This adventure is a really interesting and educational experiment. It’s not so much of an education that I’m bored and wishing the teacher would move quicker through the material, like back in the day. But it’s a steady and ambling education as I observe and absorb the people, places, and things of our first stop. France. If not the first, at least one of the early lessons that occurred to me recently, while Lisa and I were sitting in a park enjoying a late breakfast of yogurt and pain au chocolat, was that while the country had changed, very nearly everything seems to be the same. Well, I shouldn’t say the same, but patterns so similar you would have a hard time telling them apart from a distance. That is, that while we have changed so much, the place, the people, and the things around us here in Paris are very much the same as living in New York.
Being on many rushed and event/landmark/eatery/attraction-filled trips over my lifetime, I have never had the luxury of time to absorb the similarities.
People
I’ve passed the grumbling Parisian woman as we squeezed by each other on the too-narrow sidewalk, I’ve heard the disapproving grunt of a well-dressed but surly looking man in the Epicerie when I was standing a little too far back in the aisle looking at the wonderful goods. I’ve seen the bus driver watch with cold detachment as a dejected runner failed to get to the stop before he unnecessarily rushed the bus away. I’ve seen the bad French you hear about.
I’ve also seen a crowd of teenage girls on a crowded bus watch vigilantly for an elderly woman to whom they could offer their seat, and, one by one all end up standing long before their stop had come. I’ve seen two shop keepers who didn’t speak a word of English gesture and sign their way through directions to a competitor down the road that might have my size. I’ve seen a girl in a copy shop who refused to charge us for the few critical copies of documents that we needed made. I’ve seen the most respectful and cordial communication and affection shown between otherwise strangers all over this city. I’ve seen incredible patience shown to loud tourists with poor manners that I certainly wouldn’t have tolerated in their place. I’ve seen a wide and rich swath of humanity and every role has a counterpart in the every major U.S. city. To be honest though, people are significantly more thoughtless and abrupt in New York than they are here. Perhaps I shouldn’t compare those, as the difficulties of living in New York invariably turn people cold and hard over time. Perhaps some of that occurs here too. A couple of months won’t show me that. But let me end this section with a story from early in the trip.
On our second day in Paris, we found the nearest grocery store with the combination of decent size and reasonable price (as opposed to the very gourmet Grand Epicere which is the former and not the latter) and loaded ourselves up with the staples and treats necessary for setting up house in our little rented apartment. Behind us in the check-out line was a gentleman who watched with some amusement and surprising patience as our massive load of consumables rode down the conveyor toward an every growing tally of little green digits. When l’addition was complete, I reached out to swipe my credit card in the most logical of the card reader’s two slots, but was stopped by the man behind us in line. He said in broken English, “you must use this one, here,” pointing to the other slot. I smiled and managed a poorly pronounced “merci” and slid my card through the one he indicated. It didn’t scan. I tried again. No luck. As I went for a third, the girl working the register said something to the man. He looked at me sheepishly and pointed to the other slot, the original one that had seemed right to me the first time. We laughed as I scanned the card and completely the transaction. He said “Sorry.” I said, “no problem at all, thank you for trying to help.” He smiled and said “I was so proud to know, and then I was wrong.” We laughed and patted each other on the shoulder before parting. Good guy. Just trying to help. He could have been annoyed with us seeing his milk, bread, and cheese, against our week’s worth of groceries (the kind of bulk they simply don’t buy as a quick trip to the store is a daily stop). He could have watched the “silly American” suffer as he thought I was scanning my card the wrong way, and chuckled at the confusion. But instead he reached out to me. Even though he wasn’t right about the scanner, he was right as a person trying to be helpful and I appreciated it regardless of outcome.
Places
Paris has the Eiffel Tower, New York has the Statue of Liberty. Paris has the Seine, New York has the Hudson and New York Harbor. Paris has Notre Dame de Paris, New York has St. Patricks’s and St. John The Divine. Paris has the Louvre and Orsay, New York has The Met and Natural History.
As much as there are such significant cultural and historic differences between them, living in a foreign place, rather than just staying for a week or so in a hotel, lends itself to contemplation and then realization of the commonalities between large historic cities of the world. All of them have tourist attractions and churches, gardens and parks. All of them have stores, restaurants, libraries, charming streets and dirty streets. Each has good neighborhoods and bad, strengths and weaknesses — and all of them have compressed humanity filling every door and window, nearly every crack in the jungle of stone, glass, and concrete.
Roaming around Paris on various aimless explorations we’ve made, as well as on the many errands we have run, we find life here surprisingly ordinary and similar to ours in NYC. The difference, and perhaps the whole worth of the experience and reason to continue this adventure indefinitely, is in the details.
Things
The brands of automobiles and motorcycles, many the same, many different. The brands of food and consumer goods, many the same and so many different. Each and every little difference has been the focus of our attention. We have been seeking out the subtleties in our food selection (rule #1 is to never buy the same thing twice), in our approach to landmarks and attractions (to take the time to see them from a non-tourist angle, from a slower more in-depth perspective) and our wandering, to let ourselves get lost and found over and over. We’ve happened upon some of the most beautiful little streets, shops, views, and corners while exploring.
While the bulk of life in another country, on another continent, is surprisingly very much the same, the details are interestingly very different. And I’m finding that that’s where the beauty and value of travel lies — especially in this long-term travel which Lisa and I are both enjoying so much. Over a lifetime with my creative pursuits (songwriting, poetry, short stories, photography, etc.), and professional career, I’ve spend a great deal of time studying the details of things both objectively and subjectively, to write about them, understand them, and find a fresh perspective on them from which to create something new, or at least a work of my perspective on it. As you can imagine, like a kid in a candy store, this is my kind of trip.
© 2009 Larry L. Hanson
