I slept till 10 a.m. I had been exhausted in the last few days (though I hadn't got up really early and achived much things), so after loosing my museum pass for the Pompidou, I decided to go back to my room earl(ier) and rest. I got in before 9 p.m. and throwed myself to the bed, set the alarm for getting up and do the chores later, but I just couldn't get up anymore. So I slept and slept and slept, like a pig, kept hitting the alarms away until it didn't ring anymore. I've been in Paris for almost 1 week and somehow I feel I didn't do much things.
So finally I left the room at almost noon, hit the Kebab resto nearby for the cheapness, which comes in a price – somehow the Kebab meat here taste a little weird. The meat is not as good as they are in Montpellier. Oh well. At least the fries are great, better than the McD's, oh I love the big fat potato chips freshly fried like this. Yum.
After days of museum cruises, today I am setting for the (in?)famous “Gauche de la Seine” -- the left bank of the Seine river, the Saint-Germain-des-Pres. Gee it's nothing as I imagined, probably due to the flood of tourists – which, I believe, outnumbered the “Parisiens” in these few days.
First of all, the neighborhood is not exactly on the riverside. Although the boulevard de Saint-Germain is really cool, you can't see the river from here, and there are actually large autoroutes and traffics along the river so there weren't much shops there. Unlike London. Surely there are wide pavements for people to walk, but I fancied to have a cup of coffee alongside and look out at the beautiful river, and the people walking by. Instead, at the famous “Deux Magots” cafe, you have to find your place among the crowd, sit down in the middle of the road side, looking at the traffics of cars, and of course, people(tourists).
I could not feel the “existentialism” like this and I don't have money, so I'll pass.
Though I have to admit, the waitors here with their white aprons(?), really has much the “feel”.
So the afternoon I followed a French guidebook for walks, and wandered around the area, saw the house of Serge Gainbourg, and the hotel where Oscar Wilde died. Ok, maybe I'm not a history buff, most of the sites weren't really interesting (the are just houses that I could not enter – or cafes with too many people), yet I still managed to fool around till about five.
I decided to go to the Latin corner, although it's already a bit late. The Saint-Germain and its nearby streets are really cool, with many interesting shops, I just should have come here that day instead of Montperasse. I was trying to find the famous “Shakespears and Co.” bookstore, but somehow the guide ended me in a rather deserted street. Probably because it's dark now, I felt the guide is leading me to the less cool area. Or probably because it's in French, I couldn't understand well and have no patience to read it through. (I realized later, there are actually two of the “Shakespears and Co.”, the first one was founded in 1919 which received Hemingway, Gertrude Stein and James Joyce, but it was shut down after the 30s....)
Anyway I ended up finding the place myself as I turned around the corner, at the riverside, facing Notre-Dame. I recogonized the place immediately, from “Before Sunset”. Another surprise of the day, it is actually located in a very busy area, not like a quirky little shop in a discret street. But it IS charming. Inside is like a whole different world, people are all speaking English! XD And there are all English books.....oouai....but so expensive, even for 2nd hand! I can't understand why English books are so expensive here in France....I mean, at least England is near, isn't it?!
At 7 p.m. , I attended the reading. No, it's not like “Before Sunset”, it's actually held in a charming little room upstairs. I learned that the 2nd floor (1er etage) houses a precious collection of books donated by the owner of the first Shakespears and Co., and they do have an antique feeling. The reading was held by a wisely looking old gentleman – the typical kind you'd imagine, grey hair, grey suit, a pair of small rounded glasses, with a slow, gentle, sophisticated voice. And the readers tonight are 3 poets from America, a young man from California, and 2 more aged ladies who already published their works.
We started from the youngest to the seemingly most eccentric woman. It's great this way cos you can clearly see the differences between the young mind and more experienced onces, not only in their works, but in the confidence, in the expressions and performances. So naturally I liked the last one the best. I forgot her name, but I assume she's quite established, she didn't “read” her works, but recite them with wonderful rythem, gestures and expression. She was rather performing them like they were coming out of her naturally. And then there was this guy posed a question about memorizing and reciting poems, he said he never do that, he never read his favorite poems frequently (well, that's quite weird but I guess everyone has their thing). People discussed about this and about the nature of poems, the beauty of language which makes poems naturally musical......and how they are just supposed to read out loud as oppose to on paper....etc. All very interesting.
It was wonderful to see a “live performance” of poetry reading like this, and the whole atmosphere brought me back to the colleage years, though the people besides me today were mostly much more, well, “professional” than me in this world. I am more amateur than amateur. A reading like this finally made me realise why the literary love Paris – you really get into the moooooooood.
The reading ended at about 8:30 and I was starving, so I crossed the bridge to the Metro, and found out it was FREEEE ! Damn I just bought a weekly card today. I have checked out the New Years Eve menus at the restaurants, most of them are EXPENSIVE (as one can imagine), and ALL of them seem to be miserable to be eating alone. Damn this is the time when you realize Paris is really not a city for the single people, you need someone to have the dinner with!
Anyway I decided this may be a good time for homesickness (of food) and tried to find the famous Taiwanese cafe “Zenzoo”, in the area of Japanese restaurants. Unfortuanately it's closed for holiday, so I found a Korean restaurant for the sake of change. And it was GREEEEEAAAAAT! I ordered the menu of Tofu pot, and it came with these little Korean dishes, as the Korean cuisines always do! And it was “just” 16 Euros! Hooray!!!! It was touching to have such authentic food. I ate everything, including the Kimchi. They even have these authentic Korean “hot-pots”, with the chili(kimchi), the tofu, the beaf and everything....but it is a big pot requiring at least 2 people. Damn I hate this discremination of the singles.
The year was ending in less than 2 hours and I was along in Paris with a full stomach. Where do I go?
I thought about the Champ Elysee, but considering that I'm all along....
it's better to go back to my room. Ya.
I thought if someone is watching TV I could count down with them. But no.
And there are the kids partying.
So I ended up in my room, litsening to the songs ramdomly coming out of my mp3 player, watching time goes by on the clock of my cellphone (which doesn't have seconds).
The song was “Ordinary” from Spiderman 2 OST, “I'm everything but ordinary....”
Suddenly it is 2008.
Now the song was “Somebody to Love” by Nelly Furtado ...... er.......
Hey that's enough!
So finally I left the room at almost noon, hit the Kebab resto nearby for the cheapness, which comes in a price – somehow the Kebab meat here taste a little weird. The meat is not as good as they are in Montpellier. Oh well. At least the fries are great, better than the McD's, oh I love the big fat potato chips freshly fried like this. Yum.
After days of museum cruises, today I am setting for the (in?)famous “Gauche de la Seine” -- the left bank of the Seine river, the Saint-Germain-des-Pres. Gee it's nothing as I imagined, probably due to the flood of tourists – which, I believe, outnumbered the “Parisiens” in these few days.
First of all, the neighborhood is not exactly on the riverside. Although the boulevard de Saint-Germain is really cool, you can't see the river from here, and there are actually large autoroutes and traffics along the river so there weren't much shops there. Unlike London. Surely there are wide pavements for people to walk, but I fancied to have a cup of coffee alongside and look out at the beautiful river, and the people walking by. Instead, at the famous “Deux Magots” cafe, you have to find your place among the crowd, sit down in the middle of the road side, looking at the traffics of cars, and of course, people(tourists).
I could not feel the “existentialism” like this and I don't have money, so I'll pass.
Though I have to admit, the waitors here with their white aprons(?), really has much the “feel”.
So the afternoon I followed a French guidebook for walks, and wandered around the area, saw the house of Serge Gainbourg, and the hotel where Oscar Wilde died. Ok, maybe I'm not a history buff, most of the sites weren't really interesting (the are just houses that I could not enter – or cafes with too many people), yet I still managed to fool around till about five.
I decided to go to the Latin corner, although it's already a bit late. The Saint-Germain and its nearby streets are really cool, with many interesting shops, I just should have come here that day instead of Montperasse. I was trying to find the famous “Shakespears and Co.” bookstore, but somehow the guide ended me in a rather deserted street. Probably because it's dark now, I felt the guide is leading me to the less cool area. Or probably because it's in French, I couldn't understand well and have no patience to read it through. (I realized later, there are actually two of the “Shakespears and Co.”, the first one was founded in 1919 which received Hemingway, Gertrude Stein and James Joyce, but it was shut down after the 30s....)
Anyway I ended up finding the place myself as I turned around the corner, at the riverside, facing Notre-Dame. I recogonized the place immediately, from “Before Sunset”. Another surprise of the day, it is actually located in a very busy area, not like a quirky little shop in a discret street. But it IS charming. Inside is like a whole different world, people are all speaking English! XD And there are all English books.....oouai....but so expensive, even for 2nd hand! I can't understand why English books are so expensive here in France....I mean, at least England is near, isn't it?!
At 7 p.m. , I attended the reading. No, it's not like “Before Sunset”, it's actually held in a charming little room upstairs. I learned that the 2nd floor (1er etage) houses a precious collection of books donated by the owner of the first Shakespears and Co., and they do have an antique feeling. The reading was held by a wisely looking old gentleman – the typical kind you'd imagine, grey hair, grey suit, a pair of small rounded glasses, with a slow, gentle, sophisticated voice. And the readers tonight are 3 poets from America, a young man from California, and 2 more aged ladies who already published their works.
We started from the youngest to the seemingly most eccentric woman. It's great this way cos you can clearly see the differences between the young mind and more experienced onces, not only in their works, but in the confidence, in the expressions and performances. So naturally I liked the last one the best. I forgot her name, but I assume she's quite established, she didn't “read” her works, but recite them with wonderful rythem, gestures and expression. She was rather performing them like they were coming out of her naturally. And then there was this guy posed a question about memorizing and reciting poems, he said he never do that, he never read his favorite poems frequently (well, that's quite weird but I guess everyone has their thing). People discussed about this and about the nature of poems, the beauty of language which makes poems naturally musical......and how they are just supposed to read out loud as oppose to on paper....etc. All very interesting.
It was wonderful to see a “live performance” of poetry reading like this, and the whole atmosphere brought me back to the colleage years, though the people besides me today were mostly much more, well, “professional” than me in this world. I am more amateur than amateur. A reading like this finally made me realise why the literary love Paris – you really get into the moooooooood.
The reading ended at about 8:30 and I was starving, so I crossed the bridge to the Metro, and found out it was FREEEE ! Damn I just bought a weekly card today. I have checked out the New Years Eve menus at the restaurants, most of them are EXPENSIVE (as one can imagine), and ALL of them seem to be miserable to be eating alone. Damn this is the time when you realize Paris is really not a city for the single people, you need someone to have the dinner with!
Anyway I decided this may be a good time for homesickness (of food) and tried to find the famous Taiwanese cafe “Zenzoo”, in the area of Japanese restaurants. Unfortuanately it's closed for holiday, so I found a Korean restaurant for the sake of change. And it was GREEEEEAAAAAT! I ordered the menu of Tofu pot, and it came with these little Korean dishes, as the Korean cuisines always do! And it was “just” 16 Euros! Hooray!!!! It was touching to have such authentic food. I ate everything, including the Kimchi. They even have these authentic Korean “hot-pots”, with the chili(kimchi), the tofu, the beaf and everything....but it is a big pot requiring at least 2 people. Damn I hate this discremination of the singles.
The year was ending in less than 2 hours and I was along in Paris with a full stomach. Where do I go?
I thought about the Champ Elysee, but considering that I'm all along....
it's better to go back to my room. Ya.
I thought if someone is watching TV I could count down with them. But no.
And there are the kids partying.
So I ended up in my room, litsening to the songs ramdomly coming out of my mp3 player, watching time goes by on the clock of my cellphone (which doesn't have seconds).
The song was “Ordinary” from Spiderman 2 OST, “I'm everything but ordinary....”
Suddenly it is 2008.
Now the song was “Somebody to Love” by Nelly Furtado ...... er.......
Hey that's enough!
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