I Got All My Sisters and Me

On Friday night I went to go and meet a friend for a quiet drink. We’d agreed to meet in Pigalle which is around a 15 minute walk from my flat so I decided because the weather has been truly glorious in Paris recently that I would like to have a leisurely stroll down the boulevard. Now since moving to Paris I have become very used to comments in the street from men trying to get my attention. It hasn’t happened to me for a few months so I was slightly taken aback when two boys of a similar age to myself tried to get my attention by shouting things at me. In the wake of hundreds of demonstrations on Sunday for International Women’s Day I pondered about this kind of scenario which is so prevalent in some many major cities not just Paris. It truly seems shocking to me that I can’t walk to meet a friend without some kind of salacious remark being thrown at me.

I have grown up thinking that a woman can do anything she wants because I have never been told the opposite. Strong female role models in my life have proved to me that you can be successful in what you do as well as a wife or a mother. Or you can choose to be any of them. A common misconception of feminism is that it hates housewives, but this is contradictory to the concept of equality that is a core principal of women’s rights. To quote Beyonce “Feminist: a person who believes in the social, political and economic equality of the sexes.” In my brief time on this planet I have encountered many people, incidentally including women, who have no idea that this is the fundamental idea behind feminism.

As someone who is deeply excited by politics I find it apocryphal that more women don’t exercise their right to vote. The women who fought and died for our rights deserve us to exercise those rights and to strive for a better world where I don’t get catcalled for walking down the street or where we still have to have a day dedicated to women’s rights. Evoking the French libertarian symbol of Marianne I urge everyone, not just fellow females, to make every effort to improve life for women not just in our own countries and societies but those across the world.

 *jumps off her high horse* 

Film, Cinema and A Comfy Chair

I started off this year by reading Ayoade on Ayoade – A Cinematic Odyssey. I’m not one to usually succumb to a book because it has “celebrity status” but this particular tome interested me. I pretty much happiest when I’ve got my nose in a good book or when I’m curled up watching a good film. Now a book about film certainly has got me interested. But the book of which I speak is not the subject for this particular post. Instead I’ve been pondering about film.

I’ll watch any kind of film. Action. Comedy. Romance. Thriller. I like it all. Well pretty much all of it. Most people have this idea of university students chained to their laptops watching Netflix for entire weekends without seeing daylight. Now this is pretty much the truth. At least I do a fair bit of binge-watching whole series of TV shows for hours on end. This might seem like a waste when I live in such a culturally rich and beautiful city but I’ll tell you why I like it and more importantly why it isn’t such a waste of time.

There is something about film as a medium that can speak to you on a very direct level. Whether you just go and see a film for the sheer enjoyment of a good plot and the ability to just switch off for a few hours. Or you go and see a film to learn more about yourself or the world we live in. Maybe even all three rolled into one epic. You are entitled to that. Last year I went to the cinema on my own a few times. This seems really lonely and needy but I can promise you it was nothing of the sort. Half the time I find it really hard to find someone to watch a film with who isn’t just going because they have nothing else to do and who feels like they ought to keep you company. If you sneak in a cheeky beer or three and a few snacks, curl up on the seats and let yourself be immersed in the action, I can assure you there is no better feeling.

In my coming-of-age/existential/Parisian crisis that I’ve been having for some time now it reassures me to watch certain films that add something to my life. Oscar winner Birdman would be a perfect example of this. Despite seeing it in the UK I felt something in it resonate with my French life. The inner turmoil of authenticity and that nagging feeling at the back of your mind telling you what is right and wrong struck a real cord with me. The next film I watched after that was Chef. Sat amongst my delightful fellow Easyjet passengers I was sucked into the world of cooking and the feeling of making a breakdown something positive. For a recent seminar I had to watch Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris (who says Arts degrees are all reading?!) Now despite my hatred of this film I couldn’t help but be seduced by the idea of walking around Paris at night and falling back in love with the true romance of the place (and not that depicted in the film).

So I call you dear reader, if tomorrow night you have no plans. No one to see. Nothing to do. Watch a film. Call a friend and watch it together in wondrous spontaneity. Or curl up with your laptop and have a big belly laugh by yourself. You will find out more about yourselves. I promise you that. 

50 Shades of Bad Dialogue

I’m stood in a queue on the Champs-Elysées waiting for a film. The line is snaking all the way down the road further than we can see without moving and losing our space in the queue. Can you guess the gender of most of the members of this line? Well, if you can’t then I had better tell you. It was mostly groups of women aged 18-30. What were we all going to see? The 50 Shades of Grey film.

As someone who hasn’t read the books I was intrigued to see whether all that I had heard was true. Would it really be sex scenes every five minutes? Was it poorly written? Would I be hooked by the characters and the plot? I can answer that briefly. No, Yes, No. There was not as much sex as anticipated. Obviously there was a bit and I wouldn’t advise small children to go and watch it but it was by no means all the time as I had imagined it might be. The dialogue is shocking. My lasting impression is that I would love to go through it with a red pen and re-write at least 50% of the interactions between the characters. The jittery, forced words said by people who are meant to be in love with each other just didn’t feel natural but in fairness the actors did do the best with what they were given. I’m by no means hooked by the franchise but it does throw up interesting questions for me.

From what I’ve read around the subject it is clear to see that there are scenes of abuse throughout the books, something we don’t see in the film. The representation of women in the film/books also makes my skin crawl slightly. As someone who has been brought up to know that women are not commodities and can do anything they want to it makes me uncomfortable to see the main female character treated like an object when people applaud the series for liberating women’s sexual freedom. It feels like this is some kind of oxymoron to me.

If you like the books and the film then that is absolutely your right. But just take a moment and think about them. Would you like to be in a relationship that is so volatile? I certainly wouldn’t. On this the most “romantic” of days I think a point of reflection about what women expect from society is important. Don’t just brush this off as “only a film” because that is like saying The Communist Manifesto and The Satanic Verses were “just books”. Any form of literature is propaganda whether it is mummy porn or political ideologies and it is our right to criticise either in a fair and balanced matter. 

The Pleasures Of Wandering Alone

Now that I live with people I don’t spend as much time completely by myself. It has been quiet reassuring to know that there is someone in the next room if the worst may happen like a burglar comes and steals my valuables (ginger biscuits and my Sean Connery poster), or if like the other day the electricity goes and you can’t find the fuse box to flick the switch (we found it eventually thank goodness – turns out it was in my room which is a little awkward).

But last week I spent a lovely afternoon just wandering around Paris taking it all in. After having a lovely “working” lunch with friends where we mostly talked about how much we love our lecturer and not about our group presentation, I had a gander around my favourite part of Paris – the Marais.

If you take a bit of time and just go where the crowd takes you occasionally then you can discover lovely little gems. I’ve spent a fair bit of time in the Marais but it is one of the areas in Paris that has all sorts of concealed parks and little windy roads that take you to independent cafes and antique bookshops. When you’re in somewhere so beautiful you should go and try and find the hidden gems. With Valentine’s Day coming up it makes me think that this is the romantic side of Paris, not the standard selfie by the Eiffel Tower but finding the place that does the best falafel and making friends with waiters.

My walk on Friday encouraged me to take some time and clear my head. It is easy to get complaisant in this day and age to take things for granted. My advice is to put on some comfy shoes and walk until you can’t stand up anymore and your head is full of marvellous places and people.

Oh and for your information the best place for falafel is L’As Du Falafel on Rue des Roisiers and don’t let anyone tell you any different. 

Great Expectations

I was sat in my History lecture today and we were discussing the representation of Paris in Woody Allen’s film Midnight In Paris (incidentally I can’t stand the film – I blame you Owen Wilson) and I was thinking about what I thought Paris was going to be like when I moved here.

I seem to remember thinking I was going to be going to lots of galleries and sitting in bars having deep meaningful conversations with dark, handsome strangers who were painters or sculptors. I’ve been to a few galleries but no such luck on the handsome strangers’ front. It’s weird the impression that everyone has of Paris and its creative soul. In the imaginations of most it smells of cigarettes and has this ethereal presence that can’t help but enchant every visitor. There is the classic quote from Hemmingway that “if you are lucky enough to live in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast” and I think that is what I expected of Paris.

The point of this blog was always to document my travels around the city and what jackanapes I got up to here but I don’t think I envisaged the extent to which I think the city has changed me.  I took the title of this blog from a book I read about Paris. The Dud Avocado is about an American girl who moves to Paris and aims to go more native than the natives. She is the mistress of a civil servant, she ends up as an extra on a film in Biarritz in a bid to become an actress, she loses her passport and declares herself a citizen of the world but the main thing she does is that she finds her true self in Paris. It might seem a bit corny but I think it’s the perfect place to do just that. I haven’t quite gone to the extent that the character in The Dud Avocado goes to but I think I’ve managed to push my boundaries here and challenge myself.

I’m not sure when exactly it was that I started feeling comfortable here but I’d say it was in the last 10 months or so. The architecture, the language and the people themselves were all things I felt I had to get to grips with. The architecture must seem like such a weird thing to say but I think I felt when I first moved here like I had to fit in with the city around me and that included looking appropriate in the setting. When I used to live by the Eiffel Tower I’d always have this monument staring down at me watching my every move when I walked out of my front door in the morning. Eventually I got used to it, but it took a while I can tell you. Now I keep getting asked whether I’m fluent in French yet to which my answer is not really. I mean I’m so much better than I used to be and I think a lot less about what I’m going to say and it all comes a bit more naturally. I just don’t feel like I’m quite there yet, maybe it is just that I haven’t fully grasped all the French tenses yet but hopefully soon that will happen. Parisians get a hard rep for being a little bit frosty which is true to a certain extent but if you try with them they’ll love you forever. When my family came to visit in the summer we went to this restaurant/bar on Rue Cler for Happy Hour pretty much every day for their St Germain liqueur cocktail. The restaurant was staffed by your typical Parisian waiters – quite cocky but essentially lovely. They could tell we were English from a mile off but as soon as I started chatting to them in French they absolutely loved us and came over to talk pretty much every time we went there.

I expected to be a lot more intimidated of Paris than I ended up being and for that I’m so glad. I’d say I still have some expectations of the city but that I need to go out and make them happen. Maybe soon I shall meet my tall, dark, handsome stranger in the next bar? Paris has taught me to go out and look for that next opportunity and to embrace what happens to you. Go with the flow it might just work out for the best. 

Charlie Hebdo

Today in Paris something shocking has happened. One of the biggest shootings of the century was down to a satirical magazine. Journalists and cartoonists were the target of this act of terrorism. It shocks me that in this modern age freedom of expression has been attacked in this way. France is a country that fought for its freedoms and is a country that is founded on freedom. You can’t turn a corner in Paris without seeing a building inscribed with the words “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité” so you could be forgiven for assuming that an act like this would never be able to take place given this national ideal. Living in Paris, you hear many people complain about the various demonstrations and protests because they’ve disturbed the daily commute or you can’t cross the river because there is a march taking place. But I think it’s massively important that people can express their views in a peaceful and lawful manner. The attack on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo is there to shock journalists and cartoonists into silence. As an aspiring writer and journalist I have been compelled to express my views on this subject. Freedom of debate and expression in the media is vital to a functioning society. I heard something that I thought was very poignant in relation to press regulation – “Don’t ban it, just don’t buy it”. I understand how the cartoons produced by the weekly satirical magazine might have been found offensive but if you don’t like it, don’t buy it. Even better, if you really want to express your opinions then a peaceful protest is the way forward. There is a man outside the metro stop by uni who really doesn’t seem to like Francois Hollande which is his right. He stands there nearly every single day with his homemade signs expressing his political right to protest. If only more people were like him and could act in lawful ways to defend their rights. We must not let this subdue the press when actually these are the kinds of ideas they, in my opinion, should be challenging and writing about and not the kind of press that simply prints trashy stories about celebrities just because they sell better.

My thoughts are with the families of those killed and with Paris as a city mourns this sad loss. 

Late Night Thoughts

So I got asked the other night if I liked Paris or not and this got me thinking about what it is I actually like about possibly one of the most written about cities in the world. There are so many clichéd reasons to love the city of Light and they’re the reasons people visit on their romantic breaks. But I think the residents of the capital have different reasons why they enjoy their city. I’ve previously described my admiration and enjoyment of the novel Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert hence this apology for yet again mentioning it. There is a great part in the book where see talks about living in Rome and she talks about how living somewhere is different to visiting it. Some things are just different when you are there living them and you tend to appreciate different aspects of the place when it is a part of your daily life. Thus I’ve compiled a list of things about Paris that are better when you live there than when you’re spending a weekend there.

·         Baguettes – the quintessential French foodstuff. They just aren’t the same when they are fresh out of the oven and dipped in baked Camembert. You don’t get to savour these as much as the locals do when you are staying in a hotel as not many are fitted out with a cheeky oven to bake your own cheese (on a side note neither is my flat, disappointingly).

·         The museums – I love a gallery. But I don’t think I really started liking them until I got to Paris. I’m not really sure what the reason for that is, maybe it’s something to do with trying to make the most of everything while I’m there. I think that you don’t really get the benefit of all the museums and art galleries when you visit for a holiday. You spend all this time shuffling round behind the swathes of tourists on guided tours so you don’t get to savour in the art. The Louvre is so much more magical at half nine on a Thursday evening – the time when your standard tourist digs into their generic chocolate mousse in an “authentic” restaurant complete with dodgy service.

·         The Seine – Alright it’s a bit smelly and a rather attractive shade of brown, but there isn’t much better than grabbing a pack of beers in the summer and taking them down to Ile De La Cîté and having a drinking and a gossip with mates as the sun goes down, even despite the occasional rodent!

I’m rather looking forward to going back to Paris this Friday after spending the holidays at home. Hopefully I’ll be able to add a few more things to this list after finishing my second term of my second year at uni. I know I made the best decision when I clicked that button to apply to ULIP, so hopefully more crazy stories are to come along with maybe a bit of work thrown in.