The supreme law of the land & My (il)legal adventures

08.28.07

The supreme law of the land.

Prologue:

The first week of class (Aug. 20-24), we had a wonderful professor of French History, he taught the French Revolution until the end of the 3^rd Republic, i.e. WWI. His name, coincidentally, was Pascale Cauchy. You couldn’t find one better for me—2 mathematicians in 1 guy…we all know Pascal’s Triangle and the Cauchy-Schwartz Inequality.

He was overall a truly engaging and amazing professor, and we’re going to Fontainebleau, a chateau about 40mi. from Paris, this Sunday, with him. He also sported a double collar, all 4 days of class, which for a middle-aged guy I thought was a bit blasé, but in France…

End of Prologue.

…this week we have Nicolas Picarnat, who is not as good a professor, in my humble opinion, and the subject he’s teaching, the French Constitution, is nowhere near as interesting as The Terror or the 2 Napoleons. The French Constitution has a lot of articles, and though they’re short, it doesn’t compare with the relative terseness and clarity of our beloved US document.

I’ll cut to the chase…

On Monday (08.27.08), during my 1.5 hour lunch break, I was sitting in the bathroom outside of the classroom, and thinking to myself, “Damn, I wish we were still learning history,…I could wipe my ass with that constitution….”

Low and behold, as I reach down for the (obviously one-ply) toilet paper, I see that it is curiously white and blue, and has cartoons and words all over it. Low and behold, I realize, holy shit, the constitution is printed on the sheets of the toilet paper!!!

I thought at first, bizarre—wouldn’t that be desecrating the so-called ‘sanctity’ or dignité of the document? Then I realized, the French government, (or l’État as it is affectionately dubbed), was just trying to educate the electorate, using innovative methods.

Very good idea, Mr. Xavier Darcos (Minister of Education); civics class 3 times a day!

My (il)legal adventures.

(This vignette should directly precede the entry about food establishments closed on Sunday).

Sunday. 2pm. I finally amble out of my foyer (code for dorm with personal bathroom) after a late night Saturday. I decided that after a week of hanging out with other Americans in my program and general fun, I was going to spend Sunday alone walking around, living life, and eventually going to the library to do some research.

A nice and sunny day, I get into the subway, ready, awake…Ride 2 stations to Montparnasse, where I was planning to get off and go to a Paris city museum (gratuit by the way—free) about a sculptor similar to Rodin.

It’s a fairly sizable subway station, so I wander a bit finding the correct exit. Almost nearing it, I see a line of clean and nice looking ladies and gentlemen checking, what I had assumed were IDs.

Yes. This was the national police. No. They did not want my passport (read: unlike Russia); they wanted my train ticket. Fine, I showed them my pretty orange card case and ticket…and SLAP! €25 s’il vous plait (please).

What? How? Did I manage to be hustled out of my money by the police twice in one year? Yes.

Apparently, it was illegal for me to have been carrying the subway-card case I was carrying without affixing my photo and signing my name. As usual, I could do nothing but sign my name and fork over the money.

At least this time they didn’t get me just because I was an American—they got me because I was a stupid American. I hate giving bribes.

PS. I do have to add that French police were ostensibly nicer than those Russian thugs from Moscow, they even said Merci after I paid them, and gave me a receipt, so that if I were stopped again, I wouldn’t have to play double jeopardy, how nice.

Sundays – or ‘le Dimanche’ chez le français.

08.26.07

Now I am aware that Sunday is the day of rest, supposedly, technically, really only a Christian/Unionist invention.

And I understand that in the early 1900’s, in the good old days of the Progressives, getting Sunday off and taking the newly-constructed tramways into a suburb, or the countryside perchance, was the sublime conclusion to a 70-hour weekly toil in the factory.

Still, this is 2007, not 1911. Thing should be open on Sunday.

Again, I would understand if I was in, you know, a suburb of Little Rock, AR; where the only thing open would be the Walmart.

But I’m in the middle of freaking Paris—there’re more tourists here than residents, (especially in August).

Why do I rave bitterly? Probably because after walking for 30 minutes around Montparnasse, a fairly well-to-do and hip districts with people around during the middle of the day Sunday, I wanted to eat. Natural I suppose. Now by eat I didn’t mean plopping down 25€ for some sub-par pasta, or oysters (that I can’t even eat anyway), and sitting there and eating for 2 hrs, because once again it is Sunday, and only one waiter is working. Everything else was closed, and I passed at least 35 other eating establishments.

Needless to say, I solved my hunger problem indirectly—I went to a sculpture museum for 1.5 hours and then, after another 15 minutes of walking stumbled upon a hole-in-the-wall with exactly what I needed: Panini or Sandwich + Sweet Crêpe + Orangina = 5€. Golden, why couldn’t it always be like that?

Nice and integrated.

08.18.2007

Nice and integrated.

Even though I’ve only been here 3 days now, I feel I can somewhat generalize already about the French as a whole. (Typical American approach, btw.)

First, all that talk of snootiness, holier-than-thou, liberty fries attitude we come to expect from this crêpe-loving country, has, in my experience been very unfounded. Every person I have talked to has been nice and helpful. People voluntarily say ‘bonsoir’ or ‘bonjour’ in the elevator and there have been no rude waiters, salespeople—even the street vendors have a refined air and treat the passerby with dignity. (Funny thing, you need to have a permit to ‘vend’ on the street, as I saw one arrested by the police today 300 yds from the Eiffel tower.)
If you think they’re only nice to me because I address them in French (just like I first thought), just listen to my current French, a shade above atrocious, and you will discover this is not the reason (as have I, L).

Second, and perhaps no less shocking, the overall societal integration. If New York City is the melting pot of the world, then Paris is like a Jackson Pollock work—lots of colors dabbed over the whole canvas with many unlike colors pairing up instantaneously. Seriously though, a more integrated city I have not seen. Certainly not in the US, or anywhere else I’ve been. People seem to coexist here unlike elsewhere. Lots of interracial/interethnic couples (and thus children). Interesting.

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Lots of demographic studies show that Europeans in general are having fewer kids than their immigrant counterparts and thus altering the makeup of the continent.
Have these demographers ever been here then, to Paris at least???
Every group of people I see that isn’t a couple has a stroller. And I don’t mean the tourists (most tourists have older children with them). Clearly the French, their proud selves, have decided to show up those demographers and naysayers by bringing out, showing off, and strolling all of the available infants and toddlers.
Now did I get a representative sample? Perhaps, I’ve walked around for a good 15 hours the past 3 days, outside: that’s a lot of f-ing strollers. Way to go French people, reproduce at will.

A brief shout-out.
Oslo. Spring 2005. Sam Richter and some younger girls and I completed a 5-6 hour walk around Oslo, starting roughly from Henrik Ibsen’s grave, getting lost, finding a park, then a river, some hobos, and then finally finding our way back to the hotel.
Paris. Fall 2007. Apparently, I wanted some more of that. It’s one of the best ways to see a city—just to wander around. Today, I saw the Eiffel Tower and surrounding Martian Fields (Champs de Mars, Marsovo Polye). That’s where the tourists are. Damn, that’s a lot of people. Then I walked around about ¼ of the city, seeing nothing in particular and everything in general for 5 hours.

I highly recommend this sort of tourism.

08.16.2007

Surprisingly USAirways got me to Paris in one piece, without losing any baggage, and pretty much on time. Not surprisingly getting to that was a headache of delays, malfunctioning websites, and Philadelphia International Airport (PHL)—as my neighbor on the plane from MSP shared, the airport with the worst recorded delays in the Union.

Arriving in France, throughout unassuming fields (or champs, for those Francophiles among us), it seems like we’re landing somewhere in Nebraska, as it’s all green and pretty and oh wait, there’s a large conurbation on the horizon. Needless to say Charles de Gaulle (CDG) Airport, and all of France on the first day, reminds me of a mix of Israel and Russia. I presume this only natural, on second thought, I frame that which I do not know/have not yet encountered with that which is known/already experienced by my mind or psyche.

Still, France is a mix of greenery with palm trees, loitering employees, and lots of fresh fruit and vegetable stands…Israel. And Russia brought the graying Soviet-looking apartment buildings, the ever-present smell of urine, yes even in the beloved Métro, 2le-decker mixed-use store fronts, public transportation, and very very narrow streets in general.

Advice to those who go abroad:
Pack less, actually a lot less. Now, I’m not known for being partic. materialistic or anything and in general the amount of clothes I own is, in comparison to any self-respecting female, puny. Still, pack 2ce as little as you think you need, if even for that first day of trudging through unknown avenues.

I, again like most men, have among others, these 2 flaws: stubbornness and a belief that in knowing everything (there I said it).
How this hurt me in finding my way: I am obviously too stubborn (and cheap/have immigrant mindset) to take a taxi, I mean who would do that?
To those who know me well, I’m pretty good with directions, maps, transit, and geography. Well, unfortunately, my expertise goes only until I get off said transit/map. Obviously I go the wrong first and then the right way second, which is fine unless you’re carrying 120lbs of clothes, computer, dictionary, God knows what.

I subsequently slept for about half the day, as I was dog-tired.

Then I explored the city…taking the train to the Champs-Elysées I subsequently took a wrong turn (see the pattern), and instead tumbled upon gardens and palaces: Place de la Concorde ensuing into the Tuileries gardens, fraught with families and couples (not homeless people as some people assumed). Looking backwards I saw the Arc de Triomphe, looking forward I saw the Arc d’Austerlitz and the Louvre with the pavilions, palaces, glass pyramids, souvenir-vendors.

Petit Intro

Bonjour to all friends, relatives, acquaintances, stalkers...

I hope to keep in touch with many of you and hope you will reciprocate likewise. This blog should aid in this enterprise. Feel free to post comments as well, making the forum interactive.

Before we begin...
1. My internet connection is spurious, erratic, and public so tha post mayu be irregular.
2. The keyboards in French are...in French; so 'a' and 'q' are switched as are 'w' qnd 'z', and the 'm' ended up where the semicolon used to be, so forgive the typos.
3. Intricate details might be missed in the production and editing of this blog, so emailing at my usual sevarodnyansky@gmail.com or my NU address is preferred.
4. Have a nice autumn, have fun, and read (and write).