Travelday

While I linked Monaco as part of my “France” category, I know that Monaco is not technically part of France. But the French seem to think it is: whenever I spell my last name, they ask me “comme la ville?” “like the city?”

Monaco is a principality, wedged into the French Riviera and ruled by Prince Albert of Monaco, but for all intents and purposes, it is a part of France. Like Vatican City in Rome, it’s fun to travel to this tiny independent state to have your postcards marked by the individual postage stamp of Monaco, but upon arrival, it’s hard to imagine that you ever left the rest of the Côte d’Azur: everyone is rich, the water is deeply blue, and here they revel in tradition, just like in France.

London is famous for its “changing of the guard,” but in Monaco, the ritual is even more drawn out, even more official, even more “French,” for lack of a better word. Watching the changing of the guard in Monaco reminds me of all of the other very official, very bureaucratic French ceremonies, from doing business at the post office to the system of French elections, from the French public school system to the process of application for an entry visa. I can’t help but look at the water of the Monégasque Mediterranean and think of the very same Mediterranean back in Cannes, the coast I know so well. I can’t help thinking of nearby France every time I speak to someone in French, every time I buy something in a store, every time I look at the ritual and ceremony that makes up the changing of the guard.

The Monégasque would like to think they’re independent, distinct from France. I like to think so too, especially because that means that I can buy t-shirts and bags and caps with my last name emblazoned on them for all to see. But I know the truth: Monte Carlo is just a richer, more luxurious Nice, and the name of “principality” is just a formality: the Monégasque are just French in disguise.

I was reading a blog entry over at Le Blagueur à Paris , and I started thinking about something that probably doesn’t bother me nearly as much as it bothers every other American I know.

I left the States officially almost a year ago, but really I’ve been France-bound since I was 14, when I first went to the North. I have no idea why people can’t understand that I don’t have any real intention of coming back to the States.

I’ve gotten several e-mails in the past few weeks from friends and even from people I had forgotten about, or had at least stopped talking to for several years, asking me if I would be back in “my hometown” of New York City this summer. The answer is “no.”

I was born in New York, but it’s no longer my home. Simple as that. I still have a bed in my parents’ house and several suitcases of clothes that didn’t make “the cut” on the way to this side of the Atlantic, but my home (forgive me) is my backpack and whatever bed I’m renting/crashing in/borrowing for the night. I can’t commit to one place. I don’t see why people can’t understand that about me after nearly seven years of being like this.

But, like most expatriates, when asked “when are you coming home?” I always say “someday.” I think it helps the people I left behind to sleep at night. Maybe they need to know that they made the right choice in choosing to stay where they were “supposed to” stay and doing what they were “supposed to” do instead of being like me, gallavanting off to Europe and living everybody else’s dream.

Here are the facts, in writing, that I am too scared to say to your face: I love Europe just as much as I thought I would. I have no intention of ever moving back to the US, and if I do, I will be moving to a ski shack in Vermont or a fishing town on the Northeastern seaboard. I would not be happy doing whatever it is you are doing or whatever it is you think I should be doing. I will continue to tell you that I will be back “someday,” but only because I know that if I tell you the truth, you will try to convince me I will change my mind, and also because I know that it makes you uncomfortable that I am no longer an American. I have no idea why you need that reassurance, but I’m going to give it to you anyway.

In Paris, you exist with ghosts.

You can’t just walk down the street in Paris. Any street you walk down has a history, stories of the thousands of people who have been there before you. I suppose this is true of any city, but in Paris you can’t avoid it: the mere feeling of walking in Paris a reminder of all of those people who came before you.

Walking down the Champs Elysées, it’s hard not to think about the 19th century, when these boulevards were first built to replace the winding streets that had made up the city before. Crossing the Pont Neuf, it’s funny to think about when this bridge actually was “neuf,” or new. When everywhere you turn, a Gothic church stares you in the face, when the ubiquitous Eiffel Tower hardly ever leaves your line of vision, Paris’ history becomes part of her present. It’s impossible to ignore: you have to embrace it, to live within it.

But just in case you have a moment of doubt, the Parisians have put up signs, so you couldn’t forget her history even if you wanted to.

Translations:

In memory of the students of this school deported from 1942 to 1944 because they were born Jews, innocent victims of the Nazi barbarianism and the Vichy government. They were exterminated in concentration camps. More than 700 of these children lived in the 18th. We shall never forget them.

Here, three Frenchmen died for the Liberation, August 22nd, 1944.

My favorite arrondissement of Paris by far is Montmartre.

I don’t remember the first time I went terribly well. I do know that I didn’t love it as much as I do now: all I saw was the Basilica at the top and the small square in the center where people have their caricatures done. I thought it was quaint, cute even, but it didn’t become my favorite until much later.

The first catalyst came when I was backpacking through Europe with several friends. Paris was our last stop, and we stayed for nearly two weeks: much longer than our usual three- and four- day stints in the other cities. We treated Paris as a relaxing end to our trip. I don’t know that we went to more than one bar the entire time. One evening, while looking for something to do, we stumbled onto a crowd on the steps of the Basilica Sacre Coeur, doing what I have come to recognize as the international coming-together act of youth everywhere, a phenomenon I had witnessed on las Ramblas in Barcelona, on the Spanish steps in Rome, and in bars and hostels all across Western Europe: one American boy with an acoustic guitar strummed familiar chords, while voices, some heavily accented, others alarmingly American, sang out the familiar words: “So maybe, you’re gonna be the one that saves me. And after all, you’re my Wonderwall.”

I don’t know how Oasis feels about being the international unifier, and I doubt that they know (or care) that they helped this American to find Montmartre, but they did.

Now I go up to the 18th whenever I feel lonely: it has the incredible attribute of being a friend as well as a neighborhood. I can eat outdoors in café alone without feeling silly, or stroll the streets in and out of boutiques and bakeries, just enjoying being alone. I take my camera and photograph nearly everything I see: there is no lack of beautiful buildings and streets in this neighborhood, so unaffected by the Haussmanisation of Paris, which demolished so many of the quaint, tiny streets that Montmartre offers in favor of the grands boulevards that occupy the rest of the city.

Of course, it’s fun to come with a group. Being hoisted over the communal table at Le Refuge des Fondus by a brusque waiter would hardly be as much fun without your friends to laugh at you, and it’s much easier to cope with eating half a pot of melted cheese and drinking almost a liter of wine yourself (out of a baby bottle) when you’re not the only one. A baguette from Grenier à Pain is just enough to share with a few friends, sitting in the small park by the Abbesses métro, and it’s harder to feel silly riding the merry-go-round when the rest of your 20-year-old friends are up there with you, arguing over who gets which painted pony. You’ll feel much better about drinking in the afternoon at the Cave des Abbesses if you have a handful of friends with you, and you’ll also have more arms to carry the bottles you’re sure to take away with you. The sex shops of Pigalle are funnier with someone else to point and laugh with you, and you look like much less of a creeper if you’re not wandering the Museum of Erotica alone.

Montmartre shows off the best of Paris, the combination of the real and the unreal, the day-to-day and the romance that everyone here searches for. Montmartre is for lovers, for friends, for loners, the epitome of the city of Lights.

I have several favorite arrondissements in Paris. I can extol the virtues of the 18th, which includes not only Montmartre, possibly one of my favorite places in the world, but also the Marché de Puces at Clignancourt. I have always loved the 5th: the Latin Quarter was the first place in Paris where I felt truly at home. The Marais, which makes up much of the 4th, is one of my favorite places to wander (and eat) on a lonely spring afternoon. My recent discovery of the 6th, doesn’t make it any less of a favorite: I love that I can walk right across Invalides to encounter the sights, sounds and shops of rue de Buci, rue Dauphine, and, of course, the boulevard St. Germain.

My own arrondissement, however, is not on my list of favorites. The 7th is where I live, go to school, and spend about 90% of my time, and yet the Eiffel Tower, which had seemed so bright and iconic when I first arrived, now blends into the rest of the scenery in this extremely touristy neighborhood. The small cafes and boutiques that I love elsewhere are too expensive for me, and the English that resounds from inside them makes me feel that I would rather be in my own apartment listening to Kaolin to remind myself that I’m in France, not some amalgamation of America and England, which is what it sounds like from the loud conversations that persist on the streets near my home. Living within eyesight of the Eiffel Tower, which had seemed quirky and fun back in September, now annoys me endlessly, especially when I tumble out of my apartment at 8:30 AM only to fall headfirst, messy ponytail and travel coffee cup in hand, into yet another family photo in front of the famous monument.

The winter in the 7th was nearly impossible for me. My only refuge was the brasserie on my corner, Royal Tour, a little too expensive, but still an adequate place to sit with a hot cup of tea to wait out the rain and do my homework. But then, things slowly began to change. A friend of mine and I decided to blow our careful budgets, just a little bit, to become constant customers at a brasserie on the other end of the rue St. Dominique called le Centenaire, where we ate steak-frites, drank wine and whined about what to do with our lives. And then we stopped whining and did it.

My aunt came to visit, and aside from wandering the other arrondissements, she took us to an amazing restaurant in the 7th called Café Constant, which is one of my new favorites. Finding something in the 7th that I loved so much made me want to find even more. It helped that spring was coming: my friend and I started buying wine to drink on the Champ de Mars and on the Esplanade des Invalides, wandering around at night (thus my new obsession with my neighbor, the 6th). I wandered alone on both sides of the river, not going into stores or cafes, but just looking at the structure of the city, my surroundings, my home.

The 7th will never be for me what the 18th or the 5th are, but I have come to appreciate it for what it is. It is not the most vibrant or most fun of the arrondissements, but it is the one where I live, and it is one that i have learned how to love.

Royal Tour

23, avenue de la Bourdonnais

le Centenaire

27, boulevard de la Tour-Maubourg

Café Constant

129, rue Saint Dominique

I have lived in France on and off for almost seven years. On the one hand, it’s very culturally similar to the States: both are Western countries, which means that a lot of customs are the same, or at least similar, and a lot of US cities were modeled after European ones, so really, it’s not like that much has changed. When things are different, I love them and embrace them. I love everything about my new home.

However, the one complaint I hear time and time again from American tourists is about the lines and heavy bureaucracy that rule France. In America, if you want something, like to be at the head of the line or to get special treatment in a restaurant, chances are, you can slip someone a tip and get what you want. This is not the case in France. No matter if you are a four-year-old girl or an old man, the poorest clochard at the grocery store buying a can of fifty cent beer or a high-class BCBG who has filled their cart with caviar and foie gras: you’re all citizens in the eyes of the French government, and you will all wait your turn.

This infuriates Americans, who are accustomed to being treated like kings in stores, as opposed to equals of those who work there. Americans think customer service people and waitstaff in France are a nightmare, but in America, we treat these people like dirt.

All of this boils down to the fact that France and America were founded upon different principles. Every American child knows that our forefathers battled for freedom: freedom from the oppressive British monarchy, freedom to make our own laws, freedom of religion. France, however, did not start out a colony, like America did. France’s revolution, which came only a few years after America’s, was rather about égalité: equality.

My favorite musical, Les Misérables,  says it quite well: “Do we fight for the right to a night at the opéra now?” France was so class-defined in the 1800s that the bourgeoisie demanded change. They demanded the same rights as everyone else: they wanted everyone to be treated as a citizen.

Eventually, they got their wish. Everyone in France legally has the same rights. This is why gay “marriage” is permitted (it’s actually a PACS: what Ségolène Royal had. Marriage is a Catholic thing.) This is also the undercurrent behind the “scarf” fiasco, when Muslim children were not permitted to wear headscarves in public schools. This is why all French children have a right to a free education. And, I’m sorry to tell you, but this is why, no matter how late you are, when you arrive at the French train station to buy your ticket, or the French post office to buy some stamps, you have to stand at the end of the line and wait: you are exactly the same as everyone else, no more, no less, and no tip will change that.

One of the main… well… really the ONLY tourist attraction in my old city of Toronto is the CN Tower. It’s the tallest free-standing structure in the world… which means it’s pretty tall. There’s a restaurant up at the top, where my residence hall took us to eat after orientation first year of university. It was good, but I think the most fun part is to go to the Skypod observation deck. You can see all of the city… and some of Rochester, New York across the lake on a clear day.

The only problem is the lines: you usually have to wait behind scores of tourists to get up. The wait is worth it though, and if you show up early in the morning in the middle of the week, you can sometimes beat the crowds. If not, you can always hang out with the moose in the gift shop until it’s your turn to go up…

This time of year gets me thinking about the island off the coast of Toronto. Most of the year, it’s really too cold to enjoy it, but for my 19th birthday in 2006, when I lived there, my friends and I got on the ferry and brought a picnic out to frolic.

I’ve mentioned the fact that I like city parks, but I might like the island even more. You leave the city for just a day, and in less than an hour, there is a beach and fields and trees to climb.

The island makes me regress a little bit. My friend Rachael and I spent hours on the swings and exploring the jetty, while down on the beach, we put together a game of American football, 3 vs. 3. As for me, I was most excited for climbing trees.

When I was younger, I loved being in the tree in our front yard on Long Island. I carved my initials into my favorite branch, and I would bring a book up with me to read. I was fearless.

Even in high school, once the weather got nice on our Massachusetts campus, I would bring my homework out to the lawn in front of our dorm and laze on a branch while reading Slaughterhouse Five.

I’m not fearless anymore, though. When I got myself up that tree on the island, I had a very hard time getting down. I miss the days when I didn’t think about my ankles every time I tried to jump out of a tree. I miss the days when I just jumped.

Every once in awhile, it’s nice to remember the things you did when you were young.

When I went on my first backpacking trip, after graduating high school in 2005, our first stop was Barcelona. By the end of our trip, we got tired and barely did any touristy stuff in the cities we visited, but in Barcelona, we were just getting started, and we saw everything: we went to the cathedral, walked down Las Ramblas and went to the Guell Park in the Gaudi Village: my favorite.

I’ve always had a thing for city parks. Maybe it has something to do with living so close to Central Park in New York City. Regardless, I love the little spot of nature within the city. The Gaudi park, however, is different from any other park I’ve seen. Unlike other parks, it doesn’t seem to be merely a spot of nature within a bustling city: it’s also an work of art, a wonderful place to explore.

Of course, there are the parts designed by Gaudi: the vibrantly painted walls and benches and the decorative wall and staircase in the middle. However, there are also other art forms being portrayed here. My favorite was a guitarist who was in the park the day we chose to explore it. I’ve seen many street musicians in my time, and it’s not necessarily the fact that he was any more talented than anyone else, but he had an aura about him. Perhaps it was him within the park that I liked: the whole package of a Spanish guitarist in a very Spanish park in a city that I love.

You should get used to me talking quite a bit about a very small town called Paziols (paz-YOL), in Southwestern France.

Last summer, my French tutor from middle school moved four of her brightest bilingual (French-English) students from New York City to this little town in the garrigue for three months. She and her brother Serge had bought an old vigneron’s house in the town, and she had decided to turn it into a language camp, where American students could come, not only to learn French, but also to learn something about French life. Anne-Marie, her nephew Alex, her daughter Lalé, the four kids and I spoke only French, made French meals, did research on attractions in the area, and basically experimented for three months, trying to discover what we would be able to do with a much younger, much less bilingual group the next year.

I don’t know what this year’s group is going to be like, but the seven of us will be back to do the same things we did last year: tennis on the town tennis courts, dances and barbecues in the town square, exploring the ancient garrigue with both its cultivated fields of wine grapes and its savage flora of wild plum bushes, almond trees and raspberries and blackberries by the bucketful. We’ll find new places to swim, although I think I’ll always have a soft spot for the waterfall that lies within the woods and the little creek that runs past the clearing of picnic tables where we spent time last year. I look forward to new things, but some things should stay the same.

Like the peaches. One of my favorite days in Paziols was the morning that Anne-Marie and I got up early to meet the peach lady who sold peaches, apricots and homemade jam in the town square every week. They announced her arrival over the town loudspeaker, like the also announced the pizza truck and the butcher-on-wheels, but if you waited for the announcement, you were too late: those in the know were already assembled to buy some of the most luscious, delicious peaches you’ve ever tasted.

Part of being in Paziols isn’t just learning about France: for these displaced New Yorkers, Paziols also became a window to a slower time, a more peaceful place than the bustling city where we were raised. At the risk of sounding cliché, I love the way that the locals take time to find out about who you are, where you’re from and why you’re here. I love that people are content to spend their day slowly, sieste in the afternoon, or a swim if its especially warm. I don’t know how I would do living in Paziols all the time, but it’s nice to know that I have that house to go back to every summer, where we can spend our evenings watching old French movies on the big projection screen in the living room, talking together and eating ice cream, and know that everyone else in town is probably doing the same thing.