(no subject)

[moominmolly]

good weekend.

Paris always gives me a bit of a complex; I never quite feel fashionable enough or French enough or jaded enough or something. I love France, and I love the parts of France that have life in them. Marseilles! Rennes! I would happily live in many parts of France. There are even parts of Paris that feel positively non-Parisian, like Bellevile and a lot of the 20th arrondissement. But there is simply no excuse for some of the disdain that Susannah's French received. That really raised my hackles, since her French is excellent. She's a freaking translator. She's been translating comic books from French into English. How cool is that? But one woman who waited on us at a cafe was so amazingly dense and rude because she was clearly a foreigner.

On the one hand, I hate to play into the stereotypes of "All French people are snooty", because it is patently false. On the other hand, this kind of incident really pisses me off, so. So, I suppose the obvious answer is to stick to the out of the way corners of Paris if I'm there, and stick to other parts of France when possible.

That said, I had a fabulous weekend. It was simply kickass to see both Susannah and fennel. Her studio is beautiful. I got to speak French, lots, and I loved getting to answer their usage questions whenever I could. It made me feel useful and competent, which is always a good thing. They were also good museum companions; we kicked around in the Centre Pompidou for a while, and they both know much more about modern art than I do, so that was very entertaining. Plus, I finally picked up a hard copy of Le Petit Robert, which is anything but petit, and some cheesy French fiction. It's easy to get French Literature -- I can do that at any Borders -- but finding more lowbrow reading is much easier over here.

Since I'm staying longer than I'd expected, I didn't have to fly out of Amsterdam back home on Sunday night, meaning I could kick around Paris a while longer. So I decided to call the return half of my plane ticket a loss and pick up a cheap cheap overnight train ticket. Thought of pseydtonne while watching Belgium pass by out the window of a train just before the sun rose. Trains are pretty cool. Then came right from the train to work. Fun!

It occurs to me that I've seen someone every weekend since I got here, except for the very first one. So, every Monday, I feel a bit glum that it's all over, all over again. It's funny -- I've spent a lot of time traveling alone, but I never realized that staying in one place alone is an entirely different prospect.

Comments

[dilletante.livejournal.com]

i had the impression (from you! and from various french people) that french people also consider parisians to be snooty, i.e. it's not france it's paris that's the problem. like us with new yorkers, maybe. :)

so, y'know, you can play into a more informed and nuanced stereotype. :)