Sunday 3 August 2008

Paris

I've been for a workweek in Paris, for - easy to say - work.
Work was great but tough, especially phisically, I came back home sick, but now I'm feeling better.
I had some time to sightsee the city and as I did already 4 years ago I was puzzled by its romance. I love that city. The architecture is great everywhere in the innercity, there's no palace or building which is not tuned to the overall atmosphere.
The suburbs are times worse. I've been in Saint Denis and Neully-Plaisance, two outer areas, served by metro. Two aspecta I have to outline about them is the uglyness of the streets and the multicultural component.
The street are quite ugly as what concerns architecture and urban care. Some positive spotlights of course are churches.
Paris is really multicultural, and I think the racial integration is better than any other places I've been to... I'm wondering if it's even better than american metropolis like New York, where there are still "niggers" ghettos as far as I know. There in Paris arabs, asian and africans live together with european frenchs, without - apparently - problems.

I think I would never move to Paris even tho I liked the cosmopolitan way of living, the easy trekking with the metro, the events and occasions. I think I would likely move to a satellite town of Paris, a nice and good looking one, like I saw passing by by car.

Now I would like to discover more about smaller cities and towns of France. I've been once in Avignon and the nearby cities, but I can't recall many things. I should see them again under a different light.

I learnt french for 3 years at middle schools (that's to say: 11 to 14 years old) and I loved it, I was motivated and I was good in it. After so much time I didn't forget much and I was still able to conversate with french people. I'm fucking upset with my high school studied: I wasted 5 years with inadequate and unprepared teachers. I didn't learn a word of english (while I could have been a mothertongue speaker by now under different conditions), I wasn't taught math and phisics (like, instead, it was intended to be), and I had to relearn on my own at university (I learnt in a couple of years tons more than I didn't in 5 years), I learnt an unuseful latin, while I could be a good french speaker or even a german speaker (hate to say, things would have been different if I knew german). I don't remember anything of the literature and history studies which were just sticked to my mind for a few days after exams, the only thing I benefit from these fuckin'horrible 5 years is philosophy.
Ok I'm going too far with this topic.

So back to Paris: it's a pretty good place to spend some time, surely more than a tourist week...