Things i have thought about in Paris

As M has outlined we have been rather busy scooting all over the place to see the sights of Paris. There have been a number of interesting things/people that we have noted that are separate to the actual sites. One of the most striking things is the fact that so many of the supposedly AMAZiNG sites are in fact not nearly so amazing and have been turned completely into attractions for tourists and have lost their own character. The most obvious of these, in my opinion, is the Eifel Tower. But more generally, it is clear that the Parisian tourism board has been very effective over the lasrt century in making sure that everyone thinks that if they come to Paris and dont see the eifel tower, the arch triumph, the louis viutton store on champs elysee that they have not seen ‘Paris’. Of course this observation is not new and is common to all countries that market themselves as tourist destinations, but the myth of paris seems especially strong. It has infiltrated art, contemporary culture etc. Needless to say the city is amazing and very cosmopolitan fabulous for walking around and the cathedrals and art are great. But as M has already mentioned there are so many people here queing for hours to go up the eifel tower, or to take a photo of the latest ferrari in the champ elysee store room that i cannot imagine that many of them have thought about why they might like to see those places. We have been doing the same thing but it really struck us last night when we were going home in the metro and doing battle with the hoards of crowds going in the other direction to the arch de triumph in the crappy weather and having their photo taken in the fake Xmas trees, that most tourists want their destination to be what they have imagined it would be and not what the place may actually be like. Are those people who hqd their photo taken in the fake snow going to pretend that it was snowing and reinvent their memory from the photo? Similarly goes for all the couples doing the big staged kiss in public places in a way that seems like it could only be in order to ‘experience’ Romantic Paris.

One cliche that seems to have a real basis is the Parisian waiter, who slams down cutlery, runs around with an overloaded tray perched upon his fingers like an inverted iron claw bath tub leg, who takes the order and then shouts it from about a distance of 1 foot to the guy on the cafe machine. They seem to be territorial within the cafe and tell the others waiters who may encroach upon their patch to move aside. The competition for tips is fierce; In one place we noted that chqnge was given in an unusual combination of coins and notes, presumably to make it all the easier to leave a tip for the performance. This performance appears to be everywhere not just in touristy places, and the service can be very good but just with an accompanying self made soundtrack from the waiters. How any one wrote a great literary or philosophical masterpiece in such a din is completely beyond me.

Other things of note: it won’t surprise you to hear that the French make outrageously good sweets, including a most fabulous caramelised apple tart that i had the other day. Also men over here seem to be rather liberal with the bladder. Why go use a toilet when a lamp post will do. Its everywhere. As yet M has resisted the temptation to follow suit but we still have a few days for him to get his willy out in public! Dog poo is everywhere and no one seems remotely interested in removing it from the footpath no matter how big or centrally located. Finally, after so many years of tourism the Parisians hqve gotten the art of the truely tacky souvenier down pat. I have actually managed to procure an old fashioned plastic half oval daggy snowdome, with snow in the tricolor… does it get any better than that?