Editor, Writer,

So we did finally make it home, 28 hours late and after getting the full pat-down at Heathrow and being shuttled around LAX like refugees. Seriously, US customs is nuts. We’re happy to be home, over our jet-lag, and have no major casualties to report. The animals were quite happy to see us and I was thrilled to see my comfortable bed. Yay for sleeping through the night! 

My parents also came for a visit this weekend on their way back home to AZ after two weeks at the beach. We had lots of fun but now the house feels so empty! Time to get back to work and back into the swing of things…yay? 

So, some general observations from our trip:

1. Parisian women really are as glamorous (and snooty) as everyone says. Furthermore, they always look very put-together and wear really fabulous shoes. Even in the metro or running around on the streets, these stick-thin fashion plates will stroll by and I’m convinced that they have some gene which renders their feet to be numb to pain. If I wore the shoes they wear and tried to walk around all day, you can bet I’d be hobbling inside of 15 minutes.  

2. On a related note, about the whole “French Women Don’t Get Fat” school of thought…yes, they eat chocolate in moderation. But they also also smoke like chimneys and that’s of course an appetite suppressant. Smoking is much more common in Europe and doesn’t really carry the same stigma as here. Also, they walk around a huge city every day just to get from place to place, and that’s just not something that’s part of many American city cultures (unfortunately). 

3. People stare at each other a lot on public transportation, probably because there’s not much else to do. Seriously, it got creepy. You’d be sitting there and lock eyes with someone’s expressionless face, eyes just boring into you, and you kinda look away. Then you find they are STILL staring at you, so you awkwardly smile at them as a way to say “Yes? I see you. You forgot to take your invisible pill today.” They do not smile back, just keep staring. Sometimes people would choose an arbitrary part of you to stare at, like your hands or your shoes. It makes you pretty self-conscious and you end up fidgeting a little before deciding to also stare at your un-glamorous shoes and hope your stop comes soon. 

4. Where there were tourists, there were people begging. It got really difficult to see and walk by these people, because while I knew that probably a good chunk of them were just scamming tourists, it felt like I really had no business making that distinction for myself. Many people were in the metro tunnels, mostly women who looked like they were Indian just crouched and holding out their hand. Others were parked outside of cathedrals so as to perhaps bank on the guilt factor of people just coming out of church. We saw deformities of every sort, and it started to feel like some of the people were projecting an image of “See what the world has done to me? You owe me.” Strange to see that in a country with the best socialized health care program I’ve heard of to date. But I guess you never know. Now, there were some people who were complete scammers, and we’d been warned before. Teams of young girls dressed as gypsies would rush up to you and ask if you speak English. The reason being, I guess, to capitalized on the pride of tourists who would of course be happy to lend their talent. They’d hand you a card that begged for money. These girls were pretty aggressive, but I know how to look confused, keep walking, and say “I don’t speak English” in a few languages. It was also tough when people would come up to you directly and beg. They’ll hang on you and they won’t take no for an answer. One time Jeremy said “If Jesus were actually one of these beggars, which one do you think he’d be, the one outside the Vatican??” Just makes you think.

Well that’s it for now…next post will have my findings from my project to take pictures of the ladies room signs in each country and discuss their implications. Stay tuned.

-Jillangill

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 15th, 2008 at 12:11 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.