Paris: C'est Tres Chic!

Bonjour mes amours!

Ok, so I was in Paris for about 4 days, and it's no lie- the city is
as beautiful and romantic as people say it is. After a long day of
travel, I arrived at my hostel around midnight rather flawlessly,
which is a bit of a surprise since travel days tend to...eh...require
more patience than other days. The place I was staying at was so
gorgeous, but unfortunately I was
too tired to appreciate it that night as I passed out immediately.

The next day, I walked for about 8 hours and saw many beautiful
things- the Arc de Triomphe, Champs Elysees, Jardines des Tuileries,
the Eiffel Tower, Champ de Mars, and lots of other cool stuff on side
streets along the way. When I was near the Eiffel Tower, I asked a
random girl to take a picture for me and we winded up bonding over the
fact that we were both wearing similar white dresses (see? Fashion:
helping people make friends one dress at a time). It soon turned into
a mini photo shoot and we had a short convo before parting ways. Then,
when I was on line to go up the Eiffel Tower about 40 minutes later,
her and the guy she was with winded up on line right behind me! So, we
talked and saw the sights from the top over the next few hours. Turns
out she's from Oklahoma and was couch surfing (couchsurfing.com...if
you get the chance, give it a look- it is a pretty cool
website/concept). The guy winded up giving me simple, but good life
advice: "Cultivate love." And Natalie told me to "Remember the past,
live in the present, and dream for the future."

...I think this may be one of the best pieces of advice I've gotten on
this trip. So often, I think we have it backwards. We tend to live in
our past, dream in the present, and think that we understand what will
happen in the future before it actually does! But Natalie was right.
If we forget the past, then how are we to know who we are and where we
came from? If we aren't present in the present, then are we ever truly
experiencing life? And, if we can't dream for the future, do we really
have a reason to go on living? The real challenge lies in hoping for
the best, but expecting that things won't always work out the way you
planned. After all, it rarely does...but in my opinion, that is what
makes life so exciting.

The next day, I saw some other major sites, such as the Notre Dame and
the Louvre (Mona Lisa, woot woot!). The Notre Dame was absolutely
PACKED with tourists, all of them snapping pictures of the church from
every possible angle. With all due respect to the church, I thought
the buildings and trees aroudn it were much more picturesque. As
everyone was snapping pictures towards me, I was facing the other
direction, taking photos of just about everything else.

The Louvre was another interesting experience. There is a constant
crowd of about 70 people surrounding the Mona Lisa, furiously taking
pictures of the shockingly tiny and relatively unremarkable painting.
I, on the other hand, found it more amusing to take photos of everyone
else taking photos. I don't know what it was about seeing people from so many
backgrounds and places there for the same reason, but it made me feel
a certain human connection, which was pretty cool. I realized over the
course of the day that sometimes we are so busy looking at the things
we think we should see. But as a result, we often fail to see the
beauty in the surrounding details. If we could just take the minute to
turn around and take it in from a different angle, we just might find
a perspective that is genuinely our own rather than one which has been
re-captured time and time again on some postcard.

That night, one of my Autralian roommates Bron and I had a few pints
and explored the neighborhood. She's hysterical, so I was laughing
pretty much the entire time. The next day, her and I met up with a
British girl named Cotrina and went to an enormous flea market with
over 2,500 vendors! I found this awesome old copy of ELLE magazine
from the 1950s in French. Needless to say, it made my day and I can't
wait to hang it up when I get home =). Overall, we had a really great
time and I was sad to see Cotrina leave when she had to catch a night
train back to London. I'm not sure what it is about me making friends
with Aussies and Brits, but I can't wait to go home and put my
newfound vocab and mannerisms to use. "All I want do is see my mates,
wear my sunnies, put some food on the barbie, and hopefully there will
not be any mozzies!" hahaha. Ummm....I apoplogize in advance to all of
my friends who see me on a regular basis, because I can assure you I
will be annoying the hell out of you with my fake Ozzie-British
accent.

That night, me, Bron, and another new Australian friend decided to
have a picnic by the Eiffel Tower at night. We had delicious fresh
bread, a selection of great cheeses, and great red wine. We also winded
up hanging with a dozen or so French dudes- half of which didn't speak
English....kind of sketchy, but ultimately fun. We finished off our
night by walking along the Siene, crashing a Parisian birthday party,
and laughing all the way home at 4 a.m....a perfect end to a great
time in Paris.

On the last day, Bron and I went to see the Sacre Coeur- which was
beautiful- as well as the Centre Pompidou. I finally understand why I
find many museums boring....because it's Modern-ish art I LOoOoOve!
Kandinsky, Warhol, Klimt, Dufy, Matisse...all so amazing. One of my
favorite pieces is Andre Derain's Waterloo Bridge- it just makes my
heart smile (Gooooooogle it, you know you want to!). As we walked up
to the main galleries, the first thing we see is a restaurant called
Georges. Now, this seems totally insignificant and pointless, but
here's the story behind it...

Four years ago, when I was like 17 years old, I met this really nice
guy on the plane to visit my aunt in Georgia. Although his family was
from Atlanta, he was living in Paris "just because". I thought this
was the coolest thing at the time, and expressed my deep desire to
visit Paris one day. He proceeded to write down an entire list of
places to see, eat at, party in, etc. I randomly came across that slip
of paper as I was cleaning out my room before I left for Europe, and
Georges was on his list! Of course I couldn't eat there because a meal
was worth more than 3 days of accomodation for me, but it was soooo
cool to see that tiny little portion of my life come full circle. I
thought of that really nice guy I met ont he plane so long ago and
realized how QUICKLY life changes. Back then, I was getting ready for
my first year at Hamilton, unsure of what I would major in, if I would
study abroad, and whether I would fit in. Now, four years later, all
of the things that were questions to me back then have since become
realities and are now good memories. And there I was, in Paris,
standing in front of the place that was once only a name on a piece of
paper that some guy wrote down for me. Amazing.

The one thing I noticed during my time at Pompidou was that some of
the paintings were frameless, while others were encased in a shadow
box and a select few were even roped off. I sat in many rooms watching
the paintings that people gravitated towards. I thought to myself,
"What makes one painting worthy of a frame, a shadow box, or a rope
around it more than any of the others? If art is allegedly subjective,
then how can we discretely assign quality to it like that?" It's an
odd thing, you know. As humans, we find ways of distinguishing the
good from the bad, the worthy from the unworthy. But who gets to make
those decisions? Who gets to choose what is popular and what isn't? At
the end of the day, a painting is just a painting. To one person, it
could be the ugliest piece of art he or she has ever seen. Another
might see the entire world in it.

I realized that the mere existence of galleries and museums is, in and
of itself, a form of assigning quality to something that we truly
can't place value on. If it's in the museum, it's gotta be "good"
enough to be there, right? But my favorite pictures were the ones that
people sold on side streets for 10 Euros. Even in the Pompidou, my
favorites tended to hang in hidden hallways on the way to the popular
pieces; the one's that most people just glanced at momentarily on
their way to something 'better'. It kind of reminds me of a story that
my good buddy Eric Kuhn shared with me back in London. This famous
violinist, whom people normally pay undreds of dollars to hear,
decided to park himself at a train station for a day and see how many
people actually stopped to listen. During his 43 minutes there, 1,097
people passed him. Guess how many actually stopped? ONE. Of all those
people, only one took the time to stop.
(for more on this story, go to
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html)

In his typical concert hall, people would be listening intently to
every note, every beat, every movement. But when taken out of that
context, nobody cared...everyone was too rushed to stop and notice the
music. In the same way, people tend to pay more attention to the
paintings that are made to be a big deal. But while we are busy
looking at what someone else is telling us to like, we completely miss
how astounding everything else is. And as W.H. Davies said, " What is
this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare?"

I guess the main lesson here isn't that we have to love every painting
or listen for 30 minutes to every street musician. The point is that
if we don't take the time to remove ourselves from our own bubbles and
experience the world around us more deeply, we might miss out on some
really great stuff.

I hope this e-mail finds all of you well, enjoying the summer days as
they dwindle down and slowly melt into the early fall.


Love life,

Melissa



Paris Observations:

1.) People are so impatient here! They push the button for the subway
doors to open before the train even comes to a full stop!

2.) Unlike the NYC subway, the Paris metro has relatively no
advertisements on it.

3.)...Regardless, there are still solicitors on all the trains playing
music or singing for money.

4.) When I tell Australians or Europeans that I am traveling alone,
they tell me that it's brave or that they are proud of me. If I tell
Americans that I'm alone, they say, "That's sad," or, "That's
terrifying."

...Just interesting to think about why these responses are often quite
different.

5.) The Louvre is so big, there are two Metro stops for it!

6.) Parisian men are much more forward if there is something in
between them and a girl, such as a gate or window. It's kind of like
my puppy- if she is right next to another dog, she will be a total
tease. But if she is at a far enough distance, she just barks and
barks and barks...

7.) If you speak to Parisians in French first, they'll answer you in
English. But if you talk to them in English first, they will sometimes
pretend they don't understand you.

8.) As cool as Paris is, New York City is cooler. Not even a question
in my mind. But it's all subjective, right? ;-)




Trip Stats:

Days: 48

Roommates: 92

Life Lesson: "No matter what you go through in life, don't ever ever
give up on your dreams."

Jukebox: "Light In Your Eyes" - Sheryl Crow

"Something is happening- everything's different, but everything is fine
This is the good stuff- yesterday's only what you leave behind"


Random Thought:

If we are constantly traveling, always moving in some way, shape, or
form...aren't we all tourists?

...and on a less intelligent note, why does the nail on my ring finger
grow so much faster than all of the others?



Quotables:

"Knowledge without transformation is not wisdom"

" Where we can, we must give things a meaningful shape."

-Life of Pi






Interesting convo:

Upon meeting the sweetest girl from Rio de Janiero at my hostel, I
told her of my intense desire to visit Florianapolis, Brazil and she
said:

Brazilian girl: " Oh there are so many nice bitches there! They are
all very clean bitches...you don't even have to pay and you can spend
all day on them!"

Me: "Ummm....bitches?"

Brazilian girl: " Yea! Just bring an umbrella in case it gets too hot
and go in the water every now and again to cool off!"

Me: " ohhhhh...BEACHES!" hahaha