Paris, je t'aime

This is a terribly overdue post - three months overdue, in fact. I had written a post about my first night in Paris some time back but never got around to writing about the other two days that was spent there. But better late than never, especially on stiflingly hot Malaysians afternoons like these, when flipping through pictures of Pah-ree in printemps (spring) almost brings me back to those mild, balmy days in the beautiful city.

But first, before I jabber on about what a lovely time I had there, here are two videos that capture the essence of my time there, for those of you who don't like reading lengthy posts (sorry about the inconsistent sizes - didn't realize I was editing in normal for the first one and widescreen for the second).





So yeah, as you can see from the videos, we visited all the famous landmarks - or at least tried to. Queues at the Louvre were too long, and likewise with the Notre Dame Cathedral. The only landmark we actually explored was the Eiffel Tower. (That one cannot miss! Been a lifelong dream - I have a thing for capital cities and tall buildings. :P)

But... you wouldn't have known that from the videos would you? That's the thing I don't get about people who travel just to take pictures / videos of all the 'famous' places they've traveled to just to show that they've been there, and they're so cultured and sophisticated and worldly now.

Don't get me wrong - I don't think there's anything wrong with taking pictures with famous landmarks (heck, I do the same) or following trends... but if people's motivation is to show how cultured and educated and well-exposed and well-traveled they are by visiting popular places or wearing trendy clothes... I think it's pretty pointless if you're not also exposing yourself to new experiences and new ways of seeing the world at the same time.

Because photographic evidence that you've been somewhere does not mean you've experienced the place. And the only way to really experience a new place - or anything new in life for that matter - is to put aside your expectations, put down the camera for awhile, and get wonderfully caught up in whatever it is you're experiencing for the first time.

My highlights of Paris were hardly all the famous landmarks, although they did make for good Facebook pictures. ;) Rather, the things that stuck with me and that I left with vivid memories of are things like:

• spending the first night in Paris in some random bar located down a quiet little street and observing the stark differences between the British drinking scene and the more discreet, yet lively Parisian scene. 
• waking up at 6AM to a deliciously cool morning and the glorious smell of coffee (I swear, if there is a heaven, that's what mornings there will be like, or at least in my version of it) and croissants and pain au chocolat. (If you ever meet a French person, you have to ask them to say chocolat (sha-cou-lah). I swear hearing it in French will make you fall in love with chocolate if you haven't already, the way it rolls off their tongue.)
• walking down the street with Mabel on a Sunday morning and having a whole bunch of buff, well-built Frenchmen jog past and smile at us. 
• being called "mademoiselle"! 
• authentic. French. Food. (That makes you hear angelic choirs with every bite. I'm not kidding.)

Ah, so typical and clichéd, I know, to become some obsessed Francophile after a few days in Paris. But, in my defense, it was my entire experience there that I fell in love with - not to mention experiences with   lovely people from the nation as well - not just because "the Eiffel Tower is pretty" (although it is), or because "French sounds cool" (although it does - but I personally think 'beautiful' is a better way to describe the language). Also, I know people who have been to Paris and said everyone there was snobby and stuck-up, and that the Eiffel Tower was nothing but a heap of rusting metal. It all boils down to perspective and the individual experience, which will vary from person to person.

But that's beside the point. People ask if Paris lived up to my expectations. It did, but then again, no amount of expectation could have prepared me for actually being there, breathing in Parisian air and soaking in the sights. Paris was as beautiful and elegant as I imagined, but not only that. It was double-decker trains passing by artistically graffiti-ed walls, street dancers / b-boys on every corner, and con artists trying to make a quick buck shuffling cups around atop cardboard boxes.

The reason I love traveling so much is because it teaches me so much about life. It teaches me to live freely, without expectations, that change is a constant, and that the more adventurous and courageous I am about the unknown, the more life opens up to me and for me. It teaches me that s**t happens, like getting pick-pocketed on my first day in Paris, but that I can still have a good time anyway. It teaches me that the people I choose to travel with, not just to specific destinations but on this journey of life, are all-important. The people I meet and let into my life shape me just as much as the experiences I have, if not more. (As lovely as Paris was, it would have been nothing without the company I had.)

As wise travelers put it:

“A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles.” – Tim Cahill

“I have found out that there ain’t no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.” – Mark Twain

Girls' Day Out at Beamish: The Living Museum of the North

Hello and welcome back to my newly revamped blog! Some quick updates of what has happened in the last month or so that I've been MIA from here:

• I've finished all my coursework for my final year of uni.
• My bags are more or less packed to fly home exactly one week from today. 
• I've been hanging out and spending tons of time (ie. cooking, eating, talking, and playing The Werewolves of Millers Hollow) with a few wonderful friends I met here.
• I've been partaking in major Chuck, emo movie, action movie, and zombie movie marathons (because my taste is diverse and eclectic like that).

So since I have some spare time left before I fly home for more fun adventures (and because there's only so much you can cook, eat, and play Werewolves in a day, and because there's nothing much else to do here in Middlesbrough besides getting drunk), I've decided to update this abandoned blog with what I've been up to recently in the land of icy winds, starting with the Beamish Museum.

What it's all about // Beamish is basically a 'live' museum with preserved architecture, vehicles, and actors in costumes from past eras portraying how life was in Northern England. If you're into all thing old and antique and vintage-y, you'll love this place.

What those creepy looking things are // Dental instruments of old. And those sets of teeth were apparently popular, fashionable gifts for girls in their early twenties (ie. me) to receive as having all your teeth pulled out (whattheheck?!?) and replacing them with false ones made them more marriageable as false teeth wouldn't decay, hence eliminating morning breath and dental fees, which were extremely hefty. I'm glad I live in the 21st century where it's totally unfashionable to pluck out your teeth at twenty. Geez.

Why I'm so happy in this picture // Because the lady at the back was in the process of making apple crumble. Yum. We didn't get to try any though. :( Boo.

L-R: Naz, Mabel, and me!

Although we were on a school trip, the three of us ended up hanging out and doing our own thing pretty much the whole trip. I think we spent half the time in the museum lying on the grass because it was so sunny and inviting!

The highlight of the trip was definitely the girly time. I'm not much a fan of antique and old things - futurish, science-fiction-y, nerdy, minimalistic, sleek, and automated is more my kinda thing (hey, I grew up in the city, what can I say?), so Beamish is definitely not a place I'd visit on my own. Still, with sun and good company, any place can be fun.

(Even if rides on an old steam train that we were so excited about only last for like five minutes, and the place smelt quite stinky most of the time. My theory was that they were trying to recreate an authentic environment of when proper sewage facilities weren't available yet. Oh and by the way, coming to England has dismissed all my childhood dreams of living on an English farm à la Enid Blyton books forever. I now realize I wouldn't last a week on a farm - it's city life all the way for this girl.)

Final snap // Remember this game? Seeing this brought back tons of fond childhood memories. Ah, good times. :)

A night in Paris, the local way

After successfully navigating our way through Parisian train stations, Mabel and I arrive in 9e arrondissement de Paris to deliciously mild weather. Of course, we only succeeded after much scratching of heads and wandering round and round a particular station that had the most confusing, Inception-esque stair layout.

The local time is 9:20PM. I text a French friend who is supposed to be waiting for us outside our train station (St Lazare) to say that 'We're here!'

We look around and quickly notice the two different sortie (exit) signs that point in opposite directions, and so we figure, we'll just pick one, and if he's not there, we'll walk to the other one. How far could the two exits of the train stations be from each other anyway?

So we get to the first sortie, and he's not there. We decide to walk around the building to find the other exit, and we walk for five minutes and realize that the building no longer resembles anything like a train station. It seems that the station is adjoining a shopping centre (or was it under, since we took an escalator up to the sortie). A ten minute speed-walk (hauling our luggage along) back to where we exited and through a looonngg corridor later, we get to the other exit and he's not there either.

We end up walking around for one hour amid texts and phone calls, trying to find each other. We try asking some waiters for directions and one of them even takes out his phone to try to Google map directions for us while the other one points to his bow tie and asks if we like bow tie pasta in the flirtiest way.

We walk back to the first place we exited from the station, and Mabel and I spot a street map. We try to locate the street we're on so we can let him know where to find us, and we realize - there are FIVE different train / Metro / RER stations all with 'St Lazare' in their name. We decide that instead of hopelessly walking around the 9th arondissement we would just make our way to the hotel and meet him there.

Upon making this decision, we search the map for the street our hotel is on - only to discover that it is just down the road we were already on. Just five minutes later, we're in the hotel lobby.

You know you're a tourist when you wait / walk around for a hour trying to meet somebody who'll show you the way to the hotel when it's just a five minute walk away.

After we rendezvous with a few other French friends, they take us to dinner in a fast food joint (where we get free burgers just by showing our student cards - why do they not have this in the UK or Malaysia?!?), and then, a local bar.

Even in the UK, land of beer, bars, and pubs, I have never seen a bar as packed as this one is. People are standing wherever there is space to stand, all the way to the door, while outside the door, people huddle around on the sidewalk, almost spilling over into the street.

One of the first differences I notice between the Middlesbrough bar scene and the Parisian one was the way the girls dressed. In Middlesbrough, even in below freezing temperatures, girls strut around in skimpy outfits that, save for all the glitter and bling, look better suited to a tropical beach. Here, however, a quick glance around the room and I fail to spot any uncovered legs or plunging necklines, even though the weather is notably warmer than Boro weather. Almost everyone, guys and girls, has some item of black clothing on, in that distinctively famous Parisian style.

I think I like Paris already.

It's way past midnight when a group of about thirty or maybe more cyclists ride past the bar, and people on the sidewalk shout and wave at them. Some of them wave back. I ask my friend who they are and what they're doing. He shrugs his shoulders and says he doesn't know. Ah, the randomness of big city night life. I love it.

Not a single tourist is in sight. Not a single menu item is in a language I can comprehend either, but it's okay. We're with people who know the language. Not a single photograph is taken. (That's for typical tourists, and maybe we'll be that kind of tourist tomorrow, but not tonight. :P)

Just another regular weekend night in Paris, the local way. Looks like a promising start to this little weekend getaway.

City of lights

A year ago, if you told me I would visit Paris, I would have laughed.

But here I am, at 21, bags packed, waiting to get on a plane tomorrow to the one city I've always dreamed of visiting.

La Ville-Lumière.

The illuminated city.

I need to remind myself to breathe.

Au revoir Middlesbrough!

Bonjour Paris!

Travelogue Durham: Breathless

While standing in St. Cuthbert's shrine inside the Durham cathedral the realization dawned on me that people visit churches and clubs for the same reason.

This reason occurred to me as I was staring up at a magnificent painting of the resurrected Christ suspended horizontally from the ceiling so that one had to turn and look upwards to see it.

People were gathered around, meditating, praying, reflecting - some sitting, some standing, some pacing around, some looking upwards as I was, some closing their eyes. Flickering candles and the dancing shadows they made cast an ethereal glow over the proceedings. The hushed, muted tones of visitors walking around other parts of the cathedral echoed off the massive, towering walls.

Standing there, it felt almost as if the world outside didn't exist. As if everything else was a dream. Or was this the dream?

Time seemed to have slowed down tremendously compared to the bright, bustling shopping centre we had just come from. Every slightest movement was measured and deliberate - the lighting of a candle for prayer, the folding of palms, the raising of clasped hands to lips.

The whole atmosphere of the place felt surreal. And as I stared up at that radiant, gleaming painting of Christ, which in that moment looked very lifelike and terrifying, I realized that people go to churches and clubs for the same reason - to be dazzled.

Whether it's flashing lights or flickering candles, throbbing beats or haunting harmonies, people are looking for something to take their breath away.

Everyone needs a place where, if only for a few hours, they can lose themselves, their problems, and their worries, and be caught up in something bigger than themselves, whether it's a sea of worshippers or of revellers.

Worship and revel. Those two words could be interchanged as easily as any reasons a person visits a church or a club. All worshippers find something about the object of their worship to revel in. And all revelers take part in ceremonious rituals to express their enjoyment.

They're not so far apart, those two worlds, really. Churches and clubs.

There are the extremists in both camps that give each a bad name, those who get drunk on beer and the others who get drunk in the spirit. There are those who go because their friends go. There are those, like me, who go out of curiosity, in hopes of finding out what it is about these institutions that so draw and unite masses upon masses around the world.

I find that people who go to these places are looking for the same things - for an escape, a temporary respite from the harshness of reality, for splendour, for beauty, for something - anything - to make them feel alive again... for something to leave them breathless.