Posts tagged with "France"

far, far away from my heart

I’ve been feel­ing nos­tal­gic about Toronto ever since I drove down for ____’s wed­ding. The oth­er day I stepped out­side and the spring air brought me back to Camp Creative when I used to live there, between semes­ters in grade 5–7. At some point this year I hope to dri­ve home again and take pic­tures of those old schools where I spent the days mak­ing gimp bracelets1 and lip-sync­ing as Javert in Les Miserables.

Places are only as good as the peo­ple though, and I’m sure I miss Toronto for ____ and Darren as much as those old child­hood mem­o­ries, when life was so sim­ple that the fact that it was dis­gust­ing­ly hot nev­er entered my mind, even though I was out­side for most of the day.

Ullapool cafe

Scottish faces in Scottish places. This was lit­er­al­ly the size of half the cafe. Off-cam­era is Mike work­ing his mag­ic to con­vince these two baris­tas to let us film inside.

I miss Mike and rainy London nights too. I want to be part of a cre­ative team again, work­ing towards a com­mon vision, with some­one who can com­pli­ment my weak­ness­es with their strengths. It’s been too long since I had some­one to bounce ideas off of, some­one to give me hon­est crit­i­cism and inspire me to improve. Mike does all those things, and I’ve yet to find some­one like that here in Ottawa.

Stores in Chartres

Night shop­ping in down­town Chartres.

I miss France, and Misun and Frédéric, and how they could tru­ly appre­ci­ate who I am. I love the cul­ture in that coun­try, and the fact that you can buy a fresh baguette by walk­ing a minute from any­where. And I’m far from being fin­ished with Paris; there was so much I had left to explore, so many things I’d yet to do. I want to go back as the right per­son, not as a per­son try­ing to escape my thoughts and mem­o­ries.

Kowloon Walled City entrance

Gateway in Kowloon Walled City.

Hong Kong I miss most of all, and my fam­i­ly there. I want noth­ing more than to walk those streets with Uncle Joe or Uncle Eddie. Sometimes, I sit by my back door with the win­dow open and just lis­ten to cars pass­ing by in the dark­ness, pre­tend­ing it’s the din of those high­ways and the diesel of the trucks. Nothing ever comes close though, and it only leaves me feel­ing like all these places are so far away.

  1. Square, cir­cle, and but­ter­fly were my favourites. [↩]

France: Day 18, Paris

The detour took a week off my time in France, and soon I was on a mis­sion to do the most impor­tant things with the two days I had left. I decid­ed to vis­it places that meant some­thing to me, instead of tourist attrac­tions like the Louvre and Eiffel Tower that did­n’t have as much of an emo­tion­al con­nec­tion.

Four Graves, Four Songs

Pere Lachaise Cemetery road

 

I’d only found out about ceme­ter­ies Montparnasse and Père Lachaise — both of which are notable for hav­ing many famous peo­ple buried there — after my arrival. They’re both huge (nav­i­gat­ing them requires look­ing up the prop­er street name), but Père Lachaise in par­tic­u­lar has the rep­u­ta­tion of being the world’s most vis­it­ed cemetary. I made no plans to vis­it them until I found out that Serge Ganisbourg is in Montparnasse, and Yves Montand, Edith Piaf, and Chopin are in Père Lachaise. So I made a trip to some­what oppo­site ends of Paris to find the graves of each of these musi­cians. For each one that I vis­it­ed, I put on my head­phones and lis­tened to one of their songs, imag­in­ing they were singing or play­ing to me at that moment.

Serge Gainsbourg (La Chanson de Prévert)

It was­n’t hard to tell that Serge is one of France’s most beloved artists; the tomb was lit­tered with var­i­ous baubles, plants, and even por­traits left for him. As I was lis­ten­ing to this song (co-inci­den­tal­ly, ref­er­enc­ing songs sung to Jacques Prévert’s poems, such as the one by Edith Piaf below), a tall, sandy-haired young man walked up to the grave, lit a cig­a­rette, and left his lighter stand­ing upright on the tomb before walk­ing away.

The French youth seem to have an healthy obses­sion with the genius that was Serge. I’d just like to know where these peo­ple are, because I don’t know a sin­gle per­son who loves Gainsbourg as much as I do. I need to find them so we can smoke cig­a­rettes, mock pop cul­ture, and talk about want­i­ng to fuck Whitney Houston.

Serge Gainsbourg's grave

 

Serge Gainsbourg's grave - details 1

The small white strips are metro tick­ets (they get spit out from the machine as a receipt when enter­ing the sub­way).

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France: Day 9, Rochefort-en-Terre

It’s so nice to be accept­ed into anoth­er fam­i­ly, and to be able to live the way they do for a bit. You get a taste of some­one else’s life and habits. That’s when a trip is more than just a vis­it to a dif­fer­ent place, and becomes an expe­ri­ence.

And on our last day in Rochefort-en-Terre, there were still things to do and dish­es to eat.

cleaning mussels

Cleaning the mus­sels for steam­ing in white wine and onions. This is how Frédéric won Misun’s heart.

Continue read­ing “France: Day 9, Rochefort-en-Terre”…