Paris
So, yeah. I get the fuss now.
The reason I started this train backpacking thing by flying to Paris was to be able to time and see one of my absolute favourite acts, Carpenter Brut (watch this amazing music video of Turbo Killer!!!). Got to see him (them?) in Stockholm a few years ago and I’ve rarely felt as good as I did during that.
He was playing at a metal festival an hour or so south of Paris on Sunday. Or so I thought. The horrible combination of me being me, and the French being absolute shit ass at communication led to me royally misinterpreting what day he was gonna play. An hour before going on stage on Saturday, when I was at a bit of a low point due to having walked waaaay to long and forgetting to eat and feeling a bit lonely, I found that out and was the saddest I’ve been in quite a while. So disappointed, angry, frustrated and all of those ugly feelings. At me, at them, at the French. Very shortly after that, after having to accept it was impossible for me to see him, it turned around quite drastically. But I’m getting ahead of myself, I think. I should probably do this a bit more chronologically. Or should I? I’ll try at least. Or will it just be boring? We’ll see.
I probably wrote something about expectations before, and knowing myself I’ll probably harp on about that in every post. To me it’s just the most fascinating thing that way too often have had a too strong influence of my experiences.
Anyways. Finally going to Paris, after postponing it all my life, I guess it’s inevitable to have no expectations, however much you try to go into the experience like a newborn. What I’m trying to say is I continually got surprised, like all the time.
I knew it was going to be a beautiful city, but, like, what the fuck. At a certain point it just becomes ridiculous. Is it really healthy to become so numb to the beauty you barely acknowledge it? I barely got to the RER station (pendeltåg-ish) the first day of exploring before I was tired of taking photographs.
Oh, yeah, the first three nights I spent a bit east of Paris, at Victor and Pauline’s place. In a cozy suburb called Nogent-sur-Marne. These people 🥰. So wonderful. Already miss them.
At some point when I had been in Paris for a short while I realised that there’s simply no point taking pictures of anything but the very particular stuff you actually want to share or revisit. Happy I had that realisation that early. Otherwise I would’ve just been a wreck of anxiety trying to capture it all. If you want to look at beautiful building just pick a random adress on google maps and do street view. Or watch Amelie or something is probably a better idea. Many people have tried and succeeded in capturing the essence of the beauty of Paris way better than I ever could.
So I’m on the train from Paris to Amsterdam now and I’m incredibly tired, and I can’t be bothered to go back and reread what I’ve written thus far. This is gonna be a bit rambly.
So yeah. What I wanted to do my first full day (Friday) of exploring Paris was:
Walking around and just being in the atmosphere
Buying at least one article of secondhand clothing
Getting a shave
Stuffing my mouth with tasty stuff
Drink wine
Dance
Again, keeping expectations as low as possible. Just seeing what happens and not knowing where to end up. Well. I think I succeeded with everything except for buying something secondhand. By recommendations I went to Le Marais because of the amount of stores there. Howling holy shit though they really know how to make the rich people pay for vintage clothing. Suffice to say, I chose to postpone my shopping after getting frustrated by the price tags for too long. Of course I get that some people really have a deep interest and there’s so much culture and identity and value in certain clothing, but that’s just not me I guess. In my brain it’s like “why would anyone pay 140€ for a shirt that gives the same vibe as something you could find in a market that costs 1€?”. Anyways. I’m ranting.
Le Marais and all the expensive stores were of course very cool, but this was my favourite part of it.
Oh, and before that the barber gave me the most French moustache I’ve ever had.
I remember my mother telling me about her eurotrip back in the day, and how she walked way too much during her stay in Paris. Bearing that in mind I made a point to myself to try and take the metro as much as possible, still I ended up walking (and dancing) a total of 22.5km that Friday. It wasn’t really by choice, I think. My theory is that I’ve simply accumulated an over abundance of restlessness these last year or so. A need to move forward but feeling a bit stuck. I must’ve walked past a hundred cafes and bars where my belly was telling me to just chillax and drink, but my the rest of my body just wouldn’t stop. Some kind of bootleg Forest Gump shit or something.
After finally finding some peace (and wine) by the Saint-Martin Canal, beer in Belleville, food and talk with Victor et Pauline at some place, I wound up at Le Discobar. What a super cool place. Amazing dj delivering disco bangers on vinyl in a tight back room.
I felt a little bit too alive then to go home, but surprisingly, the bars mostly close at 2 in Paris. Sooo after some much needed help from a new friend from the bar getting the blue Vélib’ bike going, I decided to just use the energy I had left to check off seeing Notre Dame, the Louvre and the Triumfbågen.
At 3.30 I took an Uber back to the suburbs and had a great time chatting with the driver. A lot of laughs and learned a lot about the horrible ways both Barbados and Kenya has been exploited by the superpowers of the world.
If Paris would be an adjective it would probably most likely be diverse. Not counting beautiful, romantic etc. Even the taxi rides just kept on giving so much you wouldn’t expect.
Saturday started of quite chill, just hanging out with V&P, before they left for their retreat. I promised myself to try to be nicer to my poor body and take it a bit easier. Well. Didn’t really work out. Ended up walking and dancing even further.
My plan for the day was:
Actually manage to buy a new shirt or blouse
Getting my hair washed at a salon somewhere
Dance
I went to the big market at Porte de Clignancourt for the second day running (I only realised when I got there on Friday it was only open during weekend. Good thing it’s so much fun to ride the metro!!). Thanks for the tip, anyways, Anna and Robin!! The tip me post worked!!! 🥳
After the market I focused on finally getting to wash my disgustingly dirty hair that had a long train trip, two days of Denmark, a plane trip, and almost two full days of Paris in it. I found an extremely tight little salon in a smaller street in the 18th district, close to the market. Probably one of my weirdest, but most wholesome, experience going to the hairdresser. First off, they were shocked that I asked if they could wash my hair. I don’t want to assume anything, but what I got from their faces said “is this blond white boy serious?”. After the shock, they were just happy and excited and they decided that my tips had to go as well. Who am I to argue? The one who actually washed, brushed and cut my hair didn’t speak any English, but the other one who did made it very clear they all loved my hair very much indeed. Don’t get me wrong, I am the biggest sucker in the world for validation, but they showered me with compliments to the point where it almost became silly. Either way, I enjoyed it immensely. Felt so relaxed and taken care of.
Having some time to kill after this I opened the map and realised I was just five minutes from Montmartre. I’m not proud of the screenshot here but, eh, it is what it is.
Fast forward a two hours, to where this post started, with me not being in the best spot, but just having eaten a weird street food sandwich which then and there was amazing, I met Robin, another burner whom I met this summer as well. He and his friend Cecile(?) had guided me to Amaluna. Another bar/dance floor kind of situation. And oh my lord. It was so good. These lovely people really helped me turn the sadness of missing Carpenter Brut into a night where I honestly felt happy I did miss it. Only picture I have from that place is this one of Cecile on her bike.
It sort of felt like we left during the peak, but we were heading for the night’s main thing, Viken Arman who played such a banger set with another dj. If you know the feeling of one with the music and the people around you, where every song and mixing feels better than the last one, you’ll know what I mean when I say we had a great time there.
And us, still a bit in the euphoria of the hours of dancing.
I wonder what I’m doing with my hand on the picture. Mimicking the picture taking hand perhaps? My arthritis isn’t that bad. Yet.
On Sunday I woke up feeling not-startled for the first time in ages. The two days of exorbitant amount of walking the goody good good feels of the dancing finally enabled me to relax. To be still. Spent the bigger part of the day just lying on the floor, decompressing my back and listening to music. Washing. Eating. Breathing.
I got invited to spend the night in Ville-d’Avray at Robin’s place, so we kind of accidentally met at the station closest, before taking the walk to his home. Buddy Jesus himself couldn’t have prepared me for the relief and relaxation I felt stopping by a gorgeous pond on the way to the house. We stopped there and talked about everything, for a long time. Just chilling, laughing, being serious, the whole spectrum. All the while absorbing this magical view the entire sunset. Pictures never does anything justice, as we all well know. Still. One has to try, eh? I’m happy to once again be able to share a moment like this, at a place that means a lot to a friend. Robin grew up around here.
Today (Monday) I got to borrow Robin’s bike and went to the gardens of Versailles that also just happened to be 15 minutes away with the electrical bike. Being there for 2 hours was no way near enough. I had no idea how humongous that place is. Really need to get back.
Now Im just arriving in Amsterdam. What incredible timing. This took 3h30 to write??? I hope you aren’t bored if you made it this far.
At some point I will try to do a post about the more sociological and cultural stuff. There are so many interesting things that I want to be pretentious about.
