I realize that probably half of what I say is about the language barrier, but it’s because a) it is the common denominator of everything that happens to me here and 2) it is something I never understood the depth of until I was living in it. When people ask me what’s so spectacular about Paris, why I enjoy living here so much, I never feel that I can adequately answer. How can I encapsulate all the fun and magic and beauty and fabulousness that fills this place in one or two sentences? It’s somehow worse when Parisians ask me, because then not only am I doing it in my second language, but to them, Paris is just where they live. It would be like someone spouting to me how wonderful it is to live close to the beach– I agree, but to me it is nothing special, it’s just a fact of life, because that is where I grew up.
So what do I say when they ask? The same thing every time. "I love Paris because it’s like everything here is a grand adventure just waiting to be had; nothing is simple, nothing can ever go as planned, it is always much more glorious and much more complicated (and thus much more hilarious) than life anywhere else." I’ve come to understand my life in Paris as a product of the language barrier: multiply a normal 21-year-old by another language in another country, and there you have it. Because it seems that, in Paris, I only ever understand somewhere between 65% and 75% of what is happening. I am completely ok with that, which is what makes it weird. Because when you factor in my lack of knowledge of what’s going on and add that to the different culture, you end up with... well, adventure. And I love that about living here. Once I came to grips with the fact that everything will take longer and I generally won’t understand why, things came to be much more interesting.
But sometimes I have to remind myself of how much I love that. Like today. First of all, I left the US a week ago, but since all I have had to do since then is hang out with my friends and go shopping, I haven’t really bothered getting back on Paris time. It is difficult to get adjusted when flying East (much worse than when going West, particularly if one doesn’t sleep on the plane), and to really do it requires wandering catatonically for several days until your body gives up on catching up and just starts over. I hate that feeling, so I tried to do it gradually. I realized today that I have done a horrible job and am, in fact, not living on Paris time, but not on US time either– I’ve invented my own time zone, somewhere neither North America or Europe, and I think now that I have made this mess, I should just be locked in a pitch black room for 30+ hours and then be woken up one morning just in time for sunrise. Anyway, that is subsidiary to the real story of today:
Last night I had a church thing and didn’t make it home until midnight, which was fine, but this morning I was supposed to be awake at 7am to get ready for class. This should have been fine, but I couldn’t fall asleep. So at like 130am I gave up trying, turned on my computer, and watched Willy Wonka (the new version), which did nothing for me except convince me that I have been doing a terrible job on my Johnny Depp quest. (What quest, you may be asking, to which I respond, The same quest any woman would be on when put for 10 months in the same country as Jack Sparrow. I want to meet him. He lives here somewhere, it can’t be that difficult, right?) Anyway, after the movie I laid back down and still couldn’t sleep– the last time I looked at the clock, it was 5am. So I somehow wrestled myself out of my warm bed this morning at the crack of dawn.
7am: Alarm goes off, I hit snooze. ("I’ll just hurry.")
710am: Alarm. Snooze. ("I won’t straighten my hair.")
720am: Alarm. Snooze. ("I won’t wash my hair."
735am: Alarm. Snooze. ("I won’t shower.")
750am: Alarm. Snooze. ("How badly do I really have to go to this particular class?")
8am: Alarm. I get tangled in the duvet and fall out of bed, luckily not breaking my wrist this time. Without even thinking about what I am doing, I somehow make a pot of coffee before realizing I have no time to drink it, as I must be out my door in 20 minutes. Shouldn’t be a problem, except of course it is. So I pull on yesterday’s clothes and try to cover up the circles under my eyes, which couldn’t possibly have worked, but I leave anyway.
When I get to the metro, there is, of course, some kind of delay, so I am now going to be late for sure. Eventually I get to the stop (a 10-minute walk from the University), at the exact time class is supposed to start. Perfect. So I go as fast as I can, but of course am late. I get to the classroom 10-ish minutes late, but there is no one there. Excellent. I missed class last week because I was... well... out of the country, and so I decided they must have met at the Louvre this week and I was just not aware. Oh well, hour and a half wait till my next class, so I wandered Chinatown listening to the Gin Blossoms for awhile, and then came back for the second class. I was 20 minutes early, but that usually doesn’t matter because French kids are always early. No one there. So I wait. And wait. Until the time class is supposed to start, and still no one.
Which means: I had no class today and gave up my bed for nothing, and more importantly but less immediately painfully, I thus have no idea when my finals are for those two classes. And of course, I am the only American in them and hence have no one else’s contact info from those courses. Perfect. My life is amazing.
Otherwise...
I have a Chink hat. Now, before you get all politically correct, let me explain. I had a great-great-uncle or something whose name was, quite truly, Chink. I am 21 years old and to this day have no idea if this guy even had a name other than Chink. He lived somewhere far away and by all accounts was slightly crazy, but one of those crazy people that you want to get to know because they are so cool. Despite me having never met him, when I was young he made my entire family Chink hats, which are basically just loose stocking caps. Not extremely useful in Florida, and thus I don’t believe I ever wore mine– it was never cold enough. But when I moved to Paris, all that changed. And the weekend I spent in Austria in the fall was cold enough that I decided I needed one. So I bought a legit Swiss one, much to the chagrin of my family when they found out I had paid for one. ("I have a whole box of them you could have picked from!") My respect for Uncle Chink has skyrocketed every time I wear the hat. Not only does it keep my head dry and warm, it also is perfect, as I now know, for covering up day-old bedhead. I didn’t even brush my hair this morning– just pulled my black-with-embroidered-flowers stocking cap on as I ran out the door to the Passy metro, and all was well.
And now, a rant. What I have to say in the next paragraph is not going to be worth reading, and I know that despite having not written it yet. So you should probably just stop here. But I am going to write it anyway. I hate ticket scalpers, and I particularly detest the newest breed, the cyber-scalper. One of my favorite American bands (I realize I say that a lot, but it’s always true) is coming to Paris in a couple weeks. The tour was announced while I was in the US, so I only found out about it a few days ago, and it was sold out, despite their lack of fame here. Naturally, I was confused, but the woman at Fnac (French equivalent of ticketmaster) told me I should check Ebay France, so I did, and what do I find? Loads of tickets. Ok, some people are selling one or two– that is exactly the amount I need, and quite honest. A friend bails out, you miscount when you order, whatever, and somehow end up with 1, max 2, extra tickets, so you sell them on Ebay with that feature where you put it on at face value and wait for someone to buy it, not auction it off. THEN I find seller after seller with 17, 20, or 30 tickets for auction, which means, of course, they are going for upwards of 30Euros each when they were sold originally for 12, which makes me unbelievably angry because they not only hog all the tickets, but then we, the unfortunate ones who were unlucky enough to be in this country when tickets went on sale, are completely suckered into pandering to their every demand– the band comes out even on this one, because they get paid the same no matter how much we pay for our standing room ticket. The fans come out way behind because they get stuck paying 30 or 40 Euro for a nosebleed or moshpit ticket, to a person who is now going to use that cash to buy more tickets to the next concert coming to town, making it a terrible vicious cycle, and the worst part is that there is absolutely nothing anyone can do– ticket limits work (sort of) in the US because virtually everyone orders tickets online or over the phone, but here, since Fnac is a storefront found in nearly every arrondissement, people pay cash and buy as many as they want.
But I don’t want to end on that note, so I will also tell you this: remember when I bought that Killers ticket, in, like, NOVEMBER for a concert in March? My french friends from church all teased me about it, because I guess the Killers aren’t as big here as I thought, and my French friends were all, "Oh, I can’t believe you bought your ticket already! The concert is 5 months away!" and "I bet it’s in a frame on your wall!" "No, I bet it’s under your pillow when you sleep at night!" and "How can you listen to music by a band with a name like that!? It sounds so violent! I bet they are like, hard metal death rock, aren’t they?" but obviously they are not. So over Christmas break I made my Swedish friend a mix CD with a couple Killers songs on it and she loved it, enough to go buy their newest album. She shared it with her roommate, and the two of them convinced another mutual friends to come, and now they have invited all kinds of people from church, so what was Blair going out on a Thursday night to the Zenith alone to see her favorite Vegas American band (which I totally didn’t mind) has become, as of the church meeting thing last night, over a dozen people, most of whom have not heard their music! I had no idea it would grow so big, but I’m psyched now– it’s gonna be even better with 20 of us than it would have been with just me.
Linguistic challenge of the week: trying to explain last night in French the music style of the Killers. Yo, try it in ENGLISH and you will see how hard it is; the best I could do was compare them to other indie American bands, which obviously did not help with this particular crowd.
Smiling like I mean it,
B
P.S. In case this has given you any ideas, I ALREADY HAVE BOTH OF THE KILLERS ALBUMS (hence them being my favorites), but I don’t have "30 Seconds To Mars" by 30 Seconds To Mars... just throwing that out there.