vseznayka

Let me blurt it right away:  I didn't like Paris.

I have never expected that I'd write these words - I have very fond memories of my previous trips to Paris, I spent in this city quite a bit of time, even lived there for sometime, as a student learning French.  The city used to be kind to me, and I was kind to the city.   But something has changed in the city, or something has changed in me.  This time me and Paris haven't fit each other as we used to.

If one expects that the reminder of this post will be the ksenophobic crap that has littered the entire World Wide Web, you'll be disappointed.  No, I haven't seen any evidence of Syrian refugies rampaging through the streets, while oppressed white Parisiens hide somewhere in the bomb shelters.  I suppose one can travel out of his way, to the specific troubled neighbourhoods, to find the material that feeds these ksenophobic stories.. but we haven't done such silly things.  We've kept our itinerary to the upscale neighbourhoods and major attractions, Latin Quarter, Saint-Germain, Notre-Dame, Louvre, Eiffel Tower, etc.. and in all these popular places, the business was 100% as usual...

So what is that I didn't like?  First of all, long lines.  Starting from the arrival to the Charles-de-Gaule, we've spent 1.5 to 2 hours waiting in the line for Immigration.  The mechanical voice habitually lied every 5-10 minutes that longer than usual lines are due to "heightened security concerns".  What a BS!  I know exactly why the line was barely moving - because out of about 20 security gates, only 3 to 4 were open at any given time.  Michelle has remarked that it was the longest line she's seen in her life... and perhaps this was the longest line in my experience as well.  While we were stranded in the motionless human sea, in front of the immigration gates, Zara had plenty of time to recall the efficiency of Dubai's Airport, and fantasise how wonderful it would be if Dubai's sheiks would extend their rule to France's flagship airport or perhaps the entire country, it was quite clear that French are not capable of running it well on their own.

This, btw, wasn't the only line where we've stayed longer than desired, it seems that most of our experiences in Paris involved some slow moving queue.  For example, on the evening of the same day when we arrived, we went to Moulin Rouge.  The ticket has warned that to get good seat on has to come 30 minutes before the show.  We did.  And show has started 1 hour later.  So what we did we do in these 1.5 hours?  We, together with at least a thousand of other people, were herded to a large barn-like structure, apparently a former movie theater, but now abandoned and dilapidated.  There we had to wait about 1.5 hours without food, toilets or entertainment.  The only difference from the airport was that here most people were nicely dressed, and many women wearing high heels.  By the time we all got to our seats, nobody had nice words for the administrators of ths venue.  While the show itself was good, it's the art of annpying people, which French have mastered to perfection!

Secondly, I didn't like French food!  Well, as far as I recall, finding quality food in France, other than pastries, has always been hit and miss, more of a miss, actually.  Now, with the help of Yelp's ratings, the luck was more on our side.  However we would have to pass quite a few establishments, to find one that had more positive reviews than curses.  And even there, the food be just ok, nothing special.  Besides, French food industry seems to have lower hygenic standards than most of the civilized word, definitely lower than in USA.  It was rather strange for us to observe food workers taking money and than handling food without plastic gloves.  And, of course, I can avoid mentioning, that sanitary standards of French toilets are about 100 years behind the rest of the Europe and most of Asia.  No matter how pretentious is the facade of French establishments, and how pricey is the menu, more likely than not, the toilets will be somewhere in the dangeon-like basement, and have a certain degree of disfunction.  It seems that French always treat their sanitary facilities as an afterthought - after everything else is built, someone realizes, "oh, we forgot about the toilet", so they'd squeeze it somewhere in the darkest corner, and because all the budget has been already spent, it will remain partially unfinished.  And if something breaks, or e.g. as toilet seat would gone missing... owners wouldn't even notice.

Our last meal, when leaving France through the same Charle De Gaule, has only reinforced the bad aftertaste - the food was bad, overpriced.. and there was the unavoidable long line to get even that.  As the ultimate insult, even the croissants weren't fresh!  I think that selling stale croissants in France should be punished by law as desecration of the flag.   Airport vendors have ultimatly destroyed whatever little was left of the French culinary prestige.

I don't want to have my entire travel note in such negative key, so here is something positive at theend: I loved Italy!
Actually, most of our vacation was through Italy, and some of the negative thoughts I have about Paris were amplified by the comparison with our wonderful Italian impressions.  Even the famous sights of Paris looked bleak and uninspiring after their Italian counterparts.  Everything was great in Italy - sights, food, weather, efficiency!  Forget Paris, now I have my new favorite country!

One girl I’ve met during this trip took offense when I called her a tourist.  She proudly puffed her lips, and said  - I am a traveler!  And indeed, I should have known better, there is a huge difference.

Tourists are people who live regular lives and travel during short breaks. Travelers, are those for whom the travel is their regular life, although sometimes they take breaks from it to do other things, i.e. work to finance their future travel.

I think that all of them, regardless of age, are extraordinary people, from whom I personally have something to learn.  I like that all of them are happy people, and I like their inventiveness and resourcefulness - after all they all have found some way to break free from the grip of 9-5 schedule, something that the rest of us has yet to figure out.

Obviously I am a tourist, but I like to imagine myself being a traveler, and when I am on the road pretend being one and try to blend-in.  I'd say that social interactions with travelers are always one of the highlights of my trips.  I suspect that for many of the travelers, social interaction with other like-minded people is the main objective of their travels.  My longest trip was quite short by travelers’ standard, at most 2.5-3 months, and even within this short time frame, by the end I started experiencing weariness from sight-seeing… I can imagine that after 6, 9 or 12 months of travel, this effect of attraction-weariness is only getting stronger.  So I guess to move on they need either great stamina, or a very strong curiosity drive, or in the process of travel they find other things to enjoy, besides the sightseeing.

Then, travel, is a good opportunity for me to refresh my English... which I hardly ever use in USA, because everybody around me speaks Russian :)
And also an opportunity to brush up my French - wherever you go, you can always find French people, alongside with representatives of most other European countries.  Here in New Zealand, rather unusually, more than half of all backpackers are German.  And a quarter are Dutch…  which is not unusual, this small nation certainly has a travel gene.  There are so few of Dutch in total, but so many are traveling all over the world, that I am wondering whether any  are left in home to mind the house?   There are also Brits, and Swedes, Swiss and Australians, and many others.  But Americans are conspicuously missing from this travel manifest - very few of Americans travel.  I have met some, perhaps 1 American per half-dozen Dutch… Striking contrast of numbers, considering the ratio of total population b/n these two countries.

The best place for social interactions traditionally is a kitchen.  These kitchens are found in hostels, for obvious reasons travelers can’t stay in expensive hotels - this would have shortened their travels by many months, turning them into tourists.
I personally have love & hate relationship with hostels.  On one hand I think hostels are awesome invention, because without them backpackers would go extinct.   I also love the return to the atmosphere of the college dorm…  I just don’t like the dorm part, I think this side of hostels is evil.  By stacking more beds in the room they manage to extract more money per sq foot than 5-star mega-hotels.
In other words I think that hostels overcharge poor students, and that’s not cool.
Fortunately, the dorm part is usually optional, most hostels have private rooms, which sometime are comparable to rooms in hotels.  But it’s a lottery, sometimes you’ll end up in the nicest boutique hotel with perks like sauna, movie theater, free bike rental, etc.  and you room will have a private bathroom, balcony and superior view of the mountains… or you can end up in the crappiest place you can imagine, but worse.  There is no way to predict what you’ll get, both the nicest and the crappiest place might charge approximately same price and have comparable user-satisfaction ratings…  So it’s always worthwhile to ask receptionist to see the room, before committing your money.  However if your are booking in advance, you are taking a chance.  Well, isn’t meeting the unexpected is yet another reason to travel?

Yesterday, for example, I ended up spending night in the worst accommodation I have yet seen in New Zealand, or possibly anywhere.  I spent considerable amount of time cursing the travel agent on whose advise I got into this hole, and lamenting my own gullibility. Today I escaped from the dungeon and checked in into hostel next door, which happened to be one of the nicest place I’ve been to during the trip.  I have an awesome bright 5th floor room, with private bathroom, nice city view from my window, and for even better view, hostel has rooftop terrace with a hot tub.  As soon as I finish this note, I am going to jump into the hot tub, and spend the rest of the evening soaking under the stars, enjoying the panoramic view of the city.

A famous philosopher Wittgenstein has once declared that “philosophy is simply a byproduct of misunderstanding language”.  It seems to me that large number of political conflicts, and eventually wars, are byproduct of giving geographical and political entities poorly chosen names.

To illustrate the point, in a discussion started by my recent post someone has made an argument, why is it unreasonable for Ukraine to require that her citizens speak Ukranian?  And the argument sort of made sense at the time, until I realized that it’s actually makes no sense at all.  I.e. if the country was re-named to “Malorossia”  (Small Russia), which is another historical name of this region, would everybody be required to speak Small Russian?

Relationship between the name of the country and the language spoken within is entirely coincidental.  People do not speak American in USA, nor do they speak Canadian in Canada, nor Switz in in Switzerland, etc.  Brazilian is not spoken in Brazil, nor Peruvian in Peru, nor Chinese in China, as a matter of fact.  Most people in China speak Mandarin.

Name of the country is just a label - it carries no meaning, just like brand label on the package of serial, it doesn’t tell you anything about the content.

Unfortunately, many people can’t see past brand labels, and therefore it’s a grave mistake to name multinational country after one of the living there etnicities.  It instantly elevates one ethnicity over all others and sets the stage for all future ethnic conflicts for as long as this misnamed country will exist.

So, my contribution du jour to the political science is the suggestion that country names should not match nor even resemble names of neither nationalities, nor even words from any existing language.  To avoid incidental matches with existing words, each country name should include at least one digit and one capital letter.  This will prevent countless ethnic conflicts, civil wars and military interventions - the dream would come true!