Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Thursday, June 14, 2007
du vrai boulot
i've forgotten to mention that i'm employed. i'm working for a tiny company (by which i mean, run by two people) that rents luxury apartments to tourists in paris. i'm mostly doing office-type work for the time being, but eventually i'll be working more with clients and helping to rent the apartments. plus i can continue with the job in new york, since reservations are all done by email and phone.
i will probably have a couple other odd jobs throughout the summer; i may be a personal assistant/office worker, and will certainly function as the babysitting service for my company's clients who are burdened with children. my friend harry might be sending some english-teaching gigs my way as well. everything has come together very nicely in the past week!
my partner in new yorkaise crime julia went back to new york, so i'm pretty alone/bored now. i am seeing a french-brazilian guy named marcello, whom i conviniently failed to mention before... but since most of my french adventures now involve him, the truth must be told! we take a lot of artsy pictures like this:
and this:
i think paris is best in the summer... if it weren't for all the tourists.
i will probably have a couple other odd jobs throughout the summer; i may be a personal assistant/office worker, and will certainly function as the babysitting service for my company's clients who are burdened with children. my friend harry might be sending some english-teaching gigs my way as well. everything has come together very nicely in the past week!
my partner in new yorkaise crime julia went back to new york, so i'm pretty alone/bored now. i am seeing a french-brazilian guy named marcello, whom i conviniently failed to mention before... but since most of my french adventures now involve him, the truth must be told! we take a lot of artsy pictures like this:
and this:
i think paris is best in the summer... if it weren't for all the tourists.
Monday, May 28, 2007
tourisme
the new york times had an interesting article on tourism today. specifically, on europeans coming to america and pissing people off. as an adopted new yorker (and before that, briefly, a resident of washington DC), i have had my fair share of uncomfortable encounters with tourists: italians failing to tip me, spaniards pushing me to the ground in front of notre dame (no joke), japanese students asking for directions. in paris, it's mostly the americans who make asses of themselves. the other day, i saw some older americans walk by a gelato stand and point out that "the ice cream is all melted!" (they failed to realise that it wasn't ice cream, it was GELATO, which is softer and wetter and certaintly more delicious than ice cream). in DC, we would make fun of tourists who didn't understand the metro systems and who failed to realize that you STAND ON THE RIGHT and WALK ON THE LEFT up the escalators because WASHINGTONIANS ARE RIDICULOUSLY BUSY. in new york, it's mostly high schoolers with their parents who can't believe that times square actually exists - and that there's an applebees AND a red lobster in such close proximity!
of course, i am a bitter, cynical city dweller who sometimes forgets that life is different in the rest of the world. but seriously, people seem to feel bolder when they're in a new big city or a country whose language they don't understand. maybe this is because we know that we might be embarassed anyways, so we're more likely to do embarassing things in the first place. or maybe it's just the thrill of something new. of course i fall victim to this (you should have seen us in barcelona...) en tout cas, i try to be a good tourist, and i can't withhold my frustration with those who aren't.
yet for some bizarre reason i cannot explain, the tourism industry appeals to me. eco-tourism, specifically, because traditional tourism is so destructive and ignorant that i'd probably quit out of guilt. i guess i like the idea of introducing people to new things and showing them sights beyond their cultural borders. it's long-established that americans in particular are uninformed about the rest of the world, which is a sad sad thing i want to change. on the other hand, if i have to spend my life explaining that not every country watches american idol or that many languages besides english are spoken across the globe, i'd probably quit out of frustration and move to iceland.
one of the best quotes from the above article is this:
EVERY summer, people all over the world become acquainted again with a deep truth spoken by the philosopher-tourist Steve Martin.
He was speaking for tourists everywhere, not just to France, when he said: “Boy, those French, they have a different word for everything!”...
To be an ugly tourist is to miss the fundamental truth in Mr. Martin’s statement. “It is to have an overall lack of understanding that there is such a thing as cultural difference,” wrote Prof. Inga Treitler, the secretary for the National Association for the Practice of Anthropology, in an e-mail message.
this brings me to another phenomenon i first heard about in turkey, from an american who'd taught english in japan for several years. every year, about a dozen japanese tourists have to be emergency evacuated from paris due to "paris syndrome." since japanese culture is much more reserved and polite, particularly in comparison to the oh-so-rude french, some tourists - particularly young women on their first trip abroad - simply can't handle it. they go into shock after too many rebuffings by rude waiters, ticket vendors and normal parisians. the japanese embassy has a twenty-four hour hotline to help their nationals who just want to get the hell out of france. the BBC has a quick article on this here.
(i must also mention that i've found japanese tourists to be the worst in terms of pushing, shoving, and blocking my way through the louvre; they typically come in large groups and can't stop taking pictures of each other looking miserable with great works of art... i think the fact that they often travel with such enormous tour groups insulates them from the fact that there are other people around who are not japanese, many of whom actually live in paris!)
but seriously, isn't the whole point of tourism to see something new and different? who wants to go to the other side of the earth and encounter the same kind of people?
i guess that's why i think i'd be good in the tourism industry. i want to see new things and i want to tell people about them. aristocrats used to send their children on the "grand tour" of the mediterranean; i feel like we all need to take a grand tour of the rest of the world. and do it in a way that helps humanity instead of making us hate each other even more. (as a side note, the french really don't hate americans... they just hate george w. bush.)
of course, i am a bitter, cynical city dweller who sometimes forgets that life is different in the rest of the world. but seriously, people seem to feel bolder when they're in a new big city or a country whose language they don't understand. maybe this is because we know that we might be embarassed anyways, so we're more likely to do embarassing things in the first place. or maybe it's just the thrill of something new. of course i fall victim to this (you should have seen us in barcelona...) en tout cas, i try to be a good tourist, and i can't withhold my frustration with those who aren't.
yet for some bizarre reason i cannot explain, the tourism industry appeals to me. eco-tourism, specifically, because traditional tourism is so destructive and ignorant that i'd probably quit out of guilt. i guess i like the idea of introducing people to new things and showing them sights beyond their cultural borders. it's long-established that americans in particular are uninformed about the rest of the world, which is a sad sad thing i want to change. on the other hand, if i have to spend my life explaining that not every country watches american idol or that many languages besides english are spoken across the globe, i'd probably quit out of frustration and move to iceland.
one of the best quotes from the above article is this:
EVERY summer, people all over the world become acquainted again with a deep truth spoken by the philosopher-tourist Steve Martin.
He was speaking for tourists everywhere, not just to France, when he said: “Boy, those French, they have a different word for everything!”...
To be an ugly tourist is to miss the fundamental truth in Mr. Martin’s statement. “It is to have an overall lack of understanding that there is such a thing as cultural difference,” wrote Prof. Inga Treitler, the secretary for the National Association for the Practice of Anthropology, in an e-mail message.
this brings me to another phenomenon i first heard about in turkey, from an american who'd taught english in japan for several years. every year, about a dozen japanese tourists have to be emergency evacuated from paris due to "paris syndrome." since japanese culture is much more reserved and polite, particularly in comparison to the oh-so-rude french, some tourists - particularly young women on their first trip abroad - simply can't handle it. they go into shock after too many rebuffings by rude waiters, ticket vendors and normal parisians. the japanese embassy has a twenty-four hour hotline to help their nationals who just want to get the hell out of france. the BBC has a quick article on this here.
(i must also mention that i've found japanese tourists to be the worst in terms of pushing, shoving, and blocking my way through the louvre; they typically come in large groups and can't stop taking pictures of each other looking miserable with great works of art... i think the fact that they often travel with such enormous tour groups insulates them from the fact that there are other people around who are not japanese, many of whom actually live in paris!)
but seriously, isn't the whole point of tourism to see something new and different? who wants to go to the other side of the earth and encounter the same kind of people?
i guess that's why i think i'd be good in the tourism industry. i want to see new things and i want to tell people about them. aristocrats used to send their children on the "grand tour" of the mediterranean; i feel like we all need to take a grand tour of the rest of the world. and do it in a way that helps humanity instead of making us hate each other even more. (as a side note, the french really don't hate americans... they just hate george w. bush.)
Sunday, May 27, 2007
chômage
france has a national unemployment rate of about 10%. for certain age groups (under twenty-five), it's significantly higher, and for some other social groups, it's absolutely ridiculous (young men living from the suburbs with immigrant parents - up to 40% in some places).
i'm an immigrant too, albeit a white american one. plus, my student visa expires at the beginning of july... which isn't a problem in terms of living in france, but it might affect my ability to get a work visa for the whole summer. and then who's going to hire someone who can only work for one month?
getting work authorisation in itself is a pain. first i have to find someone who's willing to hire me. then, they need to give me a promesse d'embauche, basically a letter to the labour department saying they want to hire me. i bring this, along with my passport and some other papers, to the labour department in paris, who hopefully give me working papers.
the catch is that, at least according to this one restaurant owner who wanted to hire me, they probably won't give me a work visa that extends past my student visa. although i can stay as a tourist for up to ninety days without a visa, i can't work (legally). and finding something under the table is not as easy as i thought it would be (nor is it entirely safe). i'm having trouble finding a babysitting job, and besides, i'm not great with children anyways. i'm a good waitress, i speak english, and i have a charming smile. soooo why can't i find a job?
in other news, we climbed onto my roof the other night. they're replacing the roof and the facade of my building, waking me up with a wonderful pounding noise every morning - anyways, so there's a bunch of sturdy scaffolding outside my window just begging to be climbed. the sun was setting and we could see all the left bank monuments.
the pantheon and la sorbonne
la tour eiffel
having nothing to do in paris is really not so bad.
i'm an immigrant too, albeit a white american one. plus, my student visa expires at the beginning of july... which isn't a problem in terms of living in france, but it might affect my ability to get a work visa for the whole summer. and then who's going to hire someone who can only work for one month?
getting work authorisation in itself is a pain. first i have to find someone who's willing to hire me. then, they need to give me a promesse d'embauche, basically a letter to the labour department saying they want to hire me. i bring this, along with my passport and some other papers, to the labour department in paris, who hopefully give me working papers.
the catch is that, at least according to this one restaurant owner who wanted to hire me, they probably won't give me a work visa that extends past my student visa. although i can stay as a tourist for up to ninety days without a visa, i can't work (legally). and finding something under the table is not as easy as i thought it would be (nor is it entirely safe). i'm having trouble finding a babysitting job, and besides, i'm not great with children anyways. i'm a good waitress, i speak english, and i have a charming smile. soooo why can't i find a job?
in other news, we climbed onto my roof the other night. they're replacing the roof and the facade of my building, waking me up with a wonderful pounding noise every morning - anyways, so there's a bunch of sturdy scaffolding outside my window just begging to be climbed. the sun was setting and we could see all the left bank monuments.
the pantheon and la sorbonne
la tour eiffel
having nothing to do in paris is really not so bad.
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
elections
sarko and ségo posters are all over the city. royale's posters are mostly just a picture of her with the words "Presidentielle 2007;" sarkozy's generally say "Ensemble, tout devient possible" ("Together, everything becomes possible"). i'm not a huge sarko fan, and i found this altered poster online:
"TOGETHER
Without the poor, the foreigners, the RMI [a social program which gives money to the unemployed who are under 25], the Left, the extreme Left, the communists, the CDI [contrat à durée indéterminée, a open work contract for artisans, without a time limit to complete the work], the homosexuals, the intermittents [people who work in entertainment or art "in intermittence," alternate periods of work and unemployment, usually with a CDI], those who are HIV-positive, the handicapped, the Minister of Education, the Minister of Culture, independent journalists, the blacks, the arabs, the Noahs, the Thurams [two football players who are vocally opposed to Sarkozy], and the guy who screwed my wife [Sarkozy's wife apparently left him/had an affair before the elections and he won't talk about their relationship]...
EVERYTHING BECOMES POSSIBLE."
i showed this to my french friend marcello and he couldn't stop laughing.
also, sarkozy doesn't drink, at all, which for me is a reason in itself to be suspicious. seriously, a french person who won't have a glass of wine with dinner? what's up with that?
"TOGETHER
Without the poor, the foreigners, the RMI [a social program which gives money to the unemployed who are under 25], the Left, the extreme Left, the communists, the CDI [contrat à durée indéterminée, a open work contract for artisans, without a time limit to complete the work], the homosexuals, the intermittents [people who work in entertainment or art "in intermittence," alternate periods of work and unemployment, usually with a CDI], those who are HIV-positive, the handicapped, the Minister of Education, the Minister of Culture, independent journalists, the blacks, the arabs, the Noahs, the Thurams [two football players who are vocally opposed to Sarkozy], and the guy who screwed my wife [Sarkozy's wife apparently left him/had an affair before the elections and he won't talk about their relationship]...
EVERYTHING BECOMES POSSIBLE."
i showed this to my french friend marcello and he couldn't stop laughing.
also, sarkozy doesn't drink, at all, which for me is a reason in itself to be suspicious. seriously, a french person who won't have a glass of wine with dinner? what's up with that?
Thursday, April 26, 2007
travelling + international events
bonjour cheries! i haven't written in a while due to school, travel, and sitting in too many cafés. here's what's been going on lately:
- french university vacation was april 8-22, possibly the best two weeks of my short life. i went to istanbul, turkey, and barcelona, spain. amazing! there is so much to recount that i don't feel i can really do justice to these trips; instead i'll share some nice photographs and encourage you to visit for yourselves.
ISTANBUL
inside the aya sofia, built as a christian basilica in 530 AD, then transformed into a mosque, now simply an amazing museum.
whirling dervishes!
emily, julia, and myself: we are standing in europe, but across the bosphorus behind us is asia.
BARCEOLNA
the sagrada familia, antonin gaudí's unfinished masterpiece.
me high in the towers of the sagrada familia. my beautiful scarf is from turkey (although apparently the design is uzbek).
standing in the cold, cold mediterranean sea!
- the first round of the french presidential election was on sunday. (in france, the election has two rounds, possibly because there are so many candidates. the second round is in a few weeks.) nicolas sarkozy (of the current governing party, the UMP; center-right) and ségolène royal (of the socialist party, which i guess is sort of center-left in france) will advance to the next round. i'm sort of disappointed; i don't really think royal can win and i would have preferred françois bayrou to advance, but hey, it's not my country. sarkozy is liberal by american standards, but some of his rhetoric is slightly disturbing (in terms of immigration and "cracking down" on crime especially, i feel he's especially harsh) - and he's friendly with bush. sarkozy wants to liberalize the french economy (which is good! thirty-five hour work weeks are not the way to increase productivity); royal's program is sort of ambiguous. since politics is sort of deathly boring to me, i will direct you to wikipedia for a better explanation of the election than i can provide: French Presidential Election 2007
- across the pond, my home state of new hampshire has taken a step towards extending equal rights to homosexuals by approving civil unions in the senate. from the new york times:
"To me this legislation is a credit to our state. We're making this move not because some court some place is telling us that we must," said Democratic Sen. Joe Foster of Nashua. "We do so today because it is the right thing to do."
- in washington, both the house and the senate have approved a bill that sets a deadline for troop withdrawls from iraq. bush is set to veto it, of course; still, the bill shows that congress has regained some sense and is trying to fix what we've screwed up beyond belief. also from the times:
Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, said the measure is “the only way to make Iraqis take responsibility” for their own destiny. Mr. Kennedy said the president has been wrong all along on Iraq. “Now, he is wrong to threaten to veto this bill,” the senator said. “We cannot repeat the mistake of Vietnam.”
Another Democratic supporter, Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, said the conflict is “a war that never should have started, and on this president’s watch may never end” without a timetable for American withdrawal.
- and in my adopted home of new york, new york, our mayor bloomberg is working to green up the city by charging vehicules for driving below 86th street. i really believe nyc is a walking city and a subway city. and as the greatest city in the world, it is wonderful that new york is among the first places in the US to actually deal with its transportation problems. i love love love new york, but i don't love that it has the worst air quality in the country. the only part of the plan that makes me worry (and this is something the city will address) is the effect on people in the outer boroughs who have to drive into manhattan. perhaps the tax will be lower for registered new york workers? even better, the subway system and the eco-friendly bus fleet will be expanded to give those people better, easier, cheaper commutes? (there is progress on the second avenue subway, but that's in manhattan. another interesting article: this guy is working on his own easier-to-read version of the subway map; i had to have the system explained to me multiple times before i finally got in. now i mostly have it memorized.)
i'm sorry for the length of this post! but sometimes recounting my travels becomes a bit tiresome... plus, assuming anyone actually reads this anymore, hopefully some of you will check out those stories and think about what's going on.
à bientot!
- french university vacation was april 8-22, possibly the best two weeks of my short life. i went to istanbul, turkey, and barcelona, spain. amazing! there is so much to recount that i don't feel i can really do justice to these trips; instead i'll share some nice photographs and encourage you to visit for yourselves.
ISTANBUL
inside the aya sofia, built as a christian basilica in 530 AD, then transformed into a mosque, now simply an amazing museum.
whirling dervishes!
emily, julia, and myself: we are standing in europe, but across the bosphorus behind us is asia.
BARCEOLNA
the sagrada familia, antonin gaudí's unfinished masterpiece.
me high in the towers of the sagrada familia. my beautiful scarf is from turkey (although apparently the design is uzbek).
standing in the cold, cold mediterranean sea!
- the first round of the french presidential election was on sunday. (in france, the election has two rounds, possibly because there are so many candidates. the second round is in a few weeks.) nicolas sarkozy (of the current governing party, the UMP; center-right) and ségolène royal (of the socialist party, which i guess is sort of center-left in france) will advance to the next round. i'm sort of disappointed; i don't really think royal can win and i would have preferred françois bayrou to advance, but hey, it's not my country. sarkozy is liberal by american standards, but some of his rhetoric is slightly disturbing (in terms of immigration and "cracking down" on crime especially, i feel he's especially harsh) - and he's friendly with bush. sarkozy wants to liberalize the french economy (which is good! thirty-five hour work weeks are not the way to increase productivity); royal's program is sort of ambiguous. since politics is sort of deathly boring to me, i will direct you to wikipedia for a better explanation of the election than i can provide: French Presidential Election 2007
- across the pond, my home state of new hampshire has taken a step towards extending equal rights to homosexuals by approving civil unions in the senate. from the new york times:
"To me this legislation is a credit to our state. We're making this move not because some court some place is telling us that we must," said Democratic Sen. Joe Foster of Nashua. "We do so today because it is the right thing to do."
- in washington, both the house and the senate have approved a bill that sets a deadline for troop withdrawls from iraq. bush is set to veto it, of course; still, the bill shows that congress has regained some sense and is trying to fix what we've screwed up beyond belief. also from the times:
Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, said the measure is “the only way to make Iraqis take responsibility” for their own destiny. Mr. Kennedy said the president has been wrong all along on Iraq. “Now, he is wrong to threaten to veto this bill,” the senator said. “We cannot repeat the mistake of Vietnam.”
Another Democratic supporter, Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, said the conflict is “a war that never should have started, and on this president’s watch may never end” without a timetable for American withdrawal.
- and in my adopted home of new york, new york, our mayor bloomberg is working to green up the city by charging vehicules for driving below 86th street. i really believe nyc is a walking city and a subway city. and as the greatest city in the world, it is wonderful that new york is among the first places in the US to actually deal with its transportation problems. i love love love new york, but i don't love that it has the worst air quality in the country. the only part of the plan that makes me worry (and this is something the city will address) is the effect on people in the outer boroughs who have to drive into manhattan. perhaps the tax will be lower for registered new york workers? even better, the subway system and the eco-friendly bus fleet will be expanded to give those people better, easier, cheaper commutes? (there is progress on the second avenue subway, but that's in manhattan. another interesting article: this guy is working on his own easier-to-read version of the subway map; i had to have the system explained to me multiple times before i finally got in. now i mostly have it memorized.)
i'm sorry for the length of this post! but sometimes recounting my travels becomes a bit tiresome... plus, assuming anyone actually reads this anymore, hopefully some of you will check out those stories and think about what's going on.
à bientot!
Sunday, April 1, 2007
une visite à Chartres
on friday, we went to chartres for my medieval art class. chartres is the best-preserved gothic cathedral in france, about an hour south of paris by train. unfortunately, the day was rainy and dreary, so the cathedral was extra-dark and the stained-glass windows didn't have the effect they were intended too. (this also means most of my pictures turned out poorly.) but that just means i'll be returning during the summer!!
so here is the front of the church. at first it looks symmetrical, but if you look closer, you'll see that the north and south towers are uneven - the north tower was built first and the current cathedral was rebuilt after a fire in the 12th century.
we spent a long time examining the west portals, the details of which i will spare you... but this photo is from a depiction of the nativity: there are two (and a half) shepards and some little sheep!
the west windows above the portals. the shade of blue is only found in 12th-century glass; the technique has been lost and no one has been able to recreate it.
the labyrinth is in the center of the central nave and is closed most of the year. we were lucky enough to come when it was open, so of course we walked the maze. it's a meditative, spiritual experience: many of the people visiting chartres that day were not tourists but pilgrims.
one of the rose windows, on the north side of the transept. it depicts the "good kings" and "evil kings" of the old testament.
after lunch we walked around to the north side of the church and found some posters advertising playmobile models. clearly we got pretty excited.
these are statues on the columns of the north facade. it's crazy how detailed everything is; i love how the saints stand on top of these amusing little figures.
the shrine of the black madonna. the cathedral also houses a relic of mary, a blue cloth that was supposedly her tunic or robe... didn't get a photo of that though.
then we went down into the crypt, which dates from carolingian times. although most of the walls were re-painted in the nineteenth century, this fresco is about a thousand years old. awesome.
there's also a well in the crypt (which indicates that the site was in use long before the christian era). apparently i almost fell in...
in other news, spring has sort of arrived in paris - when it's not raining, that is. my two-week spring break is coming up in a week. i'm going to istanbul, turkey and barcelona, spain. i'm super excited because while i've been lucky to travel around france and parts of northern europe, i'm definitely ready for something different. i've never been inside a mosque, i haven't been to the beach in years, and i miss trying to speak spanish with my latin friends in nyc. plus, before i leave, i'll have a few days to bum around paris, hopefully in beautiful weather, reading and drinking coffee and generally living la vie en rose.
keep in touch!
so here is the front of the church. at first it looks symmetrical, but if you look closer, you'll see that the north and south towers are uneven - the north tower was built first and the current cathedral was rebuilt after a fire in the 12th century.
we spent a long time examining the west portals, the details of which i will spare you... but this photo is from a depiction of the nativity: there are two (and a half) shepards and some little sheep!
the west windows above the portals. the shade of blue is only found in 12th-century glass; the technique has been lost and no one has been able to recreate it.
the labyrinth is in the center of the central nave and is closed most of the year. we were lucky enough to come when it was open, so of course we walked the maze. it's a meditative, spiritual experience: many of the people visiting chartres that day were not tourists but pilgrims.
one of the rose windows, on the north side of the transept. it depicts the "good kings" and "evil kings" of the old testament.
after lunch we walked around to the north side of the church and found some posters advertising playmobile models. clearly we got pretty excited.
these are statues on the columns of the north facade. it's crazy how detailed everything is; i love how the saints stand on top of these amusing little figures.
the shrine of the black madonna. the cathedral also houses a relic of mary, a blue cloth that was supposedly her tunic or robe... didn't get a photo of that though.
then we went down into the crypt, which dates from carolingian times. although most of the walls were re-painted in the nineteenth century, this fresco is about a thousand years old. awesome.
there's also a well in the crypt (which indicates that the site was in use long before the christian era). apparently i almost fell in...
in other news, spring has sort of arrived in paris - when it's not raining, that is. my two-week spring break is coming up in a week. i'm going to istanbul, turkey and barcelona, spain. i'm super excited because while i've been lucky to travel around france and parts of northern europe, i'm definitely ready for something different. i've never been inside a mosque, i haven't been to the beach in years, and i miss trying to speak spanish with my latin friends in nyc. plus, before i leave, i'll have a few days to bum around paris, hopefully in beautiful weather, reading and drinking coffee and generally living la vie en rose.
keep in touch!
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