Friday, November 04, 2005
Parfume de Paris
When I wake up in the morning I usually enjoy stepping outside and taking a nice big deep breath of the cool fresh air, but that habit has certainly changed while I am in Paris. The reason being that the first thing that greets me in this beautiful city of impressive monuments filled with history, wine and culture, is the stench of urine; salty, stale, alcohol and drug filled urine.
It is not very hard to understand why Paris reeks. Toilets are hardly ever free here. One has to pay 30 cents, 50 cents and sometimes even 1 euro to use public restrooms. Even McDonald's charge for the use of their services and that is just plain cheap of the co-operation! Now, when I am not homeless (anymore), I prefer using that euro to buy myself a sandwich and hold my pee till I get home rather than pay for a public toilet. Imagine what all the homeless people that line up every corner of Paris, who will never hold their pee because they have no home to pee in, have to do to relieve themselves. No wonder Paris smells of pee; poor people cannot afford to use the toilets!
Compared to other countries Paris does not strongly advocate cleanliness. Unlike Hong Kong's underground network, one can eat, drink, smoke and pee in the Parisien metro stations. Of course, there are rules against the smoking and peeing part but no one really cares and the law is not enforced. One can step of the train and watch a person peeing into the gutter. Most of the American students in my program find that shocking but I am sure, over time, we will desensitize to this and become like the parisiens who ignore the poor, smelly pissing guy while jostling and pushing for space on the escalator, in the train and on the quai.
While being on the subject of the metro, another surprising thing is how much the Parisiens like to make out on the train. I started noticing this abnormal amount of public tongue bashing ever since a couple ran into the train , sat opposite me and started swallowing each other. I had been in a sort of dazed mood but that jolted me right awake. I sat there uncomfortably, trying not to appear to them that I was staring (although, reflecting on it now, I am sure they were not aware of anything, let alone me). I would look up and down and never at them but I would observe them from the corner of my eye, on the reflection of the window and in passing glances. At one point I feared the man ate the woman's head but, with a sigh of relief, a few metro stops later I saw her head emerge from his mouth.
It really is not the public display of devouring your loved one that really surprises me, rather, it is the public display of devouring your loved one in a piss filled environment that gets me everytime I am on the train and I see some guy's hand up a girl's vagina and come out through her mouth.
They say Paris is a city of love but it seems more like it is a city of horny people.
When I wake up in the morning I usually enjoy stepping outside and taking a nice big deep breath of the cool fresh air, but that habit has certainly changed while I am in Paris. The reason being that the first thing that greets me in this beautiful city of impressive monuments filled with history, wine and culture, is the stench of urine; salty, stale, alcohol and drug filled urine.
It is not very hard to understand why Paris reeks. Toilets are hardly ever free here. One has to pay 30 cents, 50 cents and sometimes even 1 euro to use public restrooms. Even McDonald's charge for the use of their services and that is just plain cheap of the co-operation! Now, when I am not homeless (anymore), I prefer using that euro to buy myself a sandwich and hold my pee till I get home rather than pay for a public toilet. Imagine what all the homeless people that line up every corner of Paris, who will never hold their pee because they have no home to pee in, have to do to relieve themselves. No wonder Paris smells of pee; poor people cannot afford to use the toilets!
Compared to other countries Paris does not strongly advocate cleanliness. Unlike Hong Kong's underground network, one can eat, drink, smoke and pee in the Parisien metro stations. Of course, there are rules against the smoking and peeing part but no one really cares and the law is not enforced. One can step of the train and watch a person peeing into the gutter. Most of the American students in my program find that shocking but I am sure, over time, we will desensitize to this and become like the parisiens who ignore the poor, smelly pissing guy while jostling and pushing for space on the escalator, in the train and on the quai.
While being on the subject of the metro, another surprising thing is how much the Parisiens like to make out on the train. I started noticing this abnormal amount of public tongue bashing ever since a couple ran into the train , sat opposite me and started swallowing each other. I had been in a sort of dazed mood but that jolted me right awake. I sat there uncomfortably, trying not to appear to them that I was staring (although, reflecting on it now, I am sure they were not aware of anything, let alone me). I would look up and down and never at them but I would observe them from the corner of my eye, on the reflection of the window and in passing glances. At one point I feared the man ate the woman's head but, with a sigh of relief, a few metro stops later I saw her head emerge from his mouth.
It really is not the public display of devouring your loved one that really surprises me, rather, it is the public display of devouring your loved one in a piss filled environment that gets me everytime I am on the train and I see some guy's hand up a girl's vagina and come out through her mouth.
They say Paris is a city of love but it seems more like it is a city of horny people.
# posted by Mare @ 2:29 AM 
