Parisian Metro
You'll notice that any romantic movie set in Paris will most certainly omit metro images. It's a bit shady sometimes, but overall, it's fun!
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Quick Language lesson:
"Je voudrais un billet pour...."
- "I would like a ticket for..."
"Zhe VOO-DRAY Ahn BEE-YAY POOR...."
"Quoi? Je t'ai donne 50 euros! Tete d'ail!"
- "What? I gave you 50 euros!! Garlic-head!"
"KWA? Zhe TAY DON-NAY SANK-ONT EW-ROW! TET DAY!"
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To travel around Paris, you take either the RER or the Metro. The RER takes you to the suburbs of Paris where all the violence happens. The metro rolls around Paris only - it's fast, with some stations being mere metres from each other. If you take the metro, that means fighting a mixture of begging Romanians and icicle-covered parisians to get you where you want to go. So, of course you'll always take the metro!
When you get to big stations like Gare du Nord [GAR DEW NORR] or Chatelet Les Halles [SHAT-LAY LAY AL], don't recoil onto the tracks after inhaling the stench of aged urine fused with garlic, it's Paris. The metro will rattle along with a shuffle and a skip, unlike the Sydney City-Rail trains which come with a chug and a 23 minute delay.
Unless you're mounting the urban pony at an early station, you'll most definitely be standing. Remember to always keep your bag closed with your phone and wallet out of sight. Being Australian, I'm used to my wallet, unprotected notes and monacle dangling out from all places or riding adjacent me.
Two seconds and two begging Romanians later, you'll arrive at your destination. If you're transfereing to a RER or another metro you may be hiking through endless labirynths.
Otherwise, if exiting, you may have the pleasure of experiencing melodramatic parisian doors. These doors let your presence known as they SMASH open with a clang automatically when you approach. So dramatic hand gestures are required to realise your childhood Alex Mack telekenisis fantasies.Often you'll get some metro-tainment which may be someone playing the accordeon or the guitar. My best memory is standing right next to some dude with a guitar playing "How Many Roads Must A Man Walk Down" with gloupy french-accent and all while fiddling with the chords on a crowded metro. I stole some coins from a rich tourist to give to him anyway though... when in Rome!
So how many roads must a man walk down, before he gets bludgy and wants the metro? Add a comment...
Labels: australia, france, metro, paris, RER, sydney, travel, travelblog
Posted by tonch at
3:28 am
Labels: france, gay, metrosexuality, paris, sydney, sydneyspy, travel Posted by tonch at
2:52 am
The narrow streets prove to be the perfect protection against an obese invasion from the west while the yellow walls are a deceptive faux-McDonalds trap. I constantly had the urge to go up to those windows which looks like drive-thru windows and ask for a McOz but that would have been stupid... they don't sell McOzs in Hungary... plus NO ONE orders the McOz even in Australia. Back to the narrow streets, some of them are tiny as proved by this portly Czech tourist's puzzle-piece perfection size slotting so neatly in this entrance. These villages love their fountains everywhere. though this one was missing something... My heart bleeds for you The only water you give now are tears salty ones of my salty SOUL forbidden? The Hungarian language is in a language family all on its own. Its closest relative is Finnish... though they're still not that similar. It's a crazy difficult language to know but if you're fluent, then you're legally allowed to make "hungry Hungarian" jokes - so it's worth it. TRUTH: One Hungarian village tradition is that on the wedding night, the girl - who's a virgin - will bleed after sex. Then the man takes the soiled bedsheet and parades the streets waving it around to show everyone while the bystanders, young and old, gleam and applaud the genital emission. Bloody good tradition? Bloody bad tradition? Add a comment.. Labels: hungary, paris, soiled bedsheet, sydney, sydneyspy, szentendre, travel Posted by tonch at
6:40 am
Labels: france, moulin rouge, paris, sydney, travel Posted by tonch at
10:20 am
The most exciting part of the journey there was the fat controller who probably didn't speak in a Ringo Starr voice. TRIVIA: Tintin's dog Snowy, is called Milou in french. In case you didn't know, in Belgium they speak French and Dutch so everything is written in the two languages. Fortunately, Dutch is just English with bad spelling. Labels: australia, belge, belgian, belgium, france, la belgique, sydney, sydneyspy, travel
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Metrosexuality in Paris
After downing one too many chausse aux pommes and absinthe, you may have the urge to go to Les Toilettes. Here comes the embarrassment:
Which one?!!? At least the wheelchair man has broader options. I must have looked at both options in cartoon double-take style 12 times each before entering. I had never been so happy to see a urinal in my life.
"Riding a metro" can have a completely new meaning if your mind's in the gutter. It's all the more appropriate in Paris where they flock in clusters tighter than their belly shirts. These French ones have found a way to reproduce to form a more mutated, more sexually ambiguous strain with skinny jeans so restraining, their bamboo pins suggest a third gender.
The city of Paris accomodates for them as well. If you walk into a shop like Sephora, you'll see make-up for men. Not just a small shelf in the corner situated next to hair-gel for em-browsing-ment, but HALF the shop. Foundation... eye-liner... mascara... all for MEN. My French-Vietnamese friend tells me that the section for men is growing with the years. Await Sephor-o in 2009.
Otherwise, there are some other signs that leave me confused.
Is it just a spot the difference game?
Gay Paris, indeed. Add a comment...
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Szentendre?? "My goodness, where does one find that!?" I hear you screaming in a British accent at your computer screen. It's in the central European country of Hungary near the capital, Budapest. "Szentendre" is actually the Hungarian way of writing "Saint Andre", isn't that the craziest?
What's not crazy is how gorgeous this town is - it's like the village of my dreams come to life... and that's saying something since I dream about villages A LOT.
You can be weaving around narrow streets getting joyfully lost in Szentendre. The background track is the pleasant village clicking titter of hump-laiden women putting up washing and bare-footed children frollicking gayly. Here we find two village people in the main square, these aren't like the Village People we know for their famous hits. Instead, they're Hungarian Village People, known for slurred speech and seven toes on each hand.
Good thing he only had one serve of vepřová pečeně s knedlíky a se zelím this morning, am I right?
So either this says "Watch Out For The Dog" or the Hungarian elections are in full swing, no idea. While meandering around the village, some well-fed Szentendre woman asked if I had seen her lost dog. It was the perfect quaint village moment.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Moulin Rouge
When I took the metro up to northern Paris in search for Nicole Kidman's post-divorce habitation, I expected something a little more Spectacular Spectacular and not the tiny gitchi-gitchi-ya-ya thing I saw before me.
Lady Marmalade couldn't even smear herself on a baguette in this box. I expected it to be twice the size of the Eiffel Tower with emerald fairies swatting gossemer wings all about... instead it's lego. Although, as we all know, the first 30 minutes of Moulin Rouge the movie are a steaming mess of kitsch appropriated medleys and rhitalin-less camera work... then the story begins. Yet I was staring at the real Moulin Rouge for at least two hours and I didn't even get a glimpse of Nicole Kidman on a trapeze.
Is Moulin Rouge amazing Australian cinema? or is it naffery? Add a comment...
Monday, March 19, 2007
Sydney Spy Goes To Brussels 
This piece of gold below is une frite, [translation Belgian French Fries] and it's the third most orgasmic feeling in the world. Belgium was the birth place of french fries ever since the first McDonalds was installed in 1400. 
It's common to eat them with mayonnaise and these days you can buy them everywhere in Brussels from a friterie. It's crisp without being like those gross over-fried fries at the bottom... and it's soft without being one of those super-greasy fries that could make a bank vault transparent. It's simply perfect and I think it should be on the cover of Lonely Planet: Belgium. 
Ok... that's not Belgian beer.. it's Coke but I 'forgot' to take a picture of the beer. In Belgium you can buy beer in any cafe and it's served all day long. Something special is une rafale which is when they give you four glasses of four different types of beer served in a wooden frame. It's precious and necessary since there are so many different Belgian beers.
There's more to Belgium than food and liquids though. Brussels has a really cool atmosphere - it's relaxed and friendly but still vomiting culture on you from all directions. If you go there, La Grande Place will be your home since you pass it several times when ambulating around the city.
We don't really have city squares in Australia. It's a place for pedestrians where the only danger of being run over comes from all the tourists and even they can't douse the smell of history seeping out of every paved corner. The city overall is full of this smell, come whiff:
It's an enchanting ambiance that cannot be fully consumed no matter how wide your gaping mouth of amazement hangs. The foundations of culture and Europe were here on these very roads you find yourself walking on. Each building suffered the tourment of war and a stiffled sigh releases itself from latticed lungs for the bittersweetness that such beauty came from such tragedy.
Lolz, Wiener!! 
And strangely, here's something you could buy in Belgium. A badge of Sandra Bullock?
I instead bought a badge of the Belgian king, as a constant reminder of Brussels... and because it's a badge of some old man. Then I walked back to Paris on Sunday... well after the frites, waffles, beer and chocolate... I was rolled there.