Celebrity Spotting in Paris

I don't know what it is about the combination of Gina, me and the Marais that draws out the celebs, but today we had our second (major) celebrity sighting. Such a beautiful day as it was, the two of us went for tea in a little Asian-style tea room and for a walk afterwards. As we were strolling past a park, Gina suddenly piped up with: "That's Bob Geldof...and Pixie!" This time we didn't speak to them but I took some sneaky snaps.

When I sent a text to my dad to tell him, he responded: "Scruffy looking, I'll bet." Right on the mark, dad. He looked as homeless as ever, despite having an obscene amount of money and berating us mere mortals for not donating our every last penny to this charity or that. As my flatmate replied when I told him I had been celebrity spotting: "You mean uglyspotting."

A Moveable Feast

Everywhere I turn I seem to be hearing about people who come to Paris and never leave. In fact, it's happening in front of my very eyes. Somehow, I came across the blog of an American woman who came to Paris for a couple of years and ended up staying an extra year, and through her blog I came across the blogs of many more expat Anglophones living here. Even an author who has been here for 20 years.

So when I say that this is happening in front of my very eyes, I'm referring to my flatmate and friends. Kate came here with limited French on a six month internship for an international newspaper. A month after the end of her internship, she is writing reviews for other English language publications and teaching English to children in an attempt to earn some money and improve her French, because she simply does not want to leave. I have two friends who were supposed to come here for their Erasmus year and one has decided to stay indefinitely, while the other has decided to defer her place at her English uni for an extra year.

I have also got the I-want-to-stay-forever bug. I've already decided to look for a job for the summer so that I can extend my stay for another three months, but after that I am condemned to moving home. While it helps that I'm living with two of my best friends next year, I am still going to be disappointed to leave. Throughout my time here I have met people who just get the staying fever or they don't. There are those who come here and while they have fun, they look forward to going home because they want to carry on with things they have going on there. And then there are those who come and just can't bear to tear themselves away.

I think I fall into the latter category, and by this point would probably be thinking about staying for a lot longer if I didn't have my final year of uni to complete. In the mean time, I have to decide what kind of work I want to do, if I'm going to stay for the summer...

To Wedding or Not To Wedding...?

Tomorrow, I will be among the minority of English people who are not watching the royal wedding. Not because I am completely uninterested and don't really see the point of the royal family (let alone some second-in-line-to-the-throne Prince's marriage to a commoner) which is true. It's actually because I will be stuck in a windowless classroom in a French university being told when it is grammatically correct to use the subjunctive and indicative tenses. But why should I care about something that will probably be as dull as conjugating French verbs in the subjunctive? I have no interest in the royal wedding, or any wedding unless it's on some trashy TV show. Yet, I do care and I'm actually contemplating missing my classes to watch the annoying thing because of peer pressure. Or not peer pressure exactly - I haven't been told I'll be totally uncool if I don't just try it once - but if everyone watches it and I don't, I'll feel totally out of the loop: "Remember in the wedding when..." Not only that, but my friends who are watching are going to get together at the pub...while I'll be doing four straight hours of French!

So there lies my dilemma: it would be terribly un-British of me to miss such a significant event, especially in favour of learning French. But then again, I shouldn't miss out on uni for such a petty reason, when I don't really care about it in the first place. Seems like my only solution is to miss the classes anyway, stay in bed, and get it when it comes out on DVD...

Banning the Burqa in France

On Monday 11th April an undoubtedly controversial law came into effect in France which enforces a ban on women wearing the Niquab or Burqa on the street in France. France prides itself on being a secular state, which is a state devoid of any religious influence and for a long time already, religious symbols have been banned in public schools. But one cannot help wondering if this new law has some discriminatory undertones to it.

On one hand, I am completely opposed to women being forced to cover themselves up. It is sexist and oppressive to make a woman hide parts of her body because it is seen as indecent, especially when the parts of her body concerned are completely natural and inoffensive. These women are being deprived of freedom of speech, however, the French government's new law is depriving them just the same, as it also forces these women to dress in a certain manner.

On the other hand, the burqa and niqab are often worn simply as religious symbols; many women wear them not because they are being made to, but because they choose to. These religious symbols can function just as the cross to Catholics and Christians and the star of David to the Jewish faith. One particular religion is being targeted by this law and these women should be able to wear what they choose whether they have been made to or not. As the old cliché goes: two wrongs don't make a right.

So all this in the name of laïcité? This law, which is meant to keep the streets peaceful and safe, just seems unnecessary. Although a small minority perhaps demonstrates the contrary, most people are capable of living side by side peacefully, despite differing beliefs. As long as people's religion does not impede the rights of others or cause harm to people, why should some be unable to simply show that they belong to one particular faith?

Despite the reasons that the government has provided to justify this act, the whole issue is very tentative and I firmly believe that there is some discrimination at play here. This law is an extremely serious one considering the fact that it is designed to affect such a small group of people; it is believed that only 2,000 women wear the burqa or niqab in France.

Women and men alike should have the freedom to wear what they choose as long as they do not cause harm to or discriminate against others. I for one do not agree with the fact that men are able to make their wives, daughters or sisters dress in a certain way, but I do not believe the government, which advocates equality and fights against sexism, should have the right to oppress these women either.

"Well, my life is getting in the way of my alcoholism!"

was kate's witty response to my: "My alcoholism is getting in the way of my life!" We were joking, of course, but this weekend has been, unintentionally, an alcohol-themed one.

We started out on Thursday when a friend's mum came to visit, at Le Refuge des Fondus. Possibly the smallest restaurant in the world, no dignity is spared when you climb over the table to take your seat. At 18€ per person, it's not the cheapest meal but you pay for the novelty value; drinks in baby bottles and bottomless bread. Anyway, it was the baby bottles that saw Kate and I a little tipsy upon leaving the resto. Not really sure how that happened but no drunken antics ensued, all in all it was very civilised.

Friday night, on the other hand, was a little different. In fact, it all was bound to go downhill after someone uttered the words: "How about we play ring of fire?" Only having four players made for some interesting states just leaving the house. We went to another quirky (tiny) indie bar: L'Orange Mécanique. Despite our game of ROF and the cards being biased against our Norwegian flatmate, even though they were playing cards with Norwegian-French phrases on them, the night was going fairly well until we decided to catch the night bus home.

'Interesting' is the only word I can think of to describe taking the Noctilien that night. We caught our first night bus from Belleville to Chatelet with a group of gangsters smoking cigarettes at the back and caught our second bus from Chatelet to Chateau Rouge with a group of gangsters smoking spliff at the back. So out of it as they were, they forgot to press the button to call their stop and the driver drove past it. Reasonably (sarcasm), they shouted at the driver to stop but as he wouldn't they tried the emergency stop button. Being so stupid as they were, they couldn't work it and just had to wait for the next stop (5 minutes away from theirs). As they filed off the bus they had one last attempt at the emergency break and my astute housemate noted that "Darwinism has failed."

Not that we can claim to be any more intelligent; if you know Paris or just look at a metro map, you will see that we went all the way into the centre to come all the way back out when walking westwards would have taken half the time. Things began to look up when we saw that the local bakery was still open (at 4am?!), and began to go downhill again when we were accosted by two drunk guys also taking advantage of the still open bakery. We left with some new drug-dealers: "I sell shit you know, take my number if you need some." Needless to say, I didn't take his number as I definitely didn't ask if he sold drugs.

So we all wake up on Saturday feeling a little worse for wear and anticipate with dread the thought of our impending wine-tasting afternoon. The wine-tasting was held inside a stuffy hall where the whole world seemed to be. After tasting a good few wines, that were very nice, we began to feel the effects and decided to leave. Cue Saturday night at 23h30; an impromptu night out with my Norwegian flatmate to a French soirée. We had all sorts of expectations of something more civilised than our Ring of Fire evening. This was not the case. One girl was already pretty drunk but preceeded to carry on doing tequila shots. Needless to say, she finished up the night with her head in the toilet.

Although I didn't drink as much as the girl at the party, I'm now sitting in bed feeling sorry for myself. It's not quite the end of the weekend but I can honestly say, I hope that no more alcohol will be consumed...

The Curious Incident of the Pear in the Night-time

This weekend after a series of (two) strange events, I am left feeling as though I have entered some sort of Twilight Zone. Both events took place on Saturday night (or more accurately; Sunday morning), the first being the pear incident. As I was up so late I got hungry, so I decided on a healthy snack to sate my hunger. But when I reached for one of the pears in my cupboard, it felt wet and mushy. Preparing myself for a mouldy patch, I picked it up, only to find that someone had taken a bite out of it. Not a small mouse-bite; a huge human bite. Obviously I hadn't bought it like that and there was only one bite missing, so it wasn't eaten by a hungry flatmate. What's more is that it was still wet and only a little brown, suggesting that it was a recent incident. Only me and one other flatmate were in, hanging out together... Baffled.

Incident number two is the toilet book incident. I should probably explain what the toilet book is first. The toilet book is a book with blank pages, which is kept in the toilet so that people can record their toilet-time musings. We also get guests to contribute to it. So, it was a little weird when my housemate and I found strange hand-writing in it, that we didn't recognise. As I said, it was just the two of us in the flat. One flatmate hasn't wrote in it before so we guessed that one set of handwriting belonged to him as he had just got back before we saw it. But what was odd was that someone had written underneath it and it didn't match any of our penmanship.

Perhaps the old lady across the corridor has been sneaking in here, although judging by the amount of time it takes just to unlock her front door, I just don't think she is stealthy enough. Perhaps someone is playing a trick on me/us, but I just can't shake this eerie feeling...

Amsterdam, Je t'aime pas

As much as I love Paris, it's always nice to go somewhere a little (a lot) less stressful; more laid-back. So, last weekend my flatmate and I embarked upon a trip to Amsterdam, perhaps perceived to be a city that defines the expression 'laid-back'. However, after spending two days there it didn't really live up to its reputation. There were only three incidents that left me with this impression but they were three incidents in pretty much one day.

The first was being dug in the arm by an angry cyclist. The cycle paths are not at all clearly marked for a city which has a multi-story parking space...for bikes, and I found myself unintentionally walking on one. An angry man careered towards me shouting in Dutch so I did my best to move out of the way and he still felt the need to discipline me, and hit me in the arm as he went past. The second incident was when my flatmate paid for the bus with a 20 euro note, she was met with a snotty "Get the right change next time." Finally, there was the guy trying to break into the hostel by charging the door and subsequently cracking the glass.

I met up with a friend who happened to be there the same weekend and when I asked her what she thought of Amsterdam she replied: "The people are quite rude, aren't they?" By this point I hadn't had a chance to experience said rudeness but I definitely left with the same impression.

Perhaps I was in a bad mood because it rained all weekend and being a Brit, this doesn't bode well; cue two grumpy girls lamenting the wind/rain combination and wrestling with fly-away umbrellas. The hostel we stayed in was really good; clean and spacious and it is a very pretty city. I can't make the generalisation that everyone there was rude as I did ask for directions and came accross a very polite man who was even concerned for our welfare: "Vondelpark? Well it's quite a long walk and you don't want to go there at night."

I think the bad experiences were increased ten-fold today when I went to Gare du Nord with an optimistic disposition and some faith left in humanity, only to find out that no-one had handed in my ipod which I left on the train. I suppose I can't really blame the Dutch for this...but, I bet it was a Frenchie that stole it!