Just back from Paris. It took 11 hours by train, and if you count all the trains there were five. And despite its 11 dollar reservation fee (2nd class mind you), the Thalys was not the best of them.
Going to Paris for gigs, for Aaron and I, is like getting intimate with a bi-polar person. Wonderful, magical moments punctuated by hideous experiences that make us murderously angry.
Magical....
...was Saidi, our delightful Tunisian host, who came to the gig with his Lebanese friend Habib, drove us home, and totally educated us on a number of topics having to do with life in the Arab world. And Sandrine, our guardian angel who graciously gave us her apartment on Monday night after we missed the last train to Cologne. And the fans at the gig, who inspired us to great artistic heights, even though our sound system acted up and we could not sing on mic. There was singing our own songs for that audience and getting real, genuine shouts of approval and feeling it to be somehow bigger, warmer, truer approval than we've gotten anywhere else lately. There was walking through the Jardin de Tuileries and the Louvre in the light rain, and going up in the huge Roue de Paris (the ferris wheel in the Jardin) and seeing the endless slate rooftops of Paris stretching out in every direction and the great dome of Sacre Coeur and the misty, looming Eiffel Tower on the horizon, and Aaron taking pictures and me squealing in fear as the man at the bottom made the tea cup we were sitting in spin round and round every time we passed by him at ground level. And there was pain au chocolat...and pain au chocolat....and then a few more bites of Pain au chocolat. And seeing the OV version of Adieu Cuba with Andy Garcia in a truly magnificent performance that had us leaving the theater singing "Te recordare!" all the way to the metro where one fellow kept saying, "Chante encore! Encore!"
Hideous.....
The seats on the overexpensive Thalys....pleather, man. For 11 bucks second class. And the fights in the luggage area with a man and her father who were complaining about our guitars taking up space (they tend to do that, guitars) and, as if to prove us bad and wrong, asking angrily "Do you speak French?!" which is French people's way of saying, "you are a a stupid, ignorant American" to which I respond, no, but I speak Spanish and Chinese and a bit of German, at which point the man gives Aaron the "fuck you" sign and A. starts saying "Did you just say fuck you to ME!? I'm gonna send George Bush to get you!" And hideous was, and always is, the Paris subway, which was constructed in ancient times by Sadists and never humanized since. Endless passageways and stairs going up and down and up and down and not a ramp or escalator in sight. Then the angry Turkish guy that punched my arm crying "Le metro!" because I was not struggling through the ridiculously thin turnstile gate fast enough with my incredibly heavy and bulky luggage, and when I said angrily "Don't you DARE touch me!" spat, yes SPAT, a huge spray of spit all over my face. And of course I spat back, but being unaccustomed thank Heavens to spitting in a projectile fashion, my spit just basically dribbled down my chin.
So, the magic and hideousness of Paris over, we get on the train to come back this morning, and fortunately A. had stubbornly and smartly bought yet ANOTHER bag of croissant and pan au chocolat, so we munched, grateful to be returning to Germany, our slightly cold, slightly gray, usually unsmiling but ever so much more functional place of operations, and swore off ever returning to Paris --- knowing perfectly well that we'll be back for more.
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