C'est Nice

I’m looking at this map of France that’s printed in this brochure. It has most of the bigger cities marked, and plenty of smaller ones, it seems. Anyway, this train that I’m taking now, a TGV from Paris to Nice, takes 5 hours and 42 minutes. The trip from Paris to Avignon, X miles, about X% of the total distance, takes 3 hours about. The last fraction of the trip takes almost the same amount of time. Anyway, that’s where I am right now, somewhere between St. Raphaël and Cannes. I’ve just had my first few glimpses of the sea. The sun, mostly absent in Paris, is out.

My last day in Paris was mixed. I slept pretty poorly the night before last, as noted in the previous post, and felt consistently out of it for the rest of the day (the tone of that last post is a pretty good example of how I was doing). Simultaneous with my last post, I was downloading the latest episode of Lost, which saw me hanging out in the café for about an hour longer than I anticipated, and I didn’t even get to finish it. Even though I was out of it, Amalea and I had made plans to grab lunch near NYU in Paris, eat there in the garden, and then go see a movie.

Being back at NYU Paris was strange. André, the security guard, immediately remembered me and was eager to speak to me and find out how I was doing, which was nice, although my French skills were… let’s go with disappointing. Worse, I had this nagging feeling that I was disappointing him. He kept having to throw me English lifelines. We also ran into Javier, my suitemate from Greenwich last year. It was odd; I never considered us amazing friends (watch him find this post and then start leaving flaming bags of dog shit on my porch), but he seemed eager to talk to both me and Amalea. Which was fine, of course, except then, I guess for reasons of politesse, whose origins escape me at the moment, ‘Lea and I were unable to talk to each other. So… yes. Awkward lunch.

Then, continuing right along with the hit parade, Nadine, my language teacher at NYU in Paris, walked out. She is a 27 year old woman who looks like she’s about 15, and dresses in the most… well, French way. When I was in her class, Jess, Katherine and I made a point of attempting to analyze her daily wardrobe (a fruitless enterprise, but fun nonetheless); the most notable item of clothing to my mind were a pair of pants which had pockets on the ankles. Anyway, where my conversation with André may have suggested that I hadn’t kept up with my French skillz, my conversation with Nadine made me suspect that perhaps I had never learned any French at all. It’s a stressful thing, running into old language teachers. It’s the only subject I can think of where you’re required to demonstrate what you learned in the class; the only difference between this and an oral exam is the latter is graded. I struggled through a few sentences, throughout which Nadine’s smile never wavered, although she had a look about her that said “Well, isn’t that a shame.”

I left NYU in Paris feeling pretty crummy (although I have to chalk some of that up to my lack of sleep). In fact, for most of yesterday I was feeling some interesting combination of homesickness, anxiety, and general dread of my arrival and job in Nice. I might add that I was also feeling somewhat under the weather in addition (or as a result of) my poor sleep, but whatever the case, I was not a happy camper. I kept trying to think of reasons that had excited me earlier, but found I knew (and know) hardly anything about what’s going to happen there. Amalea offered welcome sympathy and understanding. Anyway, before I go on, I’ll just let you all know that I woke today a new man, once again excited and eager for Nice. When I shared this with Amalea, she said “Wow… I’d be more freaked out than ever.” In a nice way, of course. Anyway, where was I?

Okay, so from NYU Paris we walked to the Champs Elysées, where we went to see Twist, a re-rendering of Oliver Twist in modern day Toronto, where Dodge and Oliver are not thieves but prostitutes, and Fagin is their pimp. It was a pretty gruesome film… I was still feeling a little, I don’t know, tipsy, I guess, from my illness, so I found parts difficult to follow. I also have never read nor seen Oliver Twist, so I wasn’t 100% sure which parts were playing off of the original or what. The main character was Dodge, played by Nick Stahl of Carnivàle, so I didn’t even know how much of his character was inferred or real or what.

We just stopped in Cannes; I’m looking out the window now at a bunch of sailboats and a pretty big island off the coast. Pretty sweet.

After the movie, Amalea and I parted ways and I headed home to try and recoup some sense of my humanity. I slept, mostly, waking up when Scott and Amalea returned home. We had made plans involving bottles of wine and roaming around Paris, which I was pretty crushed to have to decline, feeling the way I did. They seemed to give the impression that they were happy to have an excuse not to roam, so we all headed out and got sandwichs Grecques, which are Gyros, more or less, and delicious. While out, Scott and Dave ran into a friend of Scott and ‘Lea’s from their language school, a German named Alex who was in Paris, about to start on his Masters in biology or chemistry, something cool like that. He’s also an aspiring musicologist, it appears, irony of all ironies. He was with a Swedish girl, Ebba, a 19 year old from Stockholm who was coming to Paris to work for a while before going back to Sweden for University. We spent most of the evening America-bashing, despite the best efforts of Dave, who came out as a weirdly conservative guy, most notably defending Reagan as “the only president to topple Communism.” I argued that he didn’t so much topple it as happened to be president while it fell apart. I have some crude image of a cartoon Reagan standing next to a building as it’s demolished, and then saying “I did it with my mind.” Anyway.

This morning was pretty simple: Amalea and I did our usual baguette breakfast; I packed; we met the challenges of the Paris Métro with heavy luggage head-on, and made it to Gare de Lyon in time to enjoy a quick café crème before my train left.

And now, we are rapidly approaching my new home, so I will sign off, and say à bientôt!

the pride of the jet-lag gods is not to be messed with: i thought i had this thing licked, but that is becoming increasingly not the case; last night i woke up at 4:45 and was unable to re-achieve REM sleep. Oy vey. My brain feels like a very stupid millstone.

As far as recent adventures are concerned, yesterday, after amalea and I enjoyed a breakfast of baguette, beurre and confiture d'abricot, followed by some hardcore café action (both for necessary caffeine and internet dosages), we really got in touch with our travelling, international, ex-patriate spirit and watched a couple episodes of the West Wing. Haha... but it was good. I think that had we actually attempted any real activity I might have self-destructed. After that, we walked from her place in the 5ème to her language school in the 16ème; it took us a good several hours, but it was fun. I did manage to wear a hole in the heel of one of my socks, and have the beginnings of a blister... from my worn in sneakers. That's just not fair, what I say. After leaving 'Lea at her class, I took the Métro back to the apartment, had myself a snack of baguette, slept a little more... Christ, rehashing my day is even boring me. Scott's friend Dave showed up... this kid's another one of the JTS folk (damn, Jews have big noses... don't they?) who's in London working for some organization that I think has the word Zionist in it... I'm not entirely sure, but it's made me very skeptical of whatever this kid says. Okay, that's not very nice, but I'm sleep deprived, so I'm feeling punchy, heh, heh.

Anyhoo, for thems that know, the best description of this kid is a Jewish Frendan (wha??), who I believe keeps kosher and everything, and will probably someday make some young Jewish woman feel very confused about herself as she relates to his sexuality (damnit... I'm going overboard here) while propagating the species--uh, er, I mean, race.

All right, I need to embrace some more neutral subjects before I offend someone. Well, someone in addition to the others I've already offended. Oh, hey! So we had dinner at this restaurant, which was fine, although it's definitely in the running for slowest service ever. It's always hard for me to differentiate neglectful service from normal French service, but I'm inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt. The conversation inevitably made its way to politics and the middle east... territory I felt uncomfortable freely conversing in w/o prior knowledge of my fellow semite's political beliefs. So instead of talking I just kept drinking wine, which I think was probably the best strategy; Dave was channelling this speaker he'd heard a few weeks ago, an Islamic studies professor with a last name Siegel, who held the theory that the war on terror has actually effectively gotten rid of Al Qaeda (by the way, he iterated and reiterated no less than three times that Al Qaeda was actually the streamlined market name of a group called "The Coalition of the Islamic Jihad against all Jews and Crusaders"...) with the bombing of Afghanistan. Thankfully, I was too stupid without sleep to put up a worthy intellectual challenge, although I think that at least 32% of my reluctance was run-of-the-mill liberal cowardice to engage.

After dinner we met up with three british girls whom 'Lea and Scott had met at their language school and, after buying some wine/beer, we hung out in the apartment with them. I managed to buy a particularly nasty 3€ Syrah, which I took three sips of before pouring the rest of the bottle down the drain. They were a lovely bunch, using all sorts of british phrases: "crisps", "lovey", "tube".

Okay, that pretty much sums up yesterday. Oooh, yes! I didn't win the bike on eBay. Thank god. THe thought of trying to get that thing on the train simultaneous with my suitcase was giving me nightmares. Anyway, friends, I miss you all. Today: more Parissing; tomorrow: to Nice!

I’ve never been dead, at least not that I can remember, and I certainly can’t remember having been dead and then returning to earth, but I can’t help but describe my current physical state as “the living dead.” I’m actually doing a lot better than I was several hours ago. The plane landed and taxied to some corner of the tarmac—not a gate—where, like refugees or hijack victims, we were herded on to buses (okay, the refugee reference is a bit extreme… I mean, I had my guitar and my North Face backpack, and the guy next to me had a Louis Vitton suitcase). The buses drove at a snail’s pace for about ten minutes—but when you’ve taken a red-eye, it might as well have been a half-hour—to a door where we went up a flight of stairs and through passport control and baggage claim.

I was stopped at baggage claim by a young, attractive customs official, dressed in a sporty jacket and jeans. She asked me if I wanted to “do this” in French or English, and feeling about as stupid as I have in a long time, I resorted to English. She asked me if I had anything to declare. I assumed that this was stuff like food, Duty-Free stuff, things that don’t normally come out of the country. I asked her what she wanted me to declare. “You know, anything worth more than 300€, like gifts or anything, or if you have more than 7000€ cash.” So, having already admitted my overwhelming feeling of stupidity, I feel comfortable in assuming that she meant gifts of more than 300€, things like that. I said no, and she asked me to open my guitar case, which I did, and she started to examine it. “How old is it?” I told her, three years, or so. It was a birthday present. “How much did you pay for it?” I couldn’t remember exactly: $250? $300? She looked at me, understandably, like I was an idiot. “This counts. You don’t have a bill of sale for this?” My unhelpful brain, instead of trying to find a more universal solution for the problem I’d have once she realized I had, among other things, a camera and computer well worth more than 300, tried to remember where the receipt for my guitar was. Which, unsurprisingly, I had no clue about.

Anyway, long story short (too late), after explaining that I (A) have several items that are worth more than 300€, some that could be just above or below depending on which exchange rate we were going to use and (B) would be hard-pressed to find the bills of sale for these items if I were in the same room as them, she scolded me a few times, saying that this rule is nothing new, and then sent me on my way. Perhaps she took pity on me because I’m doing the Assistant program, but who knows. So, wherever you are, young attractive French Customs woman, a pathetically dilapidated red-eye passenger thanks you.

Things slowly started to look up after this. A short bus ride to the RER station (boy, if there’s one airport that could benefit from an Air Train type thingy, it’s Charles de Gaulle) and a relatively short ticket line, and I found myself on a train going directly to Paris, non-stop. After a bit of a lengthy walk through the various underground tunnels at the St. Michel Métro/RER station, I ended up at the Cardinal Lemoine stop. Somehow, up till now I had avoided carrying my duffel bag—which sported a bright orange HEAVY tag—up any stairs; I had had visions of chancing upon one of those randomly smattered escalators which pop up unexpectedly in various Métro stops, but no such luck. I think I’m getting blisters from the damn thing. It’s possible I packed too many books… Anyway, I walked from the station to the Place near Amalea’s. I hadn’t bothered to write down her address; she had intimated that the likelihood of her being in the Place, sipping an espresso was good. She wasn’t there—not blame assigned, since I didn’t even have the frickin’ address—and so, almost at the end of my calm-and-composed rope, I pulled out my computer and had an I-live-in-the-21st-century-which-is-pretty-cool-but-now-is-kind-of-freaking-me-out moment: I tapped into someone’s network and found her address in my e-mail. While standing in the street with all my luggage. WHAT?! Of course, by this point, Amalea was already running towards me, saying she had seen me from her window and had been trying to wave me down, and instead came to fetch me. I was unbelievably relieved.

From there, the day gets kind of mundane: I saw Amalea and Scott’s apartment, an exercise in efficient living space (there’s a clothes-dryer above the toilet), but tasteful, at least, as tasteful as France would care to get anytime soon. I showered, and Amalea and I got a bite to eat, and then Amalea was whisked off to her French class over by the Champs d’Elysée, and I returned to the apartment to crash hard for about four and a half hours. Now I’m sitting at a café on the Place; I had myself a (not inexpensive) café crème, but we always allow ourselves indiscretions after travel. Now: I upload this entry and the last, and check to see if I won the bike off of ebay.fr that I placed a bid on. After schlepping my bag all over town, I’m kind of hoping I haven’t.

Until next time.

So, they woke us up about a half an hour ago. I think I’d only been asleep for a couple of hours, three maximum. My watch, still on New York time, said 1:21, but there was already a sharp stripe of impending sunrise on the otherwise dark horizon. They woke us up to feed us, according to the stewardess, we’re another forty-five minutes out. I think I caught the coastline even though it was still pretty dark when we passed over it—or at least, when I think we passed over it. It’s kind of strange, flying over an entire ocean on the dark. If I didn’t know it was there, I wouldn’t know it was there… you know?

Sorry, I’m rambling, I know. Now that they’ve woken us, my mind has nothing to do but run circles around itself. There’s not quite enough battery power for another TV show, and there’s not quite enough brain power for reading or anything. I’d be content to sit here and think about nothing, but my brain’s like OR I could sit here yammering completely inane blabber until we arrive and you force me to eke out enough French to get you from the airport into the city. And at that point, I’m pretty much up against a wall, so I sit back and let the inanity wash over me. What, exactly, has it amounted to, you ask?

It seems that the primary objective in waking us was to feed us (why exactly I feel like cattle is not explicitly obvious to me at the moment, although I do have a not wholly unpleasant image of a redesigned airplane complete with feeding troughs… where was I?) but since we’ve already had our quota of one hot meal per flight, we’re left to contend with whatever preservative-tastic “snack” our corporate friends at American have dreamed up. I’m handed a box that says “crackers & spreads” written in stylishly lowercase letters in one corner, an American Airlines logo emblazoned in the opposite corner. Another question: why do airlines consistently insist on putting their logos on that which we like least about the airline? If I were American Airlines, I would not want to be associated with this pathetic box posing as a breakfast, just as I wouldn’t want my logo within five feet of the small Styrofoam cup of coffee I was handed, which suggested that a coffee bean had offered itself to the lukewarm water, but was politely turned down (“Oh, no, no, I couldn’t”). The box itself is a triple threat of Wheat Thins and some suspiciously cheerful substance described only as “Sun Butter,” a packet of Fig Newtons paired with some Knott’s berry farm jelly and a small box of raisins. And a moist towellette, which I now realize I forgot to use… damn! Anyway, The raisins were good, and the Fig Newtons and jelly surprisingly tasty, although looking back on it, it’s kind of a jelly on top of more jelly, with something called a Newton in between. The Sun Butter has been my real food for thought. The color of it reminded me fairly eerily of (and forgive me, Anna) some of my sister’s more challenging bowel movements during her diaper days. Challenging, of course, refers to my own involvement in the clean-up process, but perhaps no further explanation is needed. I’m guessing the stuff was sunflower seed butter, although I agree with the gentlemen in the marketing department of Sun Butter Inc. (or Ltd? LLC?) that the shorter name works better. The flavor was reminiscent of peanut butter, but sharper and, if at all possible, more peanut buttery, as if some scientist at Jif had finally snapped one day and turned up all the levels on a batch of PB: stickiness, oilyness, that quality that sucks the moisture right out of your mouth. It wasn’t bad, the Sun Butter, but it wasn’t easy to love, either.

What really got my sleep-addled brain going was a note on the label of the Sun Butter which said, loudly and clearly, “NO PEANUTS.” I imagine someone with the dreaded peanut allergy, equally sleep deprived, waking up to a “mystery box” of crackers and spreads, and thinking, “Great: Because eating a single peanut will kill me dead instantly, I’m not going to be able to eat any of this!” And then they reach for the Sun Butter, and right there is a sign designed just for them, telling them that they have not been forgotten, rather, they have been accommodated. I’m having trouble deciding whether this should come before or after the choir of angels, but one thing at a time, I guess.

I was teaching an SAT class before I left up on the Upper East Side, an “off-site” location which meant schlepping uptown twice a week. The class was in a studio apartment in the basement of a brownstone that had been “converted” into a classroom by the addition of several plastic tables, folding chairs, and four small white boards on flimsy easels. For some reason, the guy who owned the space brought candy for all the kids every class. And for the first few weeks it was mostly little tiny Halloween-sized Hershey bars, but then, one Sunday, all of a sudden there are normal sized Milky Ways sitting on the desks. I’m about to start class when this guy comes in and says “Wait!” I think, shit, the building’s on fire, there’s a flood upstairs, a tiger’s gotten loose from the Central Park Zoo (what do I know? It’s the Upper East Side). “Make sure that they know that those Milky Way bars may contain nuts.” I’m at once frustrated by the interjection, but not entirely unentertained by the windfall victory one of my students—probably not the one who you’d expect to have a peanut allergy… the six-foot-two, slightly-too-ugly-for-Abercrombie football player—has won against the SAT Prep company for providing him with the candy bar that damn near killed him.

I’m getting the “your computer will be the singular cause of this plane crashing” look from some people on the plane. I know it well… I’m a regular deliverer of that same look. I give it mostly to the cell phone people, those high powered businessmen and women, or those girls who insist on talking to their boyfriends right until the plane talks off. Of course, I rarely, if ever, would say anything to people about it… more likely, I’d resort to a more comfortable position and tattle to the flight attendant. I’d have little visions of the stewardess looking just around me to confirm my complaint—oh dear, they never learn, do they?—we’d share a nod of total understanding, and she might even squeeze my arm like a mother who’s just been told that her daughter once again is pushing pennies up her nose; then she’d march off. This vision is in constant competition with the fear that all I’d get from the stewardess would be a who-the-fuck-cares, get-the-hell-back-into-your-seat kind of look, which helps no one, least of all me.

Sometimes it seems a little silly to me, our total fear of confrontation. I doubt any of the people around me will ask me to turn off my computer. I couldn’t even bring myself to ask the sweet old woman behind me, who had stored her headphones on the corner of my headrest on which I had planned to sleep. What was she going to say? I guess that’s not even what I’m really afraid of; no my fear would be much more closely associated with a look—of annoyance, of humiliation, it doesn’t really matter—but it would signal her feeling some strong emotion that she would stifle, and all that would make it through would be that look of… whatever.

Anyway, I’m going to turn this puppy off. See y’all on the ground.