, but suddenly you are all coming for visits. You know its one of the last chances you will have. Myself on the contrary I dont know where Im heading off to. I see the economic crisis freezing the hiring processes of many companies I see the daily life geting more expensive and unless there is a sudden radical change, I will soon not find myself in the French capital, and maybe not even Europe.

My head tumbles around the words - Hong Kong, Sydney, Barcelona, Paris and I find myself trying to decide if I want to live in a place that is meant to be my home, if i want to go live near my family and explore a new continent, if I want to continue living in a place where i have found and establish my life or If I want to go and discover my all time favorite asian city (which I dont even know that well). Four complete different options, four roads, and no final decision. Always an open eye at the job market and a specific job in mind. One day there will be a post- with a final decision.

I dont know where I will be on the 1st of march 2009 but I feel I will probably be on my way to saying good bye to some of you. I will miss you, yes I will!

re·spect (r-spkt)

Photo by me
India 2006

I dont think I have learned this week to obtain inner peace, but I have at least realized that I should calm down interiorly and not allow the disrespect of people to affect me.

Disrespect from people at work, disrespect from people in the streets, disrespect from people in the metro, disrespect from the lady that sold me the tickets in the movie center, disrespect from the girls in the shopping mall. Id love to teach to certain people what respect towards others means. Unfortunately I will probably never be able to do so as being disrespectful as they are they would never bother listening, and even less understanding and even less assuming the fact that they were disrespectful.

The best is to be kind and corteous to others - hello, thank you, goodbye- and for the disrespectfull comments -in one ear out the other-

According to wikipedia ´Respect is esteem for or a sense of the worth or excellence of a person´. Technically speaking if we are not bothering or hurting anybody I would assume that we deserve a sense of worth.

Today I stood at a sports shop asking you to buy some warm cloths for the homeless to help them pass the winter. There was no need for you to expres your frustration and shout at me cuz you pay already too many taxes. There is even less need for you to pass by and pretend you werent listening, and there is no need for you to gesticulate with your hand when you can open your mouth and say ´no thank you im not interested´. Theres nothing more annoying than to see everybody trying to get in the metro when you are clearly trying to get off it, and even worse people pushing you out of the wagon cuz they want more space. Not wanting to sell me a ticket to go see a movie at the UGC when I pay everymonth to have unlimited tickets, and in addittion insulting me.

Imagine if we would all get on the bus and say Good Morning, If we would at least let people get off the metro before geting on it and if we would actually just say ´No thank you´ in the morning to the guy that is offering you a newspaper. Would we arrive to work with a different smile and attitude?

28 hours in Torin and Back to Paris

The dark tunnel to cross the Alps was never ending but inally we finished crossing it. Soon after crossing the tunnel came a station, I can see that all the cars have yellow licence plates- we re back in the Hexagon- France. Still 4 hours until we arrive at Paris. This willb eo ne long trip. I have in 1 day gotten a bad cold and Im trying to survive even though I feel completely congested. The pink toilett paper that I stole from the toilet is gona run out, i can already sense it and I dont feel I have too much energy to go and steal another 100 meters of toilet paper- quantity needed for the level of this cold.

It has started to get dark outside, the sky is still has some dark blue and the black siluette of the mountains can be seen through the window. It will soon be pitch dark. The trip, although short has been good- very good. It a way, it has been a culinary trip- thus excellent. As I got off at P orta Sussa the first impresion was that the builduings waroudn where greyish and decading. I quikcly found the metro to go to the other station, Porta Nuova. It was there that Carlos and Giulia where both waiting for me. The metro was cheap! 1 euro! Coming from Paris where the price has just increased from 1.50 to 1.60 euros I smiled. I also felt I was in a small place. The train had stoped in a station with only 3 train trakcs, the metropolitana (meto hehe) was line 1 but there were no other lines int he city. And indeed Torino is a city of 700,00 inhabitatns which is runned mailnly by buses,trams and this 1 metro line. I quickly got to Porta Nuova, which was only 3 metro stops aways and foudn Carlos by the elevators. This area had a different feeling that that of Porta Susa- seemed more renovated and there where more people- good sign. Giulis, so smart as always, had decided to go shopping and bought youghurts for the breakfast of the Mr. The thing is they couldnt stay int he car allday long so she had to go to her friends house to leave the youghurts in the refrigerator since she lives in Asti a 40min ride.

We were all starivng and headed for the search of a restaurant. however, we passed by a square which there were doing a degustation of different foods by the association of cooks of Torino. I grabbe a dish with cheese ham and varied things and shared a Foccacia with Giuila. DELICIOUS. We then started walking through the center. The old part of Torino is organised by parallel and perpendicular lines making it a perfect grid. Hoaving been the first capital of Italy it has mulitple castles,squares and palaces. The center has a ceratin magic to it. In the middl eof the walk we stopped for my first coffe. 1 euro and EXCELLENT.
Kept walking to stop at a DELICIOUS icrecream chain GROM- Dark Chocolate lemon and for 50 extra cents home made cream on top of the icecream. MORE THAN DELICIOUS. Grabbed the car and drove to the Olympic stadium.

Yes, Torino had Olympic games. Winter games- they say these ones count as much as summer ones. Carlos and I ares still a bit skeptic about this concept. However Giulia having been a volunteer of the games in 2006 eagerly defended their importance. But serioulsy, how many of you remember Torinos games only 2 years ago?We at least managed to convince her of the ugliness of the onlympic torch. Some sort of 4 tubes interviened. It semed lika a factory. Now the stadium has becomed the Juve and Torino stadium, who astonishngly share it. This is a practice which in Spain would seem impossible and yet is frequent in Italy. We stayed and rested in the park infront of the stadium, and saw the sun set from there. After we headed to Il Lingotto. There used to be some factories belonging to Fiat but where dismanteled and remodernized by the same architect who did the pompidou museum in Paris. there now are conference centers, shopping malls and a place in which my eyeballs left myface and I would have loved was my home - EATALY- the name sais it all.

It was a sort of supermarket-restaurant you cou.d get all sorts of fresh and seasonal fruits, meat,fish beers and typical italian food. In addition each section had its own bar restaruant. It was only 19h and at 20h we had an apointment for dinner with Giulias friends.... but being gourmands as we were and since we were once again hungry we rested our asses in one of the restaurants. We allowed our paletts to enjoy a DELICIOUS rice salad and a dish of warm tomato pssata with Ricotta and tosted bread. I couldnt finish it, but it was EXCELLENT (yes,again). If I could eat like that everyday at work and in life...then my life would be perfect. Then we headed to the wine and beer section downstaris, just because the toiletts where there. Carlos had to grab two ales. I stopped at the wind section, where there were huge barresl and empty bottles. We rang the bell and a young guy came to our aid.
- hi we want a 1L bottle of red wine
- sorry we only have bottles of 2L
- No problem.

I kept taking pictures in theis food, drinks paradise and our bottle of wine got filled infront of our eyes in a moment. Off we headed and we went for the search of Giulias friends- Giulia2 and Ale- and headed to dinner. Giulia, Carlos and I clearly knew it "we are going to have something small". However by the end our dinner consisted of a pasta plate, sorbeto limone and coffe. LEKKERx10000 We then went to giulias friends house to grab her youghourts and since we were all falling asleep after 1h of chatting we got the wheels of the car rolling to Asti. I myself fell asleep already int he car. We did wake up a bit latter than planned and had certain issues with getting warm water in the shower but by the morning we headed of to suberga. Its a churche on top of the mountains. Oh, before you wonder breakfast was also DELICIOUS with Molino Blanco cookies and home made coffee. However, back to suberga, It wasnt even cold but due to my cold that I had had through the night I was very cold and sleepy. The view was nice but again due to fog we couldnt fully see everything. The church in the inside was in reparation. After a while we grabbed the car and came back down the moutnain to stop at a pizzeria for some pizzas and coffe. Pizza Cipola it was and well EXCELLENT again! We headed by the river and had a walk around it, it was very calm and relax and there where lots of families and kids walking around later went to town had one last walk, one last icecream and yeah 2ominutes before the train departure I told Giulia I had to have my last coffe macciato, so I went to the station bar to have an excellent coffee....

Now,back in Paris curring my cold and feeling jelous about the fact that Carlos and Giulia are still able to be eating and drinking those excellent icecreams,pastas,pizzas and coffees. They did a good job in motivating me to move there. Expectations more than fullfilled!

Hugs

12.22 BARDONECCHIA

In 1 hour I will be in Torino, finally the 5.30 hours of train ride will be over! If i would have flown for 5.30 hours from Paris id be in such a different world, but well train will only bring me as far as Torino, good enough. The smile can already be seen in my face. Im in Italy!! First stop in Italy!! Many changes have happened of people in the 12 rows of thew agon.: People have goten on and off at various stops , yet once again only a group of persons has catched my attention. The 3 australian women- again. I was starting at the celing, where there are the luggage holders. These ones are made of a type of glass that reflects and ats as a mirrros. From your sit you ans see through the glass what people are doing- a great spying device. As I was bending my neck upwards to stare around my eyes saw an estonishing event. The Australians had opened their tables and on it they had papers, glasses of water, palettes to paint and paint and of course paintbrushes.

So yeah, they were paining in the traine while engaging in a friendly chat with eachother. It appeared as if they were in the middle of an art class, only that they were in a TGV which was running at high speed. Every person that passed by glanced at them and some even took advantage of this rare event to start a conversation. The conversation was always in english and it ended up with one of them saying "merci".

For the rest the customs police man passed by checking every luggage and asking to whom it belonged. Then the French and the Italian policeman also stopped by to check Ids. It suprises me that the police never stop by in the train Paris- Amsterdam, which crosses three countries- France,Belgium and Holland. Yet in this train security has been quite strict. My stomach is strting to roar so I just ate my banana but Im hoping to arrive in Torino to have a proper lunch, with some coffee of course!

7.15 Pain au Chocolat et Cafe SVP

I needed to get something warm as my throught is starting to get irritated and i think I will soon get a bad cold. Buyin my coffee gave enough time for the SNCF to post the number of the track from where our train would be departing: Track 5 it was. Amazingly every person who had dark skin and had a train ticket was being checked by the police. Ont he other hand I was able to get on the train without showing my ID or ticket. Later the police got on the train to check once again the people with a dark skin. This kind of filtration of people just irritated me. As it did the beating up of sales people in India or the ID checking of south american looking people in St. Cugat this scene made me feel unconfortable and found it rather unfair. Who said I wasnt an immigrant myself??

In the wagon there is a group of 3 Australians. Highly identifiable by their accent. Although 4 rows ahead of me their loud voices and excitment of their trip grabed my attention during the first 20 minutes before the departure of the train. Soon after another couple also of middle age got on the train.
- Are you Australian????
- Yeahhh (with a typical southern Aussie Accent) You???
- New Zeland
- Oh UHhh Ohhh Uhhh

And with the social skills of the people of these two nations the group of 3 and the couple quickly engaged into a conversation in which they discussed their European trips ´´sight´´.

Nobody else has catched my atteention in hte rest of the 12 rows of this nicely decorated and confortable TGV wagon. Silence prevails and everybody seems to be engaging in one of the follwoing three activities. 1 Reading 2 Sleeping 3 staring out of the window. In the past 1.30hours of train ride I have attempted the three activities myself. Sleeping has clearly not worked, staring out the window is useless due to the gog and in my TGV magazine I have found only one intresting article- Disposable Mobile phones- A new product created by BIC at a price of 50 euros.... to be thought, how disposable is it something that costs 50 euros?? The marketers of the product claim its not meant to be disposable, however the title of the article underlines the disposability of the product.I wonder how consumers will see this product....
-

Destination Torino

Fog is all you can see out of the window. Pitty because my hands are anxious to grab the camera and start shooting, but ill have to wait till later on the day. The atmosphere is calm in this train 9241 destination Milano Centrale. Although id love to go back to Milano if only to visit Marco,Chiara, Fiore and the rest of the people this time I will be getting of at Porta Susua, Torinos stop. It was hard to resist the temptation of the add"30 euros ticket to Torino from Paris". Saw the add, run home, got online and bought a ticket- of course previously checking if Giulia was okay with it, afterall im staying at her place. This is where the adventure began on the 28.09 at 22h on the sncf webpage.

Expectations? Not many, will be staying at Giulias and Carlos place in Asti, 40 minutes away from Torino. Hope to speak and hear lots of italian, eat pasta with real parmaggiano, I willt ry and take as many coffess as possible. And enjoy the few hours- 28 to be precise- that I will have in Italy. Having been to Venice, Milan,Bergamo, Florence, Pisa, Rome and multiple villages in the Alps, im very happy to go back to Italy. I dont know if its the language, the people , the culture or a combination of all which makes me want to go back. This time a new destination. However, Naples remains the city where I want - and of course, one day will go to. Italy is one of the countries where I have most friends from. How this happened I remains a mystery to me, but maybe one day I will move there, if only to absorb and enjoy some of its culture.

I feel that although extremly "fashion oriented" (yes, this might be a major generalization) people are very opened and warm. The impression is that a big value is given to family vanlues and with it reunions gatherings and of course meals. the mediteranean diest appears to be complemented with pasta with all sorts of home cooked sausces , later comes the meat the cheese the cofee and the after food discussions. Loud in nature, and with a need and urge to gesticulate every zord with hands, arms and body friendly discussions form part of their daily routine.

Trains to the south- Italy, Switzerland- seem to leave from gare de Lyon in Paris. This station is very easily accessible with line 14 of the metro. This line has very few stations, however it crosses Paris from one side to the other. Starting at St. Lazare and finishing at Olympiades the line is the newest of the city and most modern. The metros have no conductors and a double door exists permitting a more secure entry and exit of passengers. Each station has a connection with multiple metro lines, becoming like this a central axis perimitting commuters to easily and cross the city.

Lo menos frecuente en este mundo es vivir. La mayoría de la gente existe, eso es todo.

Oscar Wilde