Parislog 43
August 19, 2006

I made it to another meetup meeting. This one was a museum meetup and we went to the Opera Garnier today. I am so glad that I found this online group because moving to a new city can be a lonely process. I am very lucky that I immediately found 2 friends but I need a lot more social contact than that especially while not working. All the different groups give me many different possible ways and times to meet people under many common interests. The people tend to be very interesting with a broad-range of life experiences, which to me makes for some interesting conversations. Sometimes you see the same faces at the different meetings but that is okay because that just gives you a chance to know them better and possibly develop some kind of friendship.

Anyway, the Opera Garnier is a most fantastic building commissioned by Napoleon III in 1761 in the Baroque style. The Baroque style is known for its density of design where every surface is covered with ornamentation of some sort. It is a very curvy and sensual style that is either loved or hated. It doesn’t leave many people indifferent. There is a ton of guilt and statues, marble and carvings. The stairs on the grand staircase are curved both convex and concave with a subtle change from one to other as you progress up the stairs. The main theatre’s 7-ton chandelier had been painted by Chagall, which made an interesting play between the baroque and the modern. This is a definite must-see.

On the way home from the Opera, a couple was sitting a few seats down up from me on the train. They were having this lovey-dovey moment that I found quite fascinating. Often when I see PDA’s, it is the man aggressing the woman and you can tell by her body posture that she really isn’t into it but these two were different. She was leaning into him with this look of utter pleasure and rapture on her face. They would kiss, not deep tongue kisses, but little tiny kisses over and over. I counted one set and it came to 20 kisses. I then looked at their hands and saw a wedding ring on his finger but not on hers. An affair maybe?

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Parislog 42
August 17, 2006

It took me a long time to get this book on fashion design that I wanted. I had seen it on the shelf of a bookstore and decided to see if it was at the library rather than forking over 35 euros. I was in luck. They had it. I went to the library on Tuesday and it was closed even though every sign said that it should be open but one can’t argue with a locked door. I went back on Wednesday and it was open but the book was not on the shelf and after I looked and the librarian looked twice and then searched the computer we gave up and I had to go to another library in another part of town. They don’t let you order a book from one library and pick it up at the one that you regularly use. I miss that system. So after another half hour metro ride, I arrived in the area and walked to the address. I walked in the door with the sign on it and there was no library in sight or obvious directions. It was the lobby of an animation center and after circling for a while I found a sign on an elevator indicating that the library was on the 4th floor. The book was just where it was supposed to be so I had a little moment of success.

I went to the employment center to make an appointment to speak with a counselor but apparently I had to sign up first. The sign up had to be done by phone and that put the fear in me. I still hate the telephone because I just can’t understand as well. This morning I made the phone call and my fears manifested. The lady spoke so quickly and was talking about things of which I had no comprehension. The only thing that I could glean out of the whole thing was that I needed some sort of number in order to sign up for my first appointment. What? I had a little break down and started crying. Then I pulled myself together and took the metro over to my local employment office to see if they would have a clue what she might have been asking me. The lady at the desk was super nice and figured out what it was and helped me to have a clue about what I needed to do but I fell apart again anyway. I guess I just hit a stress max point. It turns out that I need to go to another agency and sign up there to get a number in order to be able to sign up at the employment center. Okay, I believe all the rumors about the medieval paper system in this country. I went to the ASSEDIC (don’t know what it stands for) and got an appointment to get my number. You have to call to make the appointment and in utter trepidation I told the guy at the counter how hard that was for me and he arranged for someone there to do the call for me. How nice was that?

Last night I went to a Canadian Expat meeting through an online group called Meetup, which is all about making social groups all over the world. I thank them from the bottom of my heart. The funny thing was that of the 10-12 people there only two who were actually native Canadians. The others had either lived there for a period or visited. But, nevertheless, it was a lot of fun and I met some new people whom I expect I will meet again at other functions. We sat at a little café on rue St. Martin near the Pompidou. The music wasn’t too loud as happens often in bar type settings so it was easy to talk. I loved that. Some of us may go on a Sunday roller-blade ride that occurs in Paris every week. That's me at the very back in pink.

Parislog 41
August 15, 2006

I had a nice and busy day today starting out with meeting up with a woman from a site called freecycleparis. This is a cool site that I ran into the other day where people give away anything that they have no use. No one can charge for anything. I got a whole bunch of South Park videos from her. That should give me a little amusement.

I then had a rendez-vous with A* and I* to go to see Pirates of Caribbean. The cinema we went to is in a little section of Paris called Bercy Village that used to be a wine processing area and has now been gentrified. It is an adorable little road with a ton of little bistros and a couple of nice shops. On the next street over is a cooking school in more of the old industrial buildings but this street has a little more of the original look left over. It is a highly enjoyed area by the Yuppie crowd.

While I was on the metro going over there, there was a little girl sitting in the seat right across from me who was with a rather large family. There were three kids and the two parents who gave off the impression that they were from the country. They were bigger and louder then the average city dweller and the mannerisms just seemed so foreign even though they were speaking French. So I started to realize that the girl was mimicking the way that I was sitting. I was very upright in my chair with one hand resting on the wrist of the other on my lap and I had one foot under the seat and one slightly in front of the seat. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure and so I changed the position of my feet and sure enough she did exactly the same thing. It brought a little secret smile to my face.

The metro that takes me to Bercy Village is the newest line in Paris. #14. It is a driverless train and is a little freaky to ride. When I got to the train it was just arriving and so I jumped on as soon as I got on the platform, which happened to be the back end of the train. Then as the train was going, I walked all the way up to the front of the train. All the cars are connected just like the articulated buses and so it is completely open from front to back. Then when you arrive at the front there is a window that is open to the track and dark in front of you, that is unless a train is coming the other way or a station is coming up. It is very interesting to be able to watch like that.

After the movie, I went to a Meetup.com Paris, The Paris French Language meetup. It was at a little bar on rue Montmartre and was a bunch of people interested in practicing French and English with each other. I am using this venue to reach out and meet some new people in town. I was able to have conversations with 4 people and I really enjoyed myself, until that hour when the bars turn up the music. I really wish that bars didn’t do that. I have such a hard time hearing conversation in that sort of environment. And my voice gets tired from competing with it. Other than that, I had fun. Two were women that were fun to talk too and two were men of which one had family in the knitwear business. Score.

Parislog 40
August 14, 2006

I tried to go to the employment office today to poke around but it was closed for this day only. If I read things correctly, months ago at another office, this one specializes in the fashion industry. I wasn’t able to confirm that today obviously and now I feel anxious to know for sure.

The weather was a little better today so after the employment office, I took the bus back into the centre of the city, as it is a nice way to get a look around. After I got seated on the bus, I noticed there were TV screens at the front and the back and the sign above them said that they were testing the system out. I first thought that it was another nightmare of publicity like when you go through some checkout stands in the grocery store and you are inundated with noise and commercials on TV screens. I was wrong. These had a constantly running guide to which line you were on and what stop was coming up and the one after that. I thought it was pretty cool as I really have used the bus only about three times here and have no clue. I was way less nervous about missing my stop.

Parislog 39
August 13, 2006

The weather for August has been simply horrible. After the scorching temperatures of July, we now have very cold, gloomy and wet weather. Today has been very dark with heavy clouds and rain.

I decided to make use of the wet day by searching out a metro station that I had seen in the movie “Paris, je t’aime”. That would be one way to get out stay dry. There was one segment called Tuileries with Steven Buscemi. The metro they were filming in was one that I had not seen with very old benches. Considering the segment was called Tuileries, I figured that it must be a stop near there and I can’t remember the name on the wall in the scene. I never found it but I found one that was cool. It was at the Concorde stop on the line 12, which still has old benches of wood. All the Concorde stops have tiles with letters that actually are a puzzle of “The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen by Francoise Schein.