my favorite cool and weird stuff. seemingly unconnected yet somehow connected.

So Paris has given me a renewed appreciation for contemporary art. There are a lot of really cool modern museums here. It's funny that the Louvre was actually my least favorite museum. That may be because it's always so crowded. I felt like I needed to go crowd surfing to see anything. And the line. The line was ridiculous. Since it's France, it only got wider, never longer.




Anyway, my favorite museum is the Pompidou Center. Surprising, because everyone told me that it was nothing special. When a sudden downpour interrupted my stroll in the Marais, it was with a bit of reluctance that I headed over to the nearby Pompidou. I loved it. I spent 5 hours there wandering through the different exhibits, drinking esspresso in the cafe, and milling around in the long corridors. It was just weird and cool. They had an entire floor dedicated to an exhibit called le Mouvement des Images_art, cinema "The movement of images_art and film." My favorite piece was a projection movie called "Home Stories" by Matthias Muller. He strung together scenes from classic 1950s hollywood movies starring disturbed housewives in evening gowns. It’s filmic mutilation using fast cuts that play up the gender conventions. It’s just interesting to watch. Here's a clip.



Another really interesting museum in Paris is the Palais de Tokyo. It’s open from noon to midnight everyday and there is a cool restaurant inside full of hipsters and artsy types. The exhibit they have on now is Lost in Paradise. Coincidentally, there was a cool film there as well that was very similar to Home Stories. It’s called Zoo by Salla Tykka. It features a woman dressed as 50s secretary wandering through a zoo taking pictures of things also set to horror music. Intercut are scenes of people fighting over a ball underwater. I’m not really quite sure what one has to do with the other. Somehow I doubt the artist does either, as evidenced as her explanation of it http://www.sallatykka.com/web/index.php. Weird.


































Zoo. Taking a picture of a picture of a woman taking a picture. How postmodern of me.


Right now there is a crazy exhibition going on at le Grand Palais, a large hall built for the Paris exhibition of 1900. The current exhibition is called le Grand Repertoire Machines de Spectacle, basically all these crazy machines built for outdoor plays that are put on by a Parisian theater company. It was totally strange. Some of the stuff I saw: a machine that sprays concentrated smells on the audience (warning: one of the smells was “horse” oh merde!), a motorized bathtub/shower that a live bather drove around the exhibition hall, and a giant book that tells the history of paris. Inexplicably, at 4:30pm everyday they demonstrate a catapult machine that launches and destroys a piano. The explanations were entirely in French. This made it even better, because I got to make up my own explanations why anyone would want to build machines like the automatique nutella spreader etc.




















Ah graffiti, Paris is covered in it. Most of it is crap. Some is great. This street meme is right next to the 80 stairs I walk up everyday. I noticed Clarisse took a picture of the exact same one on a wall in LA. Globalization has spread to street artists.

"Globalization is redrawing the world. It is not trade and business alone. It is also a meeting of minds." From an exhibit at Palais de Tokyo that shows the pros and cons of globalization. Everything folds in on itself.

take a walk through my neighborhood

From left to right, top to bottom.
1. This is just one of the sets of stairs I climb multiple times a day to get to my place. Good thing too considering how much pain au chocolate I eat here.
2. The marche that is two feet away from my door. Recognize it? It's the one from Amalie. Cool, huh?
3. My blue front door, gay bar adjacent.
4. Sexodrome. It's the first thing you see after you get off at my metro station, Pigalle.
5. Moulin Rouge, on the same street at the Sexodrome. You can usually find a 2 hour line of poorly dressed overweight tourists standing in front of it. Very sexy.
6. Monoprix, a supermarket. Conveniently, located right across the street from the erotic supermarket.

a motley crew

the best thing about traveling alone... making new friends from all over the world.









Yogi + Alexis (Paris)













Nathan (Stockholm) + Sophie (Sydney)














George (London) + me (LA)













Lilit (LA) + Pierre (Paris)

Culture vs Pop-culture

I’ve found that some striking similarities between Americans and French people are even more interesting than the differences. The differences I expected. The way you greet friends, meet new people, office politics, dining etiquette… it’s all very different in France than the US. I find myself feeling socially retarded quite often. But while walking around the city streets, the similarities give me a general (and continual) feeling of déjà vu. American pop-culture is EVERYWHERE in Paris. I have noticed the influence of American music and fashion much more in Paris than I ever observed it in other cities that I’ve been to in the UK, western Europe, or Scandinavia. This is totally strange because citizens of those other cities usually seem more America-friendly than Parisians.

American surf/skate culture and streetwear are everywhere. Walking along the shops in Chatalet I felt like I was at the Irvine Spectrum, surrounded by stores like Oakley and Quicksilver. I ran into some of my coworkers in a bar late one night in Montmartre and was warmly greeted with “Salut Sara – have a drink with us! You must come to a party we are having tomorrow! Wear your VANS!!!”

On Rue Saint-Denis they have a lot of stores with names like “Ruffneck Hiphop Shop” and “Urban American” that advertise their wide selection of RocaWear, ECKO, and Sean John. As I type this, the girl in the office next to me is singing aloud to Eminem… “my name ez what, my name ez oh, chicka chicka chicka.” Next thing I know people will be asking if I want to go with them to le louvedizzle.

I think that global youth culture is just becoming more consistent in big cities around the world. I don’t think it is that today’s youth are becoming homogenized lemmings, but rather they adopt the coolest trends from all over the world. Whether you call them “hipsters” or “metropolitie” they borrow from other cultures and can do it very quickly because of the Internet. In Paris you see the influence of styles from Tokyo and Rio de Janeiro as much as LA and Berlin. Tres bien. I like it.

I guess not every Paris story can be a cheerful one.

Let me just say at the beginning of this entry that everything is fine now. In sharp contrast to all of my other experiences in Paris I had a bit of a nightmare situation on Monday. Some crazy homeless guy grabbed me on the street right outside my metro station (in broad daylight no less) and jabbed me in the arm with something sharp. I was so focused on just getting away from him that I didn’t really pay attention to my arm until later. I kind of put the whole thing out of my mind when I got home and it wasn't until a few hours later when I noticed that my arm was hurting. I saw that he had punctured my skin with something sharp and there was a raised red bump around it so I proceeded to completely freak out.

I looked at the guidebook Clarisse had given me under where to go in a medical emergency and it said something along the lines of "I will fill this section out later. You can call my mom." So I dialed her mom and no one picked up. At this point "freak out" turned into total panic because I just had no idea what to do or where I could go. This was the first moment where as a “lone traveler” I really felt alone. Luckily, Weave was IM and snapped me out of it. I ended up calling 15, which is the French equivalent of 911. I wanted the address of an emergency room that I could go to, but instead they insisted on sending a doctor to my house.

So the doctor looked at my arm and told me that while the guy definitely jabbed me with something sharp (duh), it was probably a sharp ring or a pencil or something, not a needle as I was worried it might be. So he cleaned my arm and gave me a bandaid and told me I would be fine.

I think I was just more scared than anything else, and the scared feeling was accentuated by the helplessness I felt. Sometimes it is really hard to live in a place where you can't really communicate with other people. In the end everything was ok, and I feel like I handled it the best way I could.

Looking back at the situation (though I definitely would never want to relive it) I can see some humor in it all. The doctor didn’t understand my accent very well, so I had to constantly point to words like “homeless” and “crazy” in my English-French dictionary. This whole ordeal ended up costing me 100 euro. In France, you pay the doctor in cash and then you submit the cost to insurance later. (Don’t worry, I called one of my coworkers to confirm this before I just handed over the money.) The doctor didn’t take credit cards and I didn’t have that much cash on hand, so I had to walk with him to the ATM and give him money. It was totally weird. If you can imagine what this must have looked like, me walking with older man to a cash point in the red light district at night, taking out money, handing it all to him, and then each going our separate ways. Kinda ridiculous. But anyway, it was worth the money it for the peace of mind of knowing i am ok, etc.

davis, not paris, is the biking capital of the world

Well I have been priding myself on how well I seem to be fitting in so far. French people assume that I am French until I respond to their comments with a look that can only be described as “le huh?” What’s funnier is when American’s try to ask me questions in stilted French… funnier still when they talk about me in English in front of me assuming I’m French. Now that’s just not very bright, considering most French people my age understand English perfectly. Anyway, as a departure from my “blend in” efforts, I decided to do something that screams look-at-me-I’m-an-annoying-tourist: take a bike tour.

It occurred to me about 30 seconds after selecting a bike that I hadn’t ridden one in about 12 years and perhaps the streets of Paris weren’t the best place to relearn. I spent the first 20 minutes reminding myself to remain calm and avoid cars… and poles. Fortunately, after those first few harrowing moments it was like *insert obvious analogy here.*

Having optimistically mastered the whole bike thing, I was able to shift my focus to… the other total idiots in my tour group. My group consisted of a couple of very drunk guys from UC Davis who kept reminding me that Davis is the bike capital of the world, usually followed by a wink. I pretended to not speak English.

Furthermore, my tour guide was a guy named “River,” and definitely looked like someone who would be named River. Instead of regaling us with facts about the city, River was primarily occupied with barking orders at members of this 10-person family on our tour. Several of them appeared not only to have never ridden a bike before, but seemed to be the types that have difficulty tying their shoes in the morning.

This caused our group to move so slowly that the next group caught up to us. I decided that it would be in my best interest to just start following the other guide instead. Best decision I ever made. I was immediately befriended a Columbian and an Australian, girls my age also traveling alone. So we had a fantastic time. Paris at night is beautiful, and you can cover a lot of ground on a bike. My favorite part was riding through jardine de l’oratorie and into the plaza where Louvre pyramid is. I felt like a little kid. The tour ended with wine tasting on a boat cruise and a (wobbly) bike ride back.















le louvre et tour eiffel (manuela, sophie, me)

museums are a lot like picture books... except less useful

So I have been making good use of my days in Paris, seeing many things and not going home until the last train. I have been to a lot of museums. They are really great – not just for the cultural enrichment but for the language learning. I totally understand the reason behind picture books now. I picked up a lot of new words at the Muse de l’Orangerie and felt quite proud of myself. I shouldn’t have been too excited about this though, because this learning didn’t really translate to real life as much as I had hoped.

I mean it’s not often that you are in the grocery store looking for the aisle where they keep ‘a woman in a large hat.’ Also, the museum plaques don’t really come with a pronunciation guide, so I say the words completely wrong. Most French people understand me far better when I speak English than when I attempt French, it’s totally ironic. They seem to appreciate the effort though.

My apartment in Montmartre is great. It is nice and cool on the inside, so it is refreshing to come home, and I sleep well here. Well, my sleep is interrupted on occasion because I live right next door to a bar. Olivier (whose apartment I’m staying in) mentioned to me in passing that the bar was “specialized.” I have since learned that specialized means “gay bar.” So every night, after sitting in cafes and walking around Paris like it’s my job, I get off at my metro station, Pigalle, which is in the heart of the red light district. The first thing I see after I climb up the stairs is the SEXODROME *picture 7 foot-tall neon lights*, then I walk along and say hello to my friendly neighborhood French prostitutes, finally I turn onto my street and wave to the gay guys sitting on my front stoop. But hey, neon lights = well lit streets, prostitutes = lots of foot traffic. I’m totally serious when I say my neighborhood feels very safe.

my town, my street. montmartre, rue des abbessess.

paris status

paris is great. the food is delicious, i never run out of things i want to do, the people have been very friendly. i am having a wonderful time. but rather than bore you with the details about places i’ve gone i thought you’d all be more interested to hear about the weird things about paris and parisians that i’ve noticed.

first the saatchi paris office. i will never, ever again complain about our office. it’s super hot in paris right now. saatchi paris office – no air conditioning. no air conditioning – no windows. well, no openable windows. it’s literally 94 degrees inside. it’s hotter inside than outside. no wonder the french smell so great.

french people are also all about conservation. so you turn off the water to the laundry machine unless you are doing laundry, you turn off the hot water heater if you are not using the hot water. other than making things complicated for me, because i can’t read the switches and could accidentally do things like make my dryer explode, i think it is commendable. the only energy conservation method that i am not a fan of is the timed hallway light switches. whoever came up with this idea should be taken out and shot. they only last like 10 seconds, so unless you barrel down the hallway full speed you are doomed to walk the last several yards in complete blackness running into things like curiously placed hall tables and your weirdo neighbor.

also, for some reason, standing in a line is a skill that escapes the french. you see orderly lines, but once they start moving, they immediately degenerate into a crowd akin to something you might find at a lunatic asylum fire drill. also, the french unapologetically cut. just walk right ahead of you, pretend to be distracted by a piece of lint, and there you have it, somehow seem to be ahead of you. this isn’t just one person either, it’s like groups of people. odd.

my lack of french speaking skills haven’t really gotten in my way. i am enjoying the sense of never really knowing what the heck is going on around me. my life seems to have become a series of educated guesses followed by interesting consequences.

some saatchi paris peeps (clarisse and amy) eating dinner at dede la frites. mmmm salad the french way.

July 21, 2006 - Arrival in Paris

it's really hot here right now, like 98 degrees. i noticed it right as i stepped off the plane it was like walking into a wall of... um, hotness. i wasn't sure of anything when i left, meeting places or times kept changing. luckily things totally fell into place once i landed. i was able to get a hold of clarisse who told me to go to a cafe and that she would meet me 2 hours later (how French), but i was also able to get a hold of Mary and she and i got there at the same time. it was quite fun having a beer in paris with my best friend from junior high. haha.

so we went out to dinner at a cute little cafe and then watched Team America (f@#$ yea!) as it thunder stormed outside.

her best friend's apt that i’m staying at right now is quite nice. coincidently, they have an entire WALL filled with comic books. an ENTIRE wall of things like "V pours Vendetta." it seems that can't escape my subculture project.

went sightseeing and wandered around paris with mary today. ate some delicious food at every meal. most interestingly i saw the "paris plager." the mayor of paris decided to turn the seine river bank into a beach for the people who weren't able to take a vacation in august. so he brought in sand and put it all along the river bank and created a boardwalk. people lay out on the sand on beach loungers as if they are in barcelona. also there are two floating swimming pools in the river. crazy, no?

tomorrow i move to montmartre where i will be staying for the rest of my time in paris.

sara and mary at pere lachaise - famous cemetary in paris