Paris - The city of Love (or Louvre, I forget which…). I admit that my last post was a little severe, and not necessarily a true reflection of how I actually find Paris now. Basically, Joe and I were having little spats following each other around the city with our packs on during the hottest part of the day. After we found the place and began to settle in, we went to look for a nice coffee shop around our hotel. And … basically, I just forgot that in Paris, you need to possibly learn how to speak a little French. It was awkward, I got flustered, and the people at the café thought we were a pair of total retards. For a second, I could tell that Joe was maybe hoping I could translate here as well as I did in Japan, but my Jr. High school lessons just wouldn’t return to me that quickly.

I’m happy to say, however, that everything’s come back - and more. After just a few days, I’m finding it fairly easy to order in French, follow basic instructions and other such things. In fact, I think I’m growing into Joe’s image of a translator. One thing that I’ve definitely learned from this trip is how easy the European languages I’ve encountered are to decipher. There are so many cognates, so many similar grammar rules, that essentially they are just strong dialects of the same language - which, they are. As the Roman empire fell (over the course of several hundred years), Latin grew into a regionalized version of the language of Empire. And since I speak fluently a language strongly based upon Latin (for all the words not connected to the day-to-day business of living like mother, brother, cow, pig, etc., but for words expressing complex ideas like constitution, fraternity, legality, etc.), it’s very easy to decipher.

Basically, I’m trying to justify moving to Europe. Which actually might be a great idea. In Amsterdam, speaking Arabic opened a whole window of Holland’s culture. Right now there is a huge cultural clash between the Dutch legacies - those whose Dutch families can be traced to Holland for generations - and the new arrivals - the Africans, Muslims, the racialized “other”. If you remember about the Dutch cartoonist being murdered for printing an image of Mohammed in a satirical comic in a Dutch newspaper, you’ll be familiar with the kinds of strain put on the communities there. The Dutch are hard-line Freedom of Speech supporters, and the new Muslim arrivals feel that some of their culture of Islamic religious rules should follow them.

Anyway, when I spoke Arabic with a guy selling falafel for 2 Euro, he gave me a discount on drinks, and kept saying nice things to me. Undoubtedly, he just felt really happy that, in a country where everyone expects him to learn their language, someone went through the trouble of learning his language. Though, speaking Arabic with shop owners also gave me a strange encounter in a corner store. He was from Iraq, and I could tell from his dialect, so I used a colloquial expression to greet him, and he totally assumed I was US military. He wasn’t exactly angry, but it did get awkward. He said “I’m from the country which your country bombed for 15 years,” and other things. Of course, I took the time to set him straight about how I feel about all that bullshit, but it seemed to blow up into this thing I hadn’t exactly foreseen.

The bottom line, I suppose, is that my Arabic skills have come in handy more often than my meager ability in French. People are almost always surprised and appreciative, and it feels a lot more friendly than the people I try to speak French with. It honestly makes me wonder if there’s not a chance that I might try to live in Amsterdam or Paris, because I could use my Arabic skills to deal with the Muslim communities here. In the same way that Spanish comes in handy working in the US, Arabic will certainly come in handy in Europe in the coming years.

It’s actually been a huge surprise to me, after coming from culturally homogenous Japan, to come to Europe and find it to be far more Muslim, African, and Middle Eastern than I expected. In a way, it obviously makes sense. It’s great that the people aren’t ghettoized, and if I were coming straight from America, I probably wouldn’t have been surprised in the slightest. But, coming from the cultural ghetto of Japan, it was quite a shock.

Sadly, however, my trip to Europe hasn’t been the only thing on my mind. Before I left Japan, I gave S-Lan (again, my helper-friend) around 200 US dollars to pay for my moving fees. Due to some Japanese bureaucratic bullshit (as always), payment to the moving company is only accepted from Japanese bank accounts. …Which is bizarre, considering it caters to people who are moving overseas. Anyway, they are charging me 430 dollars more than what I anticipated, and I have to try to send it back to S-Lan as soon as possible. It’s totally frustrating, and I’ve already totally overspent my budget in Europe. So, basically, I have no cushion money at all once I get back to the States. And if I can’t find employment, I might be in a bit of trouble for a while. But, hey, I’ll settle that when I can. It’s just … pretty frustrating. Especially frustrating, when you consider that nothing I own is worth anywhere near 630 dollars. Fuck’s sake…

So, because of overspending the budget, and the extra expenses to get my stuff back to the states, Joe and I are trying to live much more cheaply on the road. So far, so good. But, because of all the nice hotels we’ve been staying it, it’s an interesting mix of high-class hotels and low-class living. As I said before, I think, we were washing our socks in the sink, and hanging them in the glass and marble shower, of the most expensive hotel room we’ve stayed in; somewhere around 500 dollars a night. Last night, we were staying in a 200 Euro a night hotel, and we shared a pack of ramen noodles from two coffee cups. And we used coffee stirrers as forks. And just tonight, after buying some wine, bread, cheese, olives and salami, we looked for a good bench to sit at, but couldn’t find one. When we did find one, it was near a stairwell that smelled like pee, across the street from some fancy eatery, with a beautiful view of a brick wall covered in graffiti. Also, we smell bad.

But, it’s been a lot of fun. Last night, we met some weird girls at the Arc De Triumphe, and we went to the Eiffel Tower together and watched it sparkle at night. They were a little weird, one Aussie and one American girl, about 18 years old or so who were being au pairs in Germany. And today, we were at the Louvre all day, around 8 hours. My dogs are barking, and my legs hurt, but it was totally worth it. I thought that the Louvre might be an old lady museum, but I was totally wrong. It ruled hard. My favorite section was the Greek/Roman sculpture. They had all my favorite emperors, including the hilariously named Pupienus. We leave for London the day after tomorrow. For the moment, we are drinking Unicorn Beer (don’t ask, the French are just weird people), and watching some weird French clip show in the TV before going to sleep. Damn, it feels good to be a gangster.

(This was written on my computer when I wasn't on the internet, then copied and pasted into the Blog. Please forgive any errors, I don't have time to correct them just now.)