Paris et les Parisiens

Once again I will admit that I forgot I had a blog for a while. Once my memory came back to me I then was either too busy or a bit lazy to write a proper entry, and what is a proper entry? I don’t know. However, I’m back and ready to entertain you, or not so much, with a small entry on the Parisians and French Life. One year ago the entries were about trips trips and more trips I was in the middle of my around the world trip and about to embark on a plane direction Bangkok to start the Asia part of my trip.

Now, I’m in Paris but that in itself is a daily adventure with millions of places to discover and see. After all as many people say Paris is magical, for me it still remains as a mix of small cozy Prague and southern European Barcelona. I still don’t find that “romanticism” in the city that tourists and Parisian lovers keep giving to it, but I like to walk through the small alleys and corners of the city. In fact it is these hidden corners that bring the magic to this city rather than the big famous places. I do not like the Eiffel Tower, and I don’t particularly like to walk in the Champs Elyesses. As a tourist it is a Must, but once the must is done I am unable to find the beauty in the metal structure who welcomed its first visitors in 1898 for the universal exposition…. Sure the lighting at night of the tower is nice but. . . .

It is the parks that I like about this city. Only and only if my computer had wifi and would not need to be plugged every minute in order to remain alive would I be able to write this from a park. There are so many parks everywhere and now that the summer has arrived the French love to do their little picnics in the parks and in the bridges, in particular “pont des arts” infront of the Louvre….as they say it “on va picniquer?” (however that is spelled it means “ are we going to do our picnic?”). Their wine, cheese, and of course a little thing to put under their ass not to get too dirty while they drink their wine. The summer and the heat have arrived and the French bring all their class and elegance to their picnics…very cute and nice to see and a great experience to join one of these French picnics. Brining candles, wine ,cheese and foie to the middle of a bridge with a beautiful mantel just makes the Parisians a bit more Parisian. Must be seen with your own eyes.

When I first read the book a Year in the Merde or Talk to the Snail by Stephen Clarke I thought that he was nothing more than a foreigner living in France unable to adapt to the country. He described the French and how hard it was to live here, how shitty it was and in his second book he wrote about how to understand the French. I do have to say that after a 5 month immersion in the French culture I start believing the book had quite a bit of truth in it. I like life here and I don’t seem to find it as hard as Stephen did, but if you want to become a Parisian citizen you definitively have to undergo quite a lot of mental and physical tests. In these 5 months I have wasted a lot of precious time trying to deal with people that work slow, or don’t work and make you pick up a form here and there. Im not even counting my 7 months at HEC as that was an immersion in the world of foreigners in the middle of a forest. However since my arrival in the capital on the 1st of March 2008 I have undergone the pleasant and not so pleasant experience of French burocary. Papers and more papers and another paper in order to get a signature for the first paper. A small anecdote: Changing the address in a French bank in particular in mine took me 5 weeks. I wanted to go on Monday but the agency didn’t open till 9 o clock, making me wait till the next saturday. Next Saturday, I headed to the office early in the morning I was told to return the following Monday as the bank woman was unable to understand that I can not go to the bank from Monday to Friday from 9 to 5 as I also work. So since they couldn’t change my address, I got an appointment to change my address, this appointment was given to me for 3 weeks afterwards. Once I went there 3 weeks afterwards they took 2 seconds to click on a computer screen. Amazingly they were unable to spend these 2 seconds 3 weeks before. I then said “so the transfer of address is done? I’m finally a member of this agency? Can you check if my rent has been payed?” The response-in a blunt tone- was that unfortunately only the electronical transfer had been done, I now needed to wait one more week in order for the official transfer of my “dossier” to this agency and that only then would they be able to help me.

All the respect for the French, I have met some amazing French people, friendly nice and open, but for the rest with their “honnêtement” “donc” “franchement” “ la vérité” “ c est pas évident” it seems like they are constantly complaining. It might just be an issue of language difference, but I have never seen a society complain as much as the French do, or maybe I should say the Parisians? Lord! It’s a matter of sitting in the metro and listening to them… But once again, respect for those people I have met at work and in my other activities which have been relaxed and willing to accept my unfrench accent without looking at me like an idiot cuz I used the wrong article infront of the noun.

Getting to these kind people, I am starting to be taught day after day a lot of words by everybody “avoir la peche” “etre a la deche” “ perdre le froc” “ etre a cote de la plaque” “faire chier” “ etre a la bourre” and many more …I like it, eventually ill move into speaking a more proper street French!! For now I’m writing them all down!! Lets face it after 5 months of being on my own and living on my own in Paris I have started to get used to its routines, my routines and I have started to liked it. My weekly volunteering with the French, working in French with the French and talking in French with my neighbors. It seems that finally I don’t only move around the expat communities, although most of my friends are foreigners, its good to know that at least I have a small foot into the French community. When I stop to think about it, last year I couldn’t really speak proper French while now I can clearly say that “ je me fais chier pour le gogole qui m a dans son colimateur”. . . . With the bad and the good I’m finally starting to “role” in the French society. So the question is, which language to learn next?? I keep my list with Portuguese, Russian, Hindi and the relearning of Japanese. . . Which one to choose???