Keep on keeping on

Wow, time flies. I started writing this entry last week on Easter Sunday but never finished it. Then I caught up in the start of the week and crisscrossing continents making my way to Australia where I currently am. I realize only now that it’s been pushing a month since my last post.

So a little over two weeks in Paris marked my longest time there since I started this job. It was a bit chilly with on-and-off rain for most of my last 5 or 6 days in Paris…not the best combination when in a Western European city where ¾ of the best things to do are to walk around and get lost in its streets and neighborhoods. Sure enough, I still managed to get out of the apartment and do just that – wander the streets with my backpack and camera (one of my favorite free time activities). Luckily, I only really got caught in the rain once while standing outside on line to enter the Musée d’Orsay.

Last Sunday was of course Easter but probably far more important in touristic and secular Paris, it was the first Sunday of the month so most art museums are free. Who am I to pass up a free cultural opportunity so like the 3 million other tourists in this city I lined up (that is not a factual figure…I am convinced though that at any given time, tourists always outnumber native French in Paris). My plan was to go to the Orsay and then shoot on over to the Louvre just a few hundred yards away on the other side of the river. I’ve been to the Louvre a couple of times before but I think one needs to go there at least 50 times in order to truly experience the entire museum. That it was a rather foolish plan to try to squeeze several museums in came to light halfway through my hour and a half wait on line outside the Orsay. People were saying that it was a 3 hour wait to get inside the Louvre. The Orsay turned out to be a real jewel and one of my favorite museums. It is extremely small compared to Louvre or even Metropolitan Museum of Arts standards so therefore very manageable for one half of an afternoon. It had a sizeable collection of realist art (my favorite style) but is probably most famous for housing an extensive impressionist art collection. I’m not going to pretend to be an art guru and explain the intricacies or allegories of impressionist painters, but I was able to appreciate, enjoy, and mildly understand the beauty of impressionist art much more so than I have in the past. More so than just reveling in the fact of standing in front of Monet, Renoir, or Van Gogh’s most famous works I tried harder and better this time to look beyond the name and the historical significance of each work and focus with a keener eye on technique and style. It was a real pleasant appreciation for a new style of art for me.

Before the museum, I started my Easter off going to 12:30pm mass at an English-speaking church. Per usual with most English speaking ex-pat masses, the congregation was dominated by Filipinos. It reminded me of a cute 10 second cultural experience I had the week before. I was walking down the metro steps and noticed an elderly Asian couple walking up. The man first drew my attention because he was wearing the familiar blue and orange hat of my beloved New York Mets, quite an odd bit of fashion in the French capital. Then his demure wife drew my attention when she said to her husband in Filipino “it’s cold!” I turned to them and replied with a smile also in Filipino, “it IS cold, right?” They smiled back and that was it. Nothing special at face-value and the encounter lasted all of 10 seconds. But it was typical of what you can expect in Paris. Paris is diversity, Paris is cafes, Paris is people watching, and Paris is a sensory overload of a thriving modern metropolis mixed with historical façades and streets all filled with its colonial footprint and more of people.

New York and London typically get equated with diversity when thinking about western cities. “If you can’t find it in London/New York it doesn’t exist” as a saying, if not then certainly a mindset, goes. But Paris I would argue is right up there. Its colonial legacy has filled the city with immigrants from Cameroon, Senegal, Togo, Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Mali, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Lebanon, Vietnam, Laos, and a sprinkling of Caribbeans. All have set up their own enclaves and all have attracted immigrants from neighboring countries. The result is a convergence of colors, cultures, and ethnicities that, yes you do see in London or New York, but you don’t see to the same degree in Berlin, Frankfurt, Barcelona, or Madrid. Surely it is changing the dynamics of French society and redefining what it means to be French, but from a visitor’s perspective it gives the city an exciting feel to it; you always have the expectation of something new and different around the corner or what language the person getting on the metro next to you will speak and why. An Asian person boards the train next to you. Immigrant? Parents fled French Indochina and he was born and raised here? Newcomer who here to learn French? Another one of the billions of Chinese expanding their reach throughout the world? Colombia intrigued me because I have a flare for Latin America and its languages. Russia fascinated me because of its historical ties to the US and its current identity as an emerging enigma. Paris amazes me because its diversity always has a story of who is where and why.

Walk any street and you will run into dozens of cafes on a single street with outdoor seating set up in typical Parisian fashion – a circular cocktail table with two chairs set up next to, instead of facing, each other. It’s conducive for conversation sitting next to your friend but more so for people watching. The streets are the center of the show and observing their action is a prime activity. Sit around long enough at a café and a world of action, fashion, ethnicities, and languages will pass by. I definitely did a lot of café-ing during my two weeks there. Long walks with my camera throughout the city followed by a glass of wine or a cup of coffee taking it all in with my journal and my book next to me in the rare case that the people watching wasn’t entertaining enough. I sort of have a love-hate relationship with Paris. The language barrier and having to preface every conversation with a bashful “excuse me, I don’t speak French” is an obvious impediment. And like any city the crowds, noise, and urban pollution can get overbearing. But it’s a surprisingly small city for someone who digs city walks such as myself that has dozens of distinct neighborhoods to choose from for getting lost in. I thought about taking day trips to other parts of the country during my weekends. But being a firm believer when traveling to explore your host city before the rest of the country I chose to stay put in Paris, without regret. Every turn of the corner holds something worth seeing whether architecture, an urban park, an immigrant community carrying on business as usual, or an action packed bar full of locals watching you watching them.