Medelanders

For the one non Dutch person and a half that reads this blog: I’m sorry, I tried to write this in English, but it just doesn’t work. Next time I’ll be writing in English again.
For one of those one non Dutch person and a half that reads this blog: It’s about time you start learning Dutch anyway... with your Canadian bek.

“Urk.”
“Urk?”
“Urk.”
“Dat moet een enorme overgang geweest zijn, Urk-Parijs.”
“Och.”
“Had je geen moeite met de befaamde Parijse stugheid in het begin?”
“Ach… weet je, ik sta ’s ochtends op. Ik ga aan het werk. Ik lunch, werk nog wat meer. Daarna eet ik wat. Ik lees wat en, hup… naar bed. Dat kan in Urk, dat kan in Parijs.
Wat studeer je?”

Je loopt door cartier Mouffetard, nog altijd als buitenlander, nog altijd opzoek naar die plekjes in jouw buurt die, als je ze maar vaak genoeg bezoekt, het jouw buurt maken. Het café om de hoek waar, voor de deur, altijd dezelfde accordeonist hetzelfde “J’ai deux amours” speelt. Het café waarvan de eigenaar je nog steeds niet groet, maar wel al je koffie klaar heeft staan op de bar terwijl je nog bezig bent de kapstok bij de ingang om te stoten. De sigarenboer twee stappen verder, waar a la Smoke de Franse mannetjes de ochtendkrant aan het bespreken zijn, en verstoord opkijken als je heel even de aandacht van de eigenares nodig hebt om je pakje rooie Gallies te kopen. De eigenares die al vijfentwintig jaar deze sigarenzaak runt¹. De eigenares die een bekender gezicht is bij je buurtgenoten dan de gezichten van hun eigen vrouwen en kinderen. De eigenares uit Urk.

“Uhm… Logi…Filosofie.” Als ik haast heb studeer ik liever geen logica.
“Goh, interessant.”
“Tja… Maar, waarom bent u naar Parijs verhuisd?”
“Ach, ik voel me hier wel gelukkig.”
“Is dat een verdienste van Parijs, of een verdienste van het verhuizen zelf?”
“Ach,” zuchtte ze, “ik vind dat iedereen het verdient om gelukkig te zijn.”
Ze keek even over mijn schouder om te zien of er geen andere mensen aan sigaretten geholpen moesten worden.
“Ben jij gelukkig?” Ging ze verder.
“Euhm… Ja,” antwoordde ik na een korte pauze.
“Mooi. Je kunt alleen wal wat slaap gebruiken zo te zien.”
“?... ” Na een iets langere pauze: “Nee, dat is normaal. Ik ben met een slaaptekort geboren.”
Ze verontschuldigde zich om twee geduldig wachtende klanten te helpen en nam afscheid met de woorden: “Maak je maar geen zorgen.”
Maak je maar geen zorgen? Terwijl ik me af vroeg waar ik me in godsnaam maar geen zorgen over moest maken, stootte ik de kapstok bij het café om de hoek om. Ik bestelde de koffie die al klaar stond. Ik genoot van de eerste peuk¹ van de dag en besloot dat ik Parijs zal gaan missen als ik weer terug in Amsterdam ben.

1: De spellingscontrole van Word vindt “runt” en “peuk” barbarismen. Ik vind Word een taalnazi.

Hutus and Tutsis on the subway

I was staring out of the window. Given that I’m not taking the metro I find this a pleasant way to pass the time. I was taking the metro. All I saw where electricity cables dancing up and down. I just finished another american can-do-attitude book. You know, self made man, lives a self made live with his self made familly. Life will automatically live up to your character, so stay positive, stay optimistic. Take any obstacles in live with a smile and you’ll see... you’ll be a better person at the other end of it. I keep on wondering why there are so many Americans in Paris. Maybe the counterpole effect realy does work.

At Stalingrad (the metro stop) an old lady was trying to get out. Though hunching, she seemed to be able to defend hereself quite well against the massive stream of striped sweathers and white earphones that entered the metro as soon as the doors opened. She didn’t even seem indignated by the fact that nobody made an effort of letting her pass to get out. Her, at least, seventy five year old body managed to bring forth an amazing force to push aside two rows of Parisians, and launch itself out of the metro before the doors closed again. A nice illustration of Darwins theory, if she wouldn’t be able to produce this kind of force she would never have survived taking the Parisian metro every day at her age.
A nice illustration, also, of the Parisian hardness. Which, I immediatly classified as such and added to the long list of comparable incidents that together form my image of the Parisians. An image that is altogether getting more and more negative. Way too negative.

I was about to be in the metro for another hour, and while being hypnotised by the dancing cables, I drifted of into my own world of thought.
I asked myself why I had such a bad image of the Parisians. It is not entirely unfounded: I had some really bad experiences, with people here. But does that ligimate my general opninion about Parisians? Of course it doesn’t. What I saw just now where ten or so people who where complete asses while entering the metro. It weren’t The Parisians. Probably half of this rampaging mob is as much Parisian as I am.
I’ve got an amazing talent for generalizing. Am I just another person that’s afraid of Maroccans because “they” violated a twelve year old girl? I’m not. But I’m afraid that the only reason I’m not is because I haven’t had any bad experiences myself with a Maroccan. Maybe witnessing one fight, one random act of violence of a Maroccan combined with the negative media attention could be enough to hate all of them.
I saw Hotel Rawanda yesterday. Could I, given the circumstances, be slaughtering of Tutsis because some belgium told me I’m a Hutu?

I started to become aware of the fact I was dreaming away. I wasn’t thinking any more, I was silently talking to myself. One of those moments where you’re aware of that you're thinking and that you’re thinking in a certain language, or due to being away from my home country and native language for so long, thinking in three certain languages.
Any philosopher that claims that language and thought are three completely uncorraleted dimensions in the coneptual world is wrong. I find it hard to argue for it, but just get immersed into a foreign language for a while and you just know it’s wrong. It’s... no wait, one thought at a time... I was talking... thinking... about... prejudice... right...
Could I, given the circumstance... be on the wrong metro line.. fuck. How did I wind up taking line six. There was a point of time I was on line five. Nevermind, it might be easiest to get of here and walk back home.

Outside the metro station I noticed it was raining. Mainly because I was getting wet. I asked at the kiosk if I could have a plastic back to protect the book I was carrying around.
The guy took his time to think this over, without even once looking at me he threw a plastic back over the counter. He never spoke, the only sign of interaction was the plastic back itself: I needed a plastic bag. I got a plastic bag. Some form of communication must have taken place. But, I would have gotten a better feeling from a bag distributing machine that kicks you in the nuts while explaining that your life amounts to nothing, youth is as fleething as the fresh snow on the periferique at 6 p.m. and in the end we’ll all die alone.

Why are Parisians like that? It’s as if they feel that they earned the right to treat you like shit as soon as they’re doing you a favour, combined with the necesity to use every right they can get there hands on (you never know when the next one will stop by).
Stop. Wait... It’s not Parisians. It’s this particular guy. He was treating me unfriendly. You’ll never see him again. Add nothing to you’re list. If you can’t bring yourself to live in peace with the Parisians, you can be the Palastin that hates the Israelians, or the Israelian that hates the Palastin or the Hutu hating the Tutsi or the European hating the moslims or the misanthrope hating all of them. It’s the first turn in the negative spiral that brings forth wars and gonicides.
Maybe I could take the example from the American attitude. With their positivism, which is so easy to be found naive and superficial, they force themself into liking people, liking their lives, liking their surrounding. They take the same spiral. But they force themselves against all laws of nature into the other direction. It might be unnatural and exhausting, but it seems to work. There are living a lot of Amaricans here, and they seem to be liking it.
On the other hand they seem to be a part of those wars and genocide an awfull lot. And they don’t seem to be able to smile an you-can-end-it-if-you-really-want-to kind of end to the wars. Maybe becouse they really don’t want to.

Anyway, what the hell am I doing at Boulevard de Tolbiac? Maybe I should have concentrated on taking the right direction before my mind started wandering. In this direction it’s still about 40.000 km to my house. Let’s try the metro again.
I tried the metro. Bleep. Click. I passed the tourniquettes of the station. Another click. Now I was standing outside again but at the other side of the street.
I really should concentrate on trying to get home. It’s not that difficult. Just decide the direction, keep the name in your mind, follow the signs till you arrive at a platform. Wait till the metro stops in front of you. Open a door and get in. It’s not that hard. You did it before, you can do it again.

Entering the station for the second time, I had to jump over the tourniquettes since I already used my ImagineR card two minutes before at the same station. Alarms went of. Nobody seemed to notice. It’s Paris. I followed the signs. I set the alarm of my phone (the Metro will be arriving in 3 minutes, 4 stops, 1.5 minutes per stop, that makes 3+4*1.5 is 9 minutes, let’s say 8 to be sure. In 8 minutes I’ll have to get of the metro). The alarm went off exactly as we rolled into Censier-Daubenton wich happend to be my stop.

Two minutes later I found myself in front of the fresh meat section of the supermarket next to my house, pondering again.
It’s just that the list of bad experiences outstand the list of of good ones with ease. But then a again, maybe I’m just reading the French wrong. If I can take dr. Phills word for it, most conflicts start because of miscommunication. Maybe the French I’ve learned here only allowes me to miscummunicate very well. If you learn rules of engagement as a part of language rather then of culture and personality it would be easier to internationally get along. We would have to revise some parts of the french-english dictionaries a bit with entries like:

- “N’est pas mon problème, quoi?” – “I’m terribly sorry, but I’m not in the position to help you”

- “Les francais sont geniales!” – “Nice to meet you too”

- “” – “Thanks”

- “” – “Sorry”

- “” – “Goodbye”

In the end it’s all a matter how you’re raised to interpret what you see. A parisian that drinks his coffee every morning at the same bar for the last twenty years and still gets his change tossed at him while the waiters eyes are following the pair of legs that just entered the bar doesn’t seem to be offended in the least. He must be perceiving this situation differently. He might find the waiter very polite because he cautiously didn’t block the view on the legs so that they can enjoy them together. A form of politeness I’d never notice (i’d be too occupied with those legs)...

I must have been staring at the meat for about ten minutes before someone said: “Can I help you sir?” It was the smallest person I’ve ever seen in my life. The fact that she was hunching didn’t really help. The fact that she was seventy something even less. She hardly arrived at my waist. I was struggeling to clear my mind and say something back. What was I doing here? Meet... Eat... I wanted to make a salade.... oh yes: “Bacon!” I thought. “Bacon,” I kind of mumbled. And for as much as I mumbled it in any language in particular, I mumbeled it in English.

“Ah yes bacon...” She spoke very articulatly. Clearly she was making an effort for me as foreighner to be easy to understand. “... There are three kinds of bacon here. This one is by far the cheapest, but I could recomend you to invest a bit more in the bacon from Fleuri. It’s not as salty, the taste is much more subtle. Trust me, it’s worth the investment.” She smiled.

I took the Fleuri bacon. I still had a hard time dealing with this kind of human interaction after an hour and a half of living in my own world. I managed to mumble something like “Thanks beaucoup” or “Danke lot” or something otherwise confused. Maybe I didn’t even say it, but just thought it. I don’t know.

She parted with a toothless smile. Not showing any form of displeasment. But she must have thought something like “Tipically Dutch, this kind of bluntness”. Or maybe it’s just me who would have thought it in her place.

Do you speak English?

Yesterday I got up at eight. Then I went to the bakery, I was hungry. Then I realised I was out of coffee, so I got one at a bar on my way back. Then, I started studying. Then I had lunch. I had a ham, letuce and mayonaise sandwich. Then I continued studying. Then I went to the university to make the exam. I think I passed. Then I was so tired I went straight back to bed after.

Can I now write nonsense again?

---------------------------------

“Do you speak English?”
“Yes! Wall Street English!”
I was staring at the advertisment for at least ten minutes before it hit me: I don’t speak Wall Street English. Fuck.

“Are you rich?” The advertisement asked, with a surpringly dark, deep voice.
“Euhm... you're talking to me...?”
“Yes.”
“But you're a poster.”
“Thanks for reminding me. You’re tall.”
“Right.”
“Are you rich?”
“Eurhm... no...”
“You want to be free to do anything you want...”
“Yes!”, he read my mind.
“You know what you need for that?”
“A stamp? A signature? An iPod? Be one with everything?”
“Money.”
“Oh...”
“Do you have money?”
“Let me see, I’ve got ten euros and another... two... three... three thirty in change.”
“No I mean real money. Are you rich?”
“Euhm.... no...”
“So you’re not free.”
“Oh...”
“Do you know wo are rich?”
“Bill Gates? The queen of England? People that have money? People....”
“Wall Street people!” He interupted with a voice I would imagine would give god himself the creeps. “And, you know why?”
“Because there parents were rich enough to pay for their Ivy league education? Because they decided to play the game of....”
“Because they speak Wall Street English!”
His thundering voice was getting me a bit dizzy. My thoughts were getting less and less coherent.
“Oh... that’s all?”
“Yes!”
“But isn’t it that...”
“No!”
“Oh...”
“So, you still want to be free?”
“Yes, yes”
“So you’ll have to be, what?”
“Rich(?)” I replied, not entirely sur I got it right.
“Very good.” He gave me a slight pause to enjoy my progress in understanding the world of economics, before he continued: ”So what kind of English do you have to speak to be rich?”
“euhm........ Wall Street English?”
“Very, very, good!” I started to enjoy it. I started to understand.
“So,” he asked, “Do you speak Wall Street English?”
“euhm... no.”
“Do want to learn it?”
“Does that mean I’ll be...”
“Free! Yes!”
“In that case: Yes.”
“Very good! Did you know it’s very easy to learn?”
“No.”
“It is.”
“Do you want to know how you can learn...” he let a dramatic pause, “... Wall Street English.”
“Yes, yes, yes....” I said, getting more and more anxious.
“You got a pen?”
“Yes”
“You’re sure you want to be free, rich, happy and loved by all for the rest of your life?”
“Yeeees!”
“Well then: Write down this phone number: +31 10 12 32 32 10. Call during week days between 9h00 and 12h00 or between 14h00 and 19h00. 97% of our clients is satisfied.”
“How did you measure that?”
“97% of our clients is satisfied!”, He repeated impatiently.
“Sorry... So I call this phone number and then?”
“You’ll be free.”
“Wow!”
“Indeed.”
“Thanks.”
He didn’t reply any more. Wile getting of the metro, I heard someone next to me say: “You’re talking to me?”. I nodded (yes he is talking to you).
I entered the metro confused about my life, lost... so many choises. Will I be persuing an acadamic carreer? What will I be? Will I be rich? Will I be handsome?
Now, I have a goal in life. And soon, I’ll be free. I changed the tune on my iPod and danced back home. Studying seemed so futile all a sudden.

Swing de nul

Since one of my best friends visited me for a weekend in Paris (which was really great and I’ll tell more about when I’m going to really write something in my blog. Life is great here and I eventually wanna tell you guys all about it, but not today. And, really I’m sorry I have’t written any mail for such a while. I will, soon, but not today).
So anyway, where was I? Right... since one of my best Friends visited me, I’ve got my personal soundtrack. Dogma 95 banned the use of soundtrack from films to make them more life like. Apple uses a reversed strategy to bring real life and film more into accordance.

The soundtrack came in the form of a small white box with a color display into which Steve Jobs compressed, using highly advanced technology, everything wrong with capitalism. I filled it with 23.6 hours of music (which is only a fraction of it’s capacity).
Now, when it rains, Chet Baker sings me home.
When I’m doing my homework, Schumann isolates me from the world around me.
When I' m walking down Barbes, Alpha Blondy keeps me at the right pase.
When I’m staring the beautiful girl I met over here in the eyes, Al Green whispers the words in my ear that I’m thinking but don’t dear to say.
When I’m feeling on top of the world, Michael Franti tells me why.
And when I'm runing around the Champs du Mars, I do it twice as fast, thanks to the Lola Rennt soundtrack.

The only thing that’s missing is the scratch of the needle every time I run into a lamp post.

May 1968

“But why? Why is France so bureaucratic? How did it get like this? Why did it stay like this?” I know, I know, I know, more bureaucracy. I’ll try to stop it, but as long as France keeps on bugging me with hopelessly complicated, redundant, circular and nontransparent rules, I’ll keep on complaining about it.I posed the questions in many states of despair to many French around me. A common reaction is: “It’s the downside of being a socialistic country. It’s not perfect, but c’est la France...” finished off with the kind of smile that also tends to accompany the phrase: “We (the French) are the last Europeans that don’t speak English.”
Another favourite is: “It might seem like a problem to you, as a foreigner, but on the other hand, it makes the French more resilient to bureaucracy.” Like solving sudokus teaches you solving sodokus. Only, with sudokus some people get some kind of satisfaction out of solving them. If there’s anyone getting some kind of satisfaction out of filling out papers, getting the signed, stamped, lost, found, forgotten, lost again, remembered, forgotten once more and finally send back because he put the house number in front of the street name, it’s either me or him getting of this planet. He can bring his leather mas, whip, cuffs and chains along with him.
And, this is what most students (the same kind of people that say that having a common enemy during the initiation period, makes the bonding process ,ore effective) have to say about it:
“After 68 the modern social system was introduces at once which left very little time to refine it.” (Note that the word “refine” here is to be interpreted as it is used in phrases like “Maybe we could refine the cooling system of the nuclear power plant in Tjernbobil a bit.” or “I should refine my orthography.”) Anyway, however it is to be interpreted, very little time was left for it, so: “The system initially imposed was overly complicated. It was overly complicated to the extend that it became to difficult to change it. It’s basically a card house. Nobody dears to touch it out of fear it will collapse.” This seems like a good argument not only because it involves the second most popular number in France (It’s only preceded by it’s successor), but also because it seems more or less to agree with the historical data. It does answer: “Why did it stay like this?” But what about: “How did it get like this?”. Because, though superficially this question seems to be answered, there always appears to be a to perfectly tailored catch-22 for any desire, hope or will to change anything.

My guess is that there is something more profound going on. What we have on our hands here, might be the perfect system, the most elegant construct ever begotten by men. Maybe its flawed appearance, as ultimate cloak, is the clearest evidence for its total perfection. Rather than (self) appointing a dictator to rule France (with all the flaws a dictator generally has, like vanity, mortality, erratic behavior, name it), ”they” (and by “they” I mean all of “them”) created an eternal set of rules to govern the country. Of course those rules can change and by that are not inherently eternal. So, they came up with a set of meta-rules to prevent the original rules to be changed. Similarly, those meta-rules them selves are protected by meta-meta-rules. In the end they found a mathematician with a nick for infinities prepared to finish the job. To make further discussing easier let’s call this juridical-mathematical work of art “IT”.
IT allows for democracy, because, though IT is ruling like a despot, it cannot be called so, since common definitions require a despot to be a person. Besides, the practical part of ruling is still carried out by IT’s democratically elected marionettes like Chirac. Blaming IT for anything is pointless. Objections like: “It is wrong,” or “It is unfair,” will just be answered, by patient cop holding out the fine, with: “You’re entirely right sir, but IT’s the rules.” And, since IT only exists distributed over the minds of all civil servants, there is no way of destroying it without either killing all civil servants (which means 80% of the French population) or reason with them (which has long been proven impossible). IT has many faces. To name some of them: the CAF, the CROUS, Tolbiac, the woman at the counter of La Poste habitually shaking “no” and of course her well raised eight year old, patiently explaining his class mates that in order to use the Lego they really have to visit the dean’s office first with an identity card and two pass photos. Obviously, IT’s flawed appearance ensures that anyone trying to find evidence for IT will have a task so complicated, he’ll most likely lose his mind. Even if he doesn't lose his mind, he’ll bore everybody that’s interested to death with the gathered information. I’m sorry. I’ve got to go now. The nice men in the white suits have arrived. We’re going for a nice long walk. Yes… a long walk… that would be nice… happy… happy……..

Bright lights, big city

Hmm.... where was I going again?... Bank…right, that’s it…ah, green light…AH! What was that?….bike…maybe my son was right, I should go to a retirement home… I’m eighty something anyway… what was it? Eighty-two? Everything goes so fast here….. AH! Hell, another bike… they’re just ignoring the red light…but it’s not me, that is to old, damn it…it used to be different in my days… there’s another going through red light… this doesn’t stand….no retirement home yet…I’ll make a stand….
“Hey!…euhmmm… rascal! It’s a red light!”

God damn it, that is the fourth time somebody thinks I’m color blind. I know it’s a red light, gramps. And that’s a green car, and that’s a blue, well... gray, sky. Thanks for language class, but I got my colors covered in French, by now. It was an, except for you, completely abandoned pedestrian crossing. I’m sure it used to be different in your days. By now we’ve learned not to follow the laws for the sake of following the laws. They’re subject to reevaluation in every context, especially if that context is lacking any representative of the law enforcing police. Now I never took any ethics classes, but my pre-philosophical intuition tells me…. AH! WTF! Another car ignoring the red light. I know there wasn’t any traffic, but he scared the shit out of me. Why are Parisians such conards in traffic?

No post today

I'm still having some problems with getting connected. The first two weeks here the computer lab was closed because they were busy trying to install WiFi. (I'm not even going to bother comenting on that.) It opened a couple of days ago. So, I expected to be able to use wifi now. After spending a whole day plugging and unplugging my laptop in every forgotten corner, the only thing I found was that half the power outlets don't work in this building. Someone told me he had a connection at the toilet, unfortunately I cannot plugin my laptop over there. Though, it does explain the long queues at the tiolets.
I gave up on the wireless, yesterday. Today, with renewed spirit, I brought my memory stick to the university. I went to the computer lab. Which was less easy then it sounds, if you consider that it's hidden away in the basement. I wasn't entirely sure whether the door leading to the stairs wasn't an emregency exit. Since I'm not entirely sure about anything here, I tried it anyway. The door opened to a hallway with unmarked doors, about six at each side. I walked down the hallway looking for something sugesting the existence of the computer lab. Nothing sugested anything. As I started to find it more likely to run into a, by the ethical commision disaproved of, expiriment rather than anything resembeling a computer I decided to turn around. Though on my way back I realised I heared the fimiliar buzzing of a computer park. With opening the door that I located as the source, I was surprised to find the system admin telling me I indeed found the computerlab. By then, I was less surprised by the fact I was the only student there and I already expected that I had to fill out a form to be able to use a PC.
Finally I parked myself behind the one PC that was so modern to have a USB port. I inserted my memory stick. Opened my blog updates. Let the computer crash, reboot, reread my memory stick, to find the stick to be completely empty.
Of course I'm lacking any backup. (I know, I cannot blame Paris for everything.)
Still not being discouraged I retyped one of the posts I had ready. It only took me half an hour. Not to bad, considering the fact I'm using a French keyboard. I finished it, let the coputer crash, reboot, reopen my document...
After trying to breath regularly for about 15 minutes, now, I find myself here writing this post.
Sorry guys, no update today, Instead a highly frustrated and depressed Simon.

P.S.
Anybody who's been asleep for the last twenty years and completly missed out on the digital revolution, here is an explanatory word list:
WiFi: wireless internet connection (Quite neet if it works).
Internet: The thing you're using right now.
Memory stick: A neet little storage device, who's name seems kind of ironic to me at the moment.
USB port: The thing where you put your memory stick.
Sorbonne: A body that's been asleep for the last twenty years and completly missed out on the digital revolution.

Bavards

As a student in Paris, there's a lot of people you've got to see to get information, to get stamps, to get signatures, to get an overall feeling of being completely lost in the Capital of bureaucracy. An other entry about bureaucracy? Not, quite. An entry about the people behind it. The face behind the stamp. The frown behind the "non".

Parisians seem to nothing but talking all day. You can be the first in line at bakery and still be waiting for your croissant for half an hour. It all the depends on how animated the previous customer can talk about the weather. And, every time the conversation seems to die out, and it will only be a matter of seconds before you'll have your croissant, either one will just make last closing remark and skillfully make it a bridge to the next topic of conversation.

But, as soon as the talking is work related the Parisians change philosophy. My guess is they want to get paid as much as the can per spoken word. So they'll confine themselves to saying only the absolutely necessary.
Today I had to print a document at the "fac". I didn't see any printers standing around. So I decided to first go up to the system administrator and ask where I can print.
"Well here," He said, pointing at a device that could indeed be a printer (given some time, duck tape and imagination).
"So can I use it?"
He nodded.
"Can you load the paper?"
"You've got to do it yourself."
"Where is the paper?"
"You've got to provide it yourself. You didn't bring paper?"
Mental note: In Paris it's assumed you're carrying around blank printing paper at all times.
"No, I entirely forgot about that this morning. I was in a big hurry, leaving the house. Could you tell me where I can find some?"
He shrugged his shoulders. I guess it meant no.
"You are the system administrator, right?"
He shrugged his shoulders. I guess it meant yes.
"How often do you get people asking you where you can find paper?"
He looked puzzled for a couple of seconds, before responding:
"A couple of times a week."
"It's a tough job isn't it?" I asked.
He shrugged his shoulders. I don't know what it meant.
After that he walked away, looking very busy. I went to the Internet cafe around to corner and paid two euros for a cup of reasonable coffee and my print.

Pictures

And for the five remainging minutes on this computer, let me show you some pictures of the dinner we had last Friday with some Erasmus students. Having enjoyed many photo sesions of friends after hollidays, I'm completely aware of the fact that this is more interesting for me then for you guys. Just take comfort in the fact that you can just skip them right now, and it will save you a long night of watching photos for when I come back. BTW, firefox seems to have difficulties loading the images. If there's less then four pictures, try to refresh the page.

Anna (Barcelona), Angel (Valencia) and Aloma (Bracelona) drinking "agua de valencia".

Never give an Austrian absinte and a light. (meet Stefan)

Aloma and Blanca (Zaragoza) completely unaware of the fact that I'm taking their picture.

Mihoko (some place close to Tokyo) and Anna.

And now for something completely different

So far I’ve not been very positive about Paris. The Negative is, as always, more grateful writing material then The Positive. However it doesn’t reflect my general feelings about Paris well at all. So, I’ll dedicate this entry entirely to everything good about being in Paris, if only to retain the balance of my blog’s Karma.

First of all, I’ve got to mention I’m really living in a Parisian cliché. I’m living in a small studio on the sixth floor without an elevator. If I look down from my window, (while holding my coffee in the one hand and a Gauloises in the other) I see an elderly lady on the second floor leaning out of her window to exchange on the top of her voice a recipe for something containing copious amounts of chocolate and butter with an even older lady (with hearing problems, I assume) leaning out of a window at the other side of the little courtyard. Then when I look up I have a free shadow play of a couple living behind the ever closed curtains at my level of the opposing building. Then the rest of view is nothing much to speak of, since it’s entirely blocked by the Eiffel Tower. With the millennium change they covered it with sparkling lights. As the French are the French they failed to ever take it down, so now it’s providing me with a spectacular light show every our of the night.
If Spielberg would have made a film located in Paris, he would have used my room. It’s dripping from every kind of French cheese. Since I like films as Love Actually and Saving Private Ryan for all the wrong reasons, this kind of cheese is good cheese to me.

Speaking about films, one of the greatest things in Paris is the abundance of about everything cultural. Ever missed a film because it didn’t come to any theatre near you, as they promised it would? It won’t happen here. As I didn’t have to time to respond to most of the emails (I’m sorry about that), you can imagine I didn’t have time to count all the cinemas here, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s more of them here than in New York. If you’re not interested in sitting in the cinema, trying to keep up, all the time (I actually only saw one film so far, but more about that later), there’s always a concert of whatever kind of music tickles your fancy. There are more bookshops less then two hundred meters away from the Sorbonne then in the entire Amsterdam. There’s a museum for every fart of history in some part of town. Every first Sunday of the month you can visit any museum for free. And students can enter for free at some more specific days. I forgot which, though.
Well, I can go on like this for while, but most of you have been to Paris and know what I’m talking about. This city just yells out “metro pole” every time you look up from your kir.
Everybody in Amsterdam says it all the time, but nobody actually believes it: Amsterdam is a village. It’s true.

Then there’s the University. In Amsterdam, Logic is considered part of math, so we’re tugged away in the smallest, ugliest, cheapest building with some pencils and a blunt sharpener. Here at the Sorbonne we’re part of the philosophy department, which means that all my classes are in the main building. This was build in… well I don’t know really… but at a time where we’re still trying to figure out how to keep our houses from sinking away all the time. It’s big. It’s pompous. It has got Latin inscriptions. It has got a big statue in the middle of the spacious courtyard of someone I’ve still got find out of who he really is. It’s breathing history. It’s… just great to be studying there. It almost makes you forget that you’re still only getting some pencils and a blunt sharpener.

And then to come back to the one film I’ve seen: Paris, je t’aime. I hope for you it does come to a theatre near you. It’s a great movie… and it’s true.

Next time I’ll promise to be more sarcastic again.

A bikers guide to Paris.

If you happen to find yourself on a bike in Paris one day and waking up doesn’t make the nightmare go away, you might find my Paris biking 101 useful:

- Avoid going to Montparnasse or Montmartre or anything with “mont” in the name, unless you’re training for the Tour de France. They put that word “mont” in there for a reason.
- Double the time you think you need by bike. You’ll be surprised how slow a bike can be if you have to respect the sens unique. Even when it’s not suicidal to ignore them, the police will happily make you turn around even if it’s only two meters before the end of the street.
- Never assume cars see you pointing the direction you intend to go. Most of you might vaguely remember having learned that you should stick out your hand in the direction you intend to go. Most of you probably can count all of the times you actually did so on the hand still holding the handlebars. In Paris it’s imperative. But, they’ll only see you if you manage to block there entire view with your hand, forcing them to stop and give you free passage.
- Never assume that your map is correct. (BTW, I’m still convinced it’s not the map but it’s Paris that is wrong)
- Never assume that cars see you at all, even if you have a pink mohawk decorated with Christmas lights.
- Never assume they’ll stop. They won’t.
- Never assume green is safe. It isn’t.
- In fact, never assume that traffic lights have any significant meaning at all in Paris.
- In fact, your better off letting go off all assumptions you had, including those conveying the physical properties of the world. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve temporarily switched off gravity at certain cross roads.
- And if you happen to catch the sight of a big arc at the end of a big road that starts at a big building that contains the not so big painting of a girl that is confused about her emotions (or at least confuses it’s audience with it) of one of the biggest artists not alive, turn around and peddle for you life. Otherwise you’ll be sucked in and be helplessly orbiting around it till sun sets and traffic slows down.

For a last helpful note:
- If you happen to indeed take the bike around in Paris and you find that the people are friendly nodding at you, maybe even smiling, realizing you’re working on your health and the environment at the same time by taking a bike instead of one of those dangerous, ugly and polluting cars, try the waking up thing once more; you’re indeed dreaming.

Smoke

I had a coffee this morning. Sitting in front of my window looking at the Eiffel Tower, cigarette in my right hand, Camus laying next to me on the table. Just give me a couple of weeks more and I’ll be wearing turtle necks and eating andouille. I’ve been away for about two weeks and it already feels I haven’t seen Amsterdam for years. I’ve done so much in the last two weeks that I can’t think of anything to write. I’ve mostly been speaking French here, which is to say that I’ve mostly been talking about the weather.

Apart from the weather as most accessible subject for all the Erasmus students a popular subject is the level of bureaucracy over here. As you might know France is one of the most social countries of the world. About everything is free for students and there’s all kinds of government support for the less wealthy here. There’s only one problem: The government can’t pay for all of this. Fortunately even amongst the French civil servants there are some practical thinkers, so they came up with a solution. They either make it logical impossible to get any of this support or they make requesting it so tedious and involved that people get depressed and commit suicide. Of course in the later case, according to article “E14-001-MOR-XX23” otherwise known as the green clause, the citizen in question looses all right on governmental support.
Those of you who ever saw the Asterix cartoon “Les 12 Travaux” know what I mean.
Those of you who ever read Catch-22 know what I mean.
Those of you who ever read Kafka know what I mean (well… I didn’t actually, but mentioning it just has more of an intellectual air then Asterix).
To give you an example: Doing sports at the university is entirely free. The only thing you need is to enroll before the 2nd of October. Well, obviously you need to have a student card.
I’ll get my student card… October 2. Suppose I’ll be able to get my card at 15:00, take the metro to the other side of town, climb 8 stories (the elevators in this building are just for personnel) and find office D300 at wing K before 16:00 (which is the ultimate deadline to enroll for any sportive activity), they’ll remind me that I still need my doctors approval. Fortunately, as an Erasmus student you can get a doctors declaration for free. You just make an appointment with the University Medical Department and they will give you one. Oh right… they’ll be back from holidays at the 7th of October.
Now suppose I’ve forged this doctors thingy and I arrive in time in possession of my student card, then they’ll be happy to tell me, in the kind of French where they decided that half the words of a French sentence are redundant an therefore ignored as well as half the letters of every word they do consider important enough, that I failed to bring my Pedagogic Something Something Declaration. So far I haven’t been able to find out what it is, where you can get it and let alone where on earth they need it for.
I guess I’ll stick to running my bi-daily tour de Champs du Mars.
You might be able to imagine my frustration arranging, house rental support, electricity, a student pass, enrolling for courses, a language course, a invitation to the welcome drink, getting them to send a proof of my enrolment to my home university, a banking account and some formalities I don’t even know what they really are.
Of course this is only one side of life in Paris, a really big side, a really ugly side. But, a side that is easily overlooked when you’re sitting in the park enjoying a whine and cheese during the last gasp of summer in the company of the other Erasmus students that are just as exited as you to share their first impressions of Paris.
Of course, to live up to the name of Erasmus students, we’ve been going out with a lot of people, almost every night. Going out in Paris is mostly restricted by the metro timetable and money. If you do something you’ve either got to go home before midnight or after 6am. Bars close fairly early here, so the later is only possible if you go clubbing. Which I could very much recommend against if you care to hang on to you’re kidneys and liver a little bit longer.
I'm still busy getting settled here. This means that I'm either running around with papers desperately waiting for a stamp or signature or I'm running around to meet up with people. Which leaves me very little time to respond to emails or update this blog. Oh well...

Eindelijk een blog

Het is er toch van gekomen. Ik heb een Blog. Ik beloof geen regelmatige updates. Ik beloof zelfs niet dat dit niet het laatste bericht is. Maar, ik heb een Blog.

Nu nog druk bezig met de voorbereidingen, vertrek ik binnenkort naar Parijs. Ik heb op dit moment nog geen beurs, geen apartement, geen officiele toelating en geen geld. Over vier weken is dit allemaal geregeld. Right... Als je de rest van je leven gelukkig wilt zijn, vergeet die goede baan, dat mooie huis, vrouw en kinderen. Het enige wat je hoeft te doen is voorkomen dat je ooit iets moet regelen in Frankrijk.

Eenmaal in Parijs zal ik hier proberen bij te houden, waar de beste croissants, coffee en vrienden te krijgen zijn.

Ik denk dat ik de rest van deze Blog in het Engels ga bijhouden, al was het maar om het statistisch voordeel dat dit opleverd, wat betreft lezerspubliek.