I am not superstitious, merely bored. You see, we have three lifts in our building. Two perfectly fine ones and one that looks like it has been gutted and was a scene in some Terminator movie. With its wires hanging out, and its the flourescent lights (that were supposed to illuminate softly, hidden behind a steel panel),  open to the world and starkly visible on one side of the elevator thereby making everyone look older and even more tired than usual. The walls were covered hastily in a sickly green carpet, as if that would make it look any better. I wonder what they were hiding. A printed out sign, in Times New Roman, tells the story of the elevator, ‘Attention…’ it says. Since the rest is in French, the story is lost to me.

Every morning, if the first thing I get is The Bad Lift, it’s a sign that the day will be interesting.

This morning, I took the Bus 92 from Place de Marechal Juin to Charles de Gaulle Etoile. From there I took the RER A to La Defense. This morning, I bought a couple of Pain au chocolat for breakfast. Freshly baked.  This morning, I relied on probability, and the odds were against me. I got the bad lift.

I said I wasn’t superstitious, so I ignored that little signal of doom. I don’t believe in bad luck anyway. It was a busy day workwise, but that was normal. There were guests so I had my usual awkward social situations with them. Normal. I had a web conference, and that went fine, except that it was generally a waste of time. But that’s normal too.

It was almost the end of the day, so I decided to go to the toilet first to pay homage to the throne. I had to get out of the office, since the toilets were just outside, in front of the Lifts of Fate.

I do my thing (number 1 ok =P), and flush. As I turned to get out the door, my security ID flew off it’s loose case and landed straight into the flushing toilet. It circled a bit and disappeared. That was the longest flush I’ve seen in my life. My horrified eyes could do nothing but watch it go down. Drowned, gone forever, to the sewers of Paris.

Outside the toilet doors, the Lifts of Fate watched on. Tomorrow is another morning.

I recall the big, blue plastic container we have at the back of our old house, the one that we use to trap rainwater from the eaves. There was a lack of running water back then, and we would try to collect water whenever we can.

I remember the hot, sticky humidity that clings to the silence before the storm.

It can sometimes come like a curtain of water. It starts out as an April’s Fools day of sunshine – the complacent belief you can leave your umbrella at home.  When it starts, there’s that smells that brings all the memories back, of the earth and the air being cleansed. I would look out from the dry comfort of our door and reach out my hand, hesitating slightly as if the raindrops could hurt. It has to be a certain intensity to be perfect for bathing. Not too light, cause that’s just boring and not too heavy to be scary. It had to be just enough to completely drench a twelve year old in shorts and a cotton tank top in about 5 seconds of exposure.

Skinny jeans are here again, but I didn’t want anything to do with that 1980’s remake. I made that mistake once and never again! Skinny jeans are for skinny people and with MY hips…no way, it’s just a disaster on me. I opted instead for a nice dark blue pair of boyfriend trousers. Still sexy and chic, but balances my hips with a straight, slightly flared cut. It was my lucky day cause it only took an hour for them to alter the length. It can sometimes take days.

So I thought shopping would make my slump go away. Well, it didn’t. It was a shame cause it was such a sunny day, and I could have done something incredibly interesting and bloggable.

But I didn’t want to. I just wanted to go back to my apartment, clean my junk and have a sense of control over something – like the washing machine. 

It used to be that my ‘cure’ for my homesickness is to travel. Curiousity distracts me from Longing. But I can’t travel just yet…

I don’t want to think I’m losing my wanderlust. I just think that the sheer effort of getting up, smiling and appearing normal (instead of burning the phone lines at home and my brain with the wifi) is just exhausting me and I don’t want to be like this. I really don’t.

It’s a choice to make each day, to get out and not feel sorry for yourself. I go through these phases, several times a day: Step 1, count your blessings. Step 2 Accept that this is your choice and Step 3 Look around you. Discover little things that make that particular day different from the rest. Well I did just that.

Today is special because I talked to him for as long as I could this morning.

Today I noticed how people act totally different when they think you’re not looking (when I was really watching their reflections on the dark windows of the Metro).

Today I wished I bathed in the stormy rain of yesterday. Those rainy days in the Philippines, when the raindrops feel like tiny hands massaging you, the smell of earth and just being surrounded by it.

Today I can’t figure out where the hell the adaptor for my epilator is and how to quiet all the untamed hair that calls out for it. 

Today I bought neon post-its to stick to my small map of the city, with names and directions to restaurants and interesting places.

Today I will try and start documenting my ordinary days here.  My future self will thank me for it.

 but not as much as I love cats.

 <

Here are some pictures I wish I had taken:

1. A couple balancing an antique chair and a toilet bowl on their stroller. The things you find at the flea market.

 2. A kid dancing to the tune of a jazz trio performing at the corner. What a charmer! He just started dancing like he owned the place.

3.Angela's grilled pied de cochon at Au Pied de Cochon in Rue Rambuteau. It's the french version of crispy pata.

4. The brazilian jazz group playing in front of Natura Brasil at St. Germain des Pres!!! They were awesome!

Sorry about the lack of full paragraphs. I just want to write these down before I forget. Old age is catching up :P

2. and they call him the speederman!!!

3, still on spidey -- why does the local correspondent of the NY news channel have a british accent??? weird

4. cool folks -- i have a japanese,monk classmate and a couture designer in my french class.

I don't know how long I'm staying here, so I decided that every weekend will be an adventure..getting to whatever destination usually is, for me anyway. I took the metro to Varenne, to visit Musee Rodin and stand in front of the gates of hell.

It was raining lightly when I got there and it was cloudy for the first time in weeks. Probably the weather reflecting the upcoming mood for the elections tomorrow.

There were not many tourists there, and I do recommend a visit to it. The sculptures are quite evocative and in most cases, filled with longing...which reflected my mood.

 I will attach pictures once I get a chance.

 I wandered into an open market, where even just the smell of fresh produce made me feel healthy. It was a bright spring morning, and sunshine always makes me happy. I followed the signs to Place des Vosgues which was once home to nobility. I was getting a bit hungry so I grabbed the neares pigeon-poop free bench and proceeded to devour my pain au chocolat, which is my new pandesal. Lovely classical music, seemingly brought by the wind, lent a pensive yet optimistic background to the scenes before me. 

 After my breakfast, and watching out for the pigeions, I walked out of the square and wandered upon a group of 8-10 musicians, who were actually creating the lovely soundtrack to the beautiful day. I stayed and listened for quite a while. I thought it was pretty amusing that their leader was a long-haired rocker type wearing  black guns and roses jacket.

I am a bit puzzled however by their ticketing services. If you’re here for less than a week, then just buy those one-off paper tickets or a carnet (a bunch of 10 tickets), which you can use it anytime, as you please. However, when you buy the weekly or monthly carte orange, you will have to know the following facts:

1. If it’s your first time to get one, buy it at the ticket desk and not at the automated machines. You will need to get the paper card, paper ticket and the protective plastic cover that goes with it. You’ll also need a 1x1 pic for the ID portion.
2. The weekly ticket is from Monday-Sunday of the coming week and is available from the Wednesday before it. So for the week of the 26^th of March-1^st of April, you can buy it from the 21^st of March, 2007.
3. The monthly ticket is from the 1^st to the last day of the coming week and is available from the 20^th of the previous month.
4. You can also get a Navigo card, which is like London’s Oyster card. This is more convenient than the carte orange because you just need to tap it on the card readers installed at the barriers, instead of inserting a paper ticket. It also avoids the hassle of the occasional de-magnetized ticket, and avoids the mess of used up tickets littering the metro. You can get an application form at the ticket desks but it will take about 2 weeks before it gets to you. Again, have 1x1 pictures ready!!!
5. All this information is in www.ratp.fr, but of course, it won’t be in the english version of the page.

What I find a little weird is that inspite of being electronic; the Navigo still operates in the same fixed price – fixed period use of the tickets as the Carte Orange, (only that it looks nicer). It has speeds up getting through the barriers and to your train, but it hasn’t really revolutionized transport as much as only electronics and computers can.

I would have thought that being ‘pre-paid’ and electronic, surely you should be able to load it anytime so you can avoid the inevitable long queues everytime the end of the month comes near. Then again, this is a country where employees can take leaves almost all at the same time every year (which is August, tourists beware).

I looked for the Filipino store today at Rue Mesnil in the 16th arrondissement to try and see how the community here is like. In Belfast, there is this lovely family that makes newcomers feel welcome and helps them find their way. As to us Filipinos, food is an unequivocal binding force, Pinoy restaurants in other countries double as information centers for services and events.

I was walking the length of Rue Mesnil, trying to look for the store sign of Marche Manille (Manila Market). Being blind as a bat, I missed it on my first pass. While I was looking around, a Jehova’s Witness evangelist, Ate Nida, approached me. It doesn’t matter which city you’re in: they will find you.

For those who have encountered this group, you know that most of them can be a bit pushy. Even if you say you are in a hurry, they will insist that it will only take a minute… and it never takes a minute. It’s unfair. I think they’re exploiting the fact that most pinoys are exceptionally polite. I thought I’d entertain her for a few minutes.

I apologize for any offense, if you are part of this group, but really, I had a traumatic experience when I was a twelve year old. This lady tried to recruit our little group and she talked to us for hours (literally), interrupting our summer games, boring us to death, and making us extremely wary of ‘It will only take a minute’.

I find that saying yes to whatever they’re inviting you to will generally make them leave you alone. I did just that and said I’ll be there on Easter Sunday. She then proceeded to sell me some magazines with captions saying that the ‘Internet is evil’. This is when I made my exit.

On my second pass of the street, a big tin can of Nido caught my eye and voila – there it is! There were two stores on the street and a small shop for takeaway food. The first store I found was the ‘Pinoy Store’ (very imaginative). The grocery section had almost everything you can see in a sari-sari store, including Lucky Me Pancit Canton (my favorite). In the takeaway shop next door, there was crispy pata, menudo, sisig, puto, turon, kutsinta – you name it. I got myself some menudo and rice, and bought some chichiria: a big bag each of cheeze curls and clover chips.

Time for lunch!