Walk tour 2

Montparnasse is somewhere I would live, want to live, which is common when I find a place that even a little bit more attractive then the neighborhood my dorms are located in. It seems like an all around good place to live. The type of place where big business meets small warm restaurants, and comfy little apartments, all you need essentially. It is stimulating, while maybe not the grand lit paris you see at places like the Opera, it’s a different shade of Paris, with a mix of one huge skyscraper and small quaint streets.  You have a sense as someone just moving here that theres a lot of room for experience there, while Parisians see it as just another place.

I walk to a place selling crepes out of a window connected to a greater restaurant. I ask for the jambon-fromage crepe in FRENCH and the guy says “Okay, so where are you from? I take it that I need to work more on my pronunciation, and reply telling him I’m from Washington D.C. He says “Oh Obama town, you go to school here?” I reply “Yea just moved a few weeks ago. I go to Parsons it’s small and new, I know you haven't heard of it.” He laughs. “Do you like Paris so far, or do you like America more? I tell him “Yea it’s not bad, and yes I do like America more, its home.” and to my surprise he says “I cant stand it, I like America more like you.” We talk a little more and I walk off with my crepe in hand.

My walk is cold, quite fu$$ing cold. I did this walk later in the day around 5:00 so the sun was edging away, practically flipping me off as it slowly left the sky. I had no choice but to move on. 

Walking on, I find my first street. It was pretty easy to find given the size of the Montparnasse Tower relative to the cities average building sizes. I look up and around. I see a huge building, lots of people going different directions, big name stores, and it smells funky for some reason. Is this New York, did that guy put something in my crepe? I want out, I am not a fan. Using the directions I try and navigate myself out with my phone but end up going in a circle around the Montparnasse Tower. I must be tripping because all of the sudden Michael Jordan goes up to me and asks me for directions. Okay that didn't happen but it would have been cool. I make my way out 3-5 minutes later.

I continue through my walk. Sadly cafe’s are not open because it’s 5:00 and they are all getting ready for dinner. I am now walking down Rue de Vaugirard. I find this street to incredibly beautiful. It’s the Paris I like, not too busy, the classic apartment buildings, and little streets that pop out of nowhere. I decide to go into a knife store because it looked cool. I see this large property, guarded by many officers, that is officers that are holding AK-47’s. I want to take a picture with one the guards in the front of the driveway but think to myself and realize that is a stupid idea. What is this place? I’m walking around it and see there is a nice garden. I give up trying to figure out what it is exactly, waiting for Robin to tell me on Wednesday.

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Rue De Vaugirard

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Place I don't know?














I find this one place walking down Rue Raccine I think. I went in because it looked classy but not to stuck up to happily serve a kid wearing Vans and Johnny Cash middle finger t shirt. I sit down at the bar. No one but two people are there sitting together at a small table. I’m a little bit hungry at this point and I can see their food. It looks alright, so I get a Guinness to say substitute a little meal. I take a sip and I feel I have eaten a bowl of mashed potatoes. It’s good though even though it’s from a bottle. I finish it way quicker than its intended to. Little conversation is made with the bartender because he seems like he’d rather read a a phone book then talk to anyone.

Not the lace but it was close.

I pay the check and leave. I feel a little warmer, I’m telling myself the beer did it and that I’m good now, I can walk happily. I’m cold now, it took 30 seconds, but that 30 seconds was great. I continue walking down Rue Racine. 

I am now starting to get about finished with this walk. I make my way to Rue de Harpe. Its weird but I like it. There is one restaurant/bar that is the most vibrantly lit restaurant you have ever seen. It was a mix of christmas lights, Mexican fiesta lights, halloween lights, and dock lights, yea dock lights, and put them all over there restaurant. The only thing fitting for them to have served would have been schnitzel but I think it was Italian. 

Moving on from there I chose to take my own route to end the journey because like John Baxter wrote “every Parisian, and everyone who comes to know Paris, discovers his or her own ‘most beautiful walk’” (4). I walked aimlessly around the small streets of the latin quarter watching large groups of tourists jump on one another to get a picture of a church and a pig roasting in a window. 

I do not know what street I was on but I found a gallery with large scale realistic sculptures. They were the oddest things but also so cool, something right out of Juxtapoz mag. I continued to walk around the little streets until I decided to go into another bar and grab another quick beer, again Guinness. The place was cheesy, very outgoing purple lighting, music way to energetic for the lack of people in the bar. This time the server struck up a conversation with me. He asked where I was from, and again I said D.C. He told me how Guinness in Paris is not that good because you can only get it in the bottle and places serving it on tap are practically nonexistent. Fun fact of the day right there. I got done with beer and conversation, and walked on out. I’m tired and cold. All the places I pass on my way out of the jungle that is the latin quarter look unappetizing because the Guinness has filled most of my stomach.

I make my way out to Shakespeare and Co. I have crossed the finish line.

I like this place, its tighter, more comfy then the large open streets located near school. I sound like a hippie but corporations are taking over and you can see that near the opera, yet Montparnasse holds onto a lot of the classic beauty the city is known for. You must find the places you are most comfortable to feel most comfortable as a newcomer to Paris like me and may students are, but this is true for many places.

 Does this mean I don't miss home? I miss it a little bit, but I realize besides family, music, and instruments, theres nothing better there. Back home it’s just bluh for me, but here it hmmm. That sounded stupid, but its true. This is an adventure, and experience and missing a place is useless when it comes down to it. Four months here is not long and for me needed in a way so I can come back to my country and my home, and maybe appreciate more.

I know I will really be able to grasp this city, the country and continent come spring time, WHEN THE SUN IS WARM. 

Walk 1

It’s mid afternoon and I decide to to use the time for walking around the Latin Quarter for class. It’s Sunday so not as much is open and there are less places to eat, a bummer for a hungry young man who has the metabolism of a hummingbird. On my way to the small ally ways of the Latin Quarter, I pass by and look at the Notre Dame Cathedral. I don’t stop to marvel at it because walking by taking a stare at it and moving on my way is all I need to appreciate it. It was interesting though to walk by and see the people, aka tourists taking pictures. It seems almost that people care more about getting a picture at the Notre Dame Cathedral then just going. Continuing my walk I just thought about how proof of being somewhere is more important then just having had a memory to some people, a lot of people these days to be honest. Moving on, I start to enter the small ally ways I wanted to walk through. These streets are attractive to me. They have a personality that I feel more comfortable with then say the Opera. It is the type of place I could live, would want to live while in Paris, similar to the way I like Bastille. I found a cafe, don’t recall the name of it because it’s like recalling a deli you quickly ate at in Manhattan. That allowed me to get into a mellow, lazy, people watching mode. I got a coffee and watched people walk by. Even though it was a Sunday, there were still a decent amount of people walking about. As I sat there drinking my coffee I took in the area, the people, and the smell. About 45 minutes passed by and my coffee was gone. I started to feel kind of restless in a way, the kind of restless you adopt from New York City. I did not know what to think of this feeling. Was it the coffee? No, because coffee doesn't do much to me. I decided that to counter act the high-strung feeling I would switch to beer. People watching became more entertaining. After a few of those and the light started to dim in the city, I paid and left. I walked around only enjoying the infrastructure because once again it was Sunday and there was not much open. I passed by where the original Shakespeare and Co was, passed the Stein residence, and passed where Hemingway lived for a little, all now just part of modern day paris, store fronts, homes, etc. I regret not having gone to the Luxembourg Gardens because that seemed later like quintessential Latin Quarter thing to do, so I unfortunately cannot write about that. I got on the train and went back home to realize once again, and the last time, that it was Sunday and I had no food, so I had to settle for some Chinese food that was not to good nearby by dorm. 

Getting back and reading Orwell, I found that his views of Paris were quite anachronistic. Orwell writes  Down and Out in Paris and London in 1933. It makes sense he writes about poverty because 1933 was prime Great Depression time. The characters he writes about don’t exist here anymore. You only see happy social youth or older well dressed folk in Paris, maybe a view homeless people but not very much. For instance a kid who cobbles shoes to pay his way through college. Paying your way through college making shoes is not a possibility today. Orwell also talks about the incredible poor state of his hotel. A bad hotel like that could not exist in such a high class demanding city like Paris anymore. “It was now that my experiences of poverty began—for six francs a day, if not actual poverty, is on the fringe of it. Six francs is a shilling, and you can live on a shilling a day in Paris if you know how.” (17) SIX FRANCS? He is saying you can live on that if you know how in a day. My coffee was like around five bucks, maybe a little more, and my beer was like nine if not more. You can’t live on six francs in today’s Paris, not just because francs aren't a thing anymore in France, but because that would be like living on less than 6 dollars in New York City today. HA. Orwell talks of not just a poor time in Paris but the world. The streets I walked and sat down by were cool, young, attractive, they look like happy places with happy people, where fun can happen. Sure there are still hard working people in Paris, and they are not the ones with the nice suits and fancy coats, their the Henri’s (minus the stabbing part) of today’s Paris. I feel lucky I can walk the streets of Paris as a student and not worry like Henri about money, not about having to work hard all day to make ends meet, not worry about a girl like his spending a lot of it, I hope, not going down that road again. I’m lucky is what I feel when I get to sit at a cafe in the Latin Quarter and drink a beer in an amazing city like Paris because thats not something everyone can do.

Hemingway 1

I came to Paris with an open mind, possibly hoping to find myself in the least cheesy way possible, but at the same time accepting a difference in culture and learning from it in exchange. So far, in my short two weeks here I realize what it is people see in Paris, and the reasons behind it's beautiful and romantic portrayal in all of the media, but I also realize that Paris is not only this. Where I live, the ever glowing light of the cities monuments, beige apartments, and streets at night, well Olympiads is probably not the best place to find this.

I have been adjusting to the culture but I find it harder, personally, to appreciate a city like Paris until the weather starts becoming warm. Even as newcomer to the city, I agree with Hemingway when he writes "All of the sadness of the city came suddenly with the first cold rains of winter, and there were no more tops to the high white houses as you walked but only the wet blackness of the street and the closed doors of the small shops..." (16). I walk down the streets, in the cold rain, sometimes witnessing a faint fog blocking buildings and houses. I too find a sadness in overcast that Hemingway does, as it prevents a full picture of what makes Paris so incredible.

I like Hemingway's use of "transporting" and can relate even as someone who hasn't necessarily written very much creatively. I think the same goes for me if I'm writing music, because too try and create something like a story, it feels better and more real when you can transport your way there. The freedom a writer has is only as good as their imagination, and if you can somehow try and feel what it is you are composing and creating through a drink even, or a place, the final product is that much more authentic. When Hemingway orders a drink because his characters are drinking, it is almost natural for him to try and be there with them. I love how he talks about writing in the cafe because we all have sat down at cafe and experienced the French way of getting a shot of espresso and using that one little tiny cup of liquid as an excuse to sit down and watch the world move, really people watch. When Hemingway sits down and writes in the cafe, he see's a woman sit down near him, so we think cue the romantic music and love at first sight in Paris, but no. He writes a line that all men can relate to when seeing a woman for the first time thinking omg I love them and I don't know them. "I've seen you, beauty, and you belong to me now, whoever you are waiting for and if I never see you again, I thought. You belong to me and Paris belongs to me and I belong to this notebook and this pencil. Then I went back to writing..." (18) This could practically be a scene pulled out of a comedy film starring someone awkward like Woody Allen per say because when he looks up and doesn't see her, he feels sad, so he decides to eat some oysters (aphrodisiac) and feels better. This whole perfect romance view of Paris doesn't need to be the majority, I find the opportunity for funny events like that to happen a beautiful thing to look forward to as well. Do I expect to see the Midnight in Paris Paris? I do, but also want to see the Everyone Says I Love You Paris too.

I had the pleasure of visiting the Opera Saturday night which was interesting in the sense that I got to see a form of entertainment I had never seen before, but also see older swanky dressed Parisian's whom don't have a thing in common with. It was only interesting to see the say more up tight citizens of this city versus the younger people around the city. The notion that French people are not very big on Americans is not very true, that is if you were born after 1955, so I don't know if the Opera is my kind of place, but it was worth watching and gawking for a little to see some of these people that could have been taking right out the 1940's bourgeoisie, the very people Hemingway lived with. Yet there are uptight people everywhere, whether that be New York City and maybe at their Opera, or even my hometown of D.C. where everyone wearing a suit (most likely working for the government) acts like they haven't their partner naked for 30 years.

I find the way Hemingway writes about Paris very alluring and it backs up so much of this media that paints the place as this amusement park of romance and beauty. I could say the media is simply just based off Hemingway's positive view of Paris, and that Hemingway himself is making it out to be more of a fairytale than it is, but I do not know yet, having only been here for weeks. Physically I can see what he marvels about so far.

He writes about wandering from street to street, talking about the different cafe's, looking for a place to refuge and write. I find that through living here, like he must have, choosing a place everyday to get familiar with the areas people and layout is a good way of becoming a student living in Paris rather then a tourist. We can tell Hemingway knows the places he doesn't like very much and knows the places he can enjoy. I've found one place so far in my journey, but not because I was wandering, but because I looked up a bunch of possible cool bars to go to. I picked one of the places, that being called Le Fanfaron and went to check out the area as well as the bar. I found a place I feel I could enjoy going to, rather to the Opera. There was a little bit of the language gap to work with, but the people there looked like they came out of The Wild One, which is something I like and is a large improvement from the Opera folk, at least for me. Everyone knows there are so many different types of groups and cultures within the NYC world, and if you stay long enough you find your own. I think the same goes with Paris and I like that.