...that there are actually a few things that I want to say about Paris yesterday. Psych!
- There have been several times since coming to France where I have picked up my camera and seriously contemplated taking a picture in order to capture the smells around me. It's unfortunate that smell-o-vision and it's accompanying camcorders don't yet exist...and it's quite apparent to me now why France is renown for its perfumes.
- The toilettes in Britain are different from those in America, and the toilettes are still more different. The on ein our hotel here waits for you to tell it when to stop flushing, which is both convenient and probably inefficient.
- We walked, delighted to be unencumbered by our heavy rucksacks, all the way north from our hotel to he Eiffel Tower and took tons of pictures with it together. Lea's floormates back in York told her they wanted her to take lots of "cheesy" pictures for them, so we've been careful to do so. We walked under the tower to go see the Triumphal Arch, and as we did, we saw dozens of people selling plastic Eiffel Towers and other really weird souvenirs (including this one wind-up man on a bike; his mouth opened and closed and his eyes rolled around...very creepy, France, very creepy). Every five feet, someone was selling something. It made me sad to realize how so much of Paris is not really for Parisians anymore. That thought made me wonder how much more enjoyable tourism would have been a hundred or 150 years ago, when a tour of the world (or at least of Europe) was almost requisite for upperclass people in countries like England. Without the same number of hard core capitalists around all the main attractions, how much more wonderful might the experiences of seeing those places have been?
- When we'd crossed the river and were looking at a war memorial or something, one of the men selling cheap souvenirs that was near us walked by us twice and said "very sexy" under his breath to us. I didn't look at him, and we just walked on as if nothing had happened, but i have to say, I was pretty upset. In fact, I was surprised by how upset I was. I wished I had slapped him, which doesn't seem like me. I know many men aren't like that and wouldn't do that, and even though most of the men in Paris I've come into contact with have been equally or in similar ways disgusting, I know that there must be lots of men in Paris who don't treat all women like objects to be succinctly reviewed in three words or less. But I wanted to punish this guy. I thought in retrospect that maybe if I had reacted forcefully to him, he wouldn't be as keen to treat other girls like that, or maybe he'd see that women don't always let men do whatever they want. More likely, I suppose, I would have just pissed him off and all Hell would have broken loose, right there in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.
Like I said, I'm not sure why I got as upset as I did--I've been harassed like that all my life by people I do and do not know, I've watched men run their eyes all over me on the street like it's their right to get whatever pleasure out of me they want. And strictly speaking, as far as the staring goes, I can't really stop them, so I suppose it is their right. And other men in my life have done worse. But this one tower-selling man...I wanted him to feel the weight of his actions like I never have with anyone else. Don't know why, but it obviously had a profound affect on me.
- Paris, like the walkways around Chateau de Chenonceau, was extremely dusty. By the end of the day, my feet around my sandal straps and Lea's tights around her shoes were very dusty from our extensive walking. Paris was not very grassy, except in the ample gardens of a Palais or in some of the other city parks. There was also a lot of construction, and all the trees and bushes were flowering and stuff, so between the dust, the bits of wood and such, and the buds and bugs flying everywhere, Lea and I managed to keep getting little things in our eyes. All the time. Sometimes we couldn't get them out for minutes at a time. Very strange. Very uncomfortable.
- I've sen lots of people and a couple models in ads, and a few people in cartoons here in Frane with very prominent gaps between their two front teeth. I wonder if that's a style here, and if so, why?
- For an early lunch that ended up lasting us all day, we stopped in at a bakery and sandwich place. lea got a ham sandwich and a pain au chocolat, and I blundered miserably through ordering something that might have been called a foussache or something (basically a really long piece of flatbread with melted cheese, herbs, olives, and mushrooms on it). It was a horrible experience, not knowing enough of the language to tell the woman what I wanted, or to be able to understand her when she asked me if I wanted it heated. I was mortified by it, mostly because I really am ashamed that my only real language is English. And because I hate to perpetuate bad stereotypes about Americans.
So that is Paris more in full. Hope you enjoyed it.
<3 spadeALLcross
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