Finland vs France: Conclusion

It is time for farewells: I’m through my eleven-month exile in Paris and I have been domesticated back to my dear northern country. Before I sink back into the Finnish silent melancholy I want to give out my last words on how infinitely better it would be to live in Paris, though, with a couple of little changes. Here you are, a bit of comparison:

Attention

My time as a special creature with blond hair has come to a close, I think I have to colour my hair green now that I’m back to Finland.

Carbohydrates

Croissant, baguette, pain aux raisins, flan nature, karjalanpiirakka, ruisleipä, wiineri. No matter what the name is, no matter what country, pastries and bread are always just as devilishly good and something you regret eating the next day.

Jolies rencontres in the street

Unknown phenomenon in Finland. If somebody approaches you in the streets of Helsinki, you look at him as he’s an alien. Talking doesn’t belong to Finnish social norms.

Tarjoustalo

Student’s best friend. It is a sort of supermarket where you can find everything from socks to pencils and dish brushes for student-friendly prices. Despite my continuous search in Paris, I never found the equivalent (and if you say it is Monoprix, you just a bit bourgeois).

Metro

The Paris Metropolitain: a spider’s net, fast, takes you anywhere you want, a real trouble for a first timer. Finnish version is idiotically simple: one line going back and forth. But it doesn’t stink and you can always sit no matter what the hour is (we are that few in Helsinki).

Librairies, bookshops

Can I import them all to Helsinki?

Air-conditioning

Well, in Finland it is always so cold we don’t need much airing. Not the case in France. At least in Sorbonne, it seems, windows are sealed with some dark magic since no one even dears to approach them. When a hardboiled Northerner like me does go and fight the windows open, everyone seems to be very thankful and surprised: How we did not think about that? And the lecture, like by magic, starts to fascinate you again.

Spring

Doesn’t exist in Finland, it is only sleet and slush. In Paris on the other hand, it is sunny and there are flowers growing on trees and I am walking with a stupid happy smile on my face.

Cold

Believe me or not but I am colder in Paris than in Helsinki! Well, I don’t mean outside but INSIDE the houses. The fact is no matter how cold it is outside, in Finland we heat up our well isolated houses so that it is always comfy and warm. Not the case in France: Windows have barely two layers of glass, so French people end up paying LOADS of money for the warmth that evaporates out in the outside air. In my apartment the situation is even worse: it is always colder inside the house no matter how hot the weather is outside so even in June I was wearing jumpers!

Libraries

This how it works in the library of Sorbonne: You go in, search your book through the internet, fill out little coupons so that the book will be picked for you and then wait half an hour. If you wish to take books home to read, you are allowed only two items for two weeks. You can renew your borrowed item but only for another week, after that you have to return the book and you cannot take it again for a month! Ok. Finland: you go in, take the book and take it home for a month. It can be renewed NINE times (means for nine months) and so far I haven’t run into any kind of limitations of items and I tend to borrow a lot of books. So, yes in a Finnish library I’m in Heaven!

Museums

Two and a half in Helsinki, 151 in Paris. What is there more to say?

To conclude: I had a great year in Paris but despite the horrors of my ever-approaching return to the fatherland, the actual return hasn’t been that bad which is a shame – I cannot use the self-destructive depression as an excuse to travel back to Paris. The support group for home-coming Erasmus students I planned to set up was never needed; it is almost irritating how easily you get used to your old habits. Anyway, thanks to the audience, thanks to the city and my family and friends. The show is over, though I confess: I already went for a revisit to my beloved intellectual haven, so you’re not getting rid of me that quickly!

The Tourists

The population of Paris includes one important and massive group that despite its incoherence and changeability has plagued this city since the prehistoric times: the tourists.

The mobility and the mutability of this group give you an illusionary impression of its temporary existence. Not quite so: tourists arrive here like from a magic well, you can scoop masses of them but you never run out – they prevail. And they are abundant: per year Paris receives more than 30 million examples with eyes wide of staring and with smiles just as wide of all the picture posing.

The essence of the tourists

How would you describe this multinational group that contains all the social classes and political opinions? I would say it is like a cattle. It is a mass that covers the whole city; sometimes the layer is thinner, sometimes thicker like around Notre Dame where the ultimate concentration of the globetrotters is. Its behaviour is very predictable; it is being steered by the latest version of the Lonely Planet. Remember to keep yourself updated to avoid encountering the herd!

In my opinion, despising tourists is a hobby fully justified. Firstly, they make the prices rise. Secondly, their presence transform such authentic places of Parisian bohemian lifestyle, as Montmartre, and of intellectual dwelling, as Quartier Latin, into the mass culture markets filled with Eiffel tower trinkets and Art Nouveau copy posters. Thirdly, they deprive Parisians (such as me) of the larger than life art experiences by packing into every interesting museum in this city. These voyageurs will spoil your fragile arty moment by dragging their flip-flops round the corridors of the Louvre and by creating congestions in front of every decent painting. I am starting to believe the privilege of appreciating museum collections should be reserved only to people whose postal code starts with 75.

Homo homini lupus est

Nevertheless, I am convinced no one hates a tourist more than another tourist. The trip of every single tourist would be a lot more pleasant without the every single tourist blocking passageways and creating queues.

Without all the other tourists the traveller could to enjoy the authenticity of the city and of the French culture. The prices would be reasonable and while sipping his café noir in a brasserie in St-Germain-des-Prés this lonesome voyageur might even hear two Parisian intellectuals praising Sartre’s existentialism. I wonder if the two intellectuals could be there anyway?

P.S. I'm actually back to Finland, but I had couple of texts left unpublished, so here they go, post-Erasmusly (that's not even a word, sorry...)

Paris – for better and for worse

The City of Light, Paris, is not always easy to handle. You may fall in love with it in an instant but it takes you a good while to learn to love it. It is like any relationship, after the ecstatic first weeks comes the everyday life and its cons.

The first seven days in Paris is a feast for all senses: baguettes, garçons, boulevards, Notre Dame, Tour Eiffel, Palais Royal, croissants, cinéma, hôtels particuliers, crêpes, Camembert, jardins, Renoir, bateaux-mouches, Edith Piaf. And all this crusted with the posh French nasal sounds which makes you think you are in heaven.

After the honeymoon

It is like a fairytale till the moment you start to live here. Then you have to get serious, to settle down as they say. You start getting attached: you open a bank account, you get all those cards for metro, libraries and museums, you find your favourite supermarket and the staff start to recognise you. Now you discover all those small things that drive you crazy: The thing is, in Paris you don’t just go and buy a monthly metro ticket or open a bank account. You honestly need at least half a dozen of certificates about your identity, logging, student status etc. Then you fill out a form and post it to some excluded office with a zip code you cannot locate in the outskirts of Ile de France. Then you wait for a month because nothing is as long and wearing as French bureaucracy, well, except for the Italian.

On the second stage you realise your habits are not at all like those of your newly-wedded metropolis. It does not understand the sanctity of rye bread and keeps providing you with baguettes naïvely believing that there is nothing better. It provides you with baguettes not only for breakfast but also for lunch and for dinner which makes you seriously doubt the supposed variety of French cuisine.

The fine art of Paris-isation

After the first two months it gets easier. Finally, you have all the cards and you can enjoy the privileges of a VIP museum guest by passing the tourists queuing up in never-ending lines. You also forget the existence of rye bread just like your former life is something left behind in the past, long ago. You no longer go mad because of the insurmountable complexity of your university library system or because of the two and half computers with Windows 95 available at your faculty. All in all, you have long ago accepted the immobility of French institutions and do as everyone else does – shrugging you shoulders, you blame the system.

Most importantly you learn the French language and with that the delicate art of using meaningless expressions like "Bon ben voilà quoi" and the inexhaustible vocabulary of the verlan, the French slang in reverse. You also learn to be pardonably late, that is at least 15 minutes which is unforgivable in the North of Europe. Thirdly, after getting some French friends you are finally cured from the special malady of big cities: loneliness. The paradox of having millions of people around you but always changing without establishing anything lasting can be difficult.

Love for life

However, despite all the Paris-isation and assimilation, you never grow bored of the city. There is something infinitely inspiring in the Parisian masses of people, the stream of life on the streets, the faces of all colours and of all ages. You know this city never stops, apart from when the metro staff is on strike which seems to kill all its creative initiative.

Otherwise, Paris occupies your whole existence. It takes up your mind and body and it never leaves you indifferent. It is in the early hours of Sunday mornings when you are returning home on a city bike, the Velib, that you realise the calm beauty of Paris and the thousands of lights reflecting from the Seine. Then you feel it is love for life: Paris is to have and to hold till death us do part. Or till the end of the Erasmus year.

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Article was published on the webpage of "European Young Journalist Award". More info: www.eujournalist-award.eu

Im memoriam

Outside is something that looks very much like hot weather and I have locked myself in to study. Life is not fair. The only company I have is a couple of crazy pigeons who’s social life seems a lot more active than mine; they make so much noise..

The worst thing in my situation is that I cannot make any more excuses to delay my course work, since the essays are piling up, there is no excuse valid enough. I have come to an end, it is now or never. (This is not only an im memoriam for a lost soul called Soili Semkina, but also an encouragement speech to motivate myself towards the ups and downs of Algerian war and away from escaping to freedom to the nearest park).

It is 12.34. and the sun is shining more brightly than ever. I am convinced the centre of the world is somewhere where I am not. Every human being is at this very moment having the best time of their life, while I am slowly but surely moving towards the end of my existence. As I am sinking deeper and deeper into the most entertaining adventures of the Front de Libération Nationale, I feel I am fading from this world of senses, I can no longer see my reflection in the mirror; so long I have been lacking the tender caressing of UV rays.

I will stop writing now, I feel so weak. The next time you will enter my room in this sad apartment of 56 rue des Grands Champs, it will be empty, I am already gone. You will find me in Gilbert Meynier’s book Histoire intérieure du FLN, on the page 347. Adieu!

Down with the velib

If life in Paris suddenly starts to seem dull, there is always a way to spice it up with a near-death experience: a velib.

When you take a look at the Parisian traffic and especially the chaotic roundabouts of Bastille or Arc de Triomphe, to hop on a bike and mix in with the motor runners is not the first thing to come up to your mind. Nevertheless, one sunny day I tried my luck with the new Parisian city bikes. These velibs have been nerving the car drivers since July last year and seem to become more and more popular. They (comes from the words velo and liberté) weigh a good 25 kilos and do not particularly please the eye, apparently the choice of design was made to keep away the long fingered and less honest fellow citizens.

No pain, no gain

Velib is certainly not for the nervous, it takes you all the courage and the cool headedness to dive into the traffic among the unpredictable Frenchmen. Cars are actually not that much of a problem since Parisian roads are only wide enough for one car on both sides. This leaves a good metre for a biker to explore, IF there weren’t the motorcyclists.

Roadies, the motorcyclists, are a special type of nutcases who think they enjoy the same status as everyone else on two tyres since they are just as small and mobile. Note: Mobile with a motor that makes all the difference. Compared to these roaring monsters you feel you are sitting on an eggshell that will crack even with the smallest push. These buffalos neither have sense nor soul, they will brutally cut in front and when the red turns to yellow, they will speed up and shoot all the way till the next red just to leave you choking with their exhaust fumes.

Motorcyclists are not the only thing to watch out, also the Parisians en pied cause certain problems. The unwritten rule in Paris is that you cross the street wherever you like and by no means should you look if there are any vehicles coming. Of course the more suddenly and unpredictably you do it, the better.

But it is worth it!

But velib is like a drug, once you have done it, you want more. You become addicted to the thrill of dodging the motor and human objects and to the challenge of staying focus with the multitude of traffic lights and signs of all sizes and colours. Compared to the extreme sport of velib riding even the toughest videogame seems like a child’s play.

Unfortunately, half of the time my athletic impulses are cut down because of technical problems; my credit card doesn’t work or I don’t get a receipt. Another problem is that velib addiction seems to have spread like a disease through out the whole Paris. So, if the sun is shining, you maybe certain not to find any bikes around, despite the 20 000 examples that are supposed to circulate around the city. But when you do find yourself on a bike, it is fantastic: you discover Paris in all its variety with a nice summer breeze sweeping your hair and life is beautiful.

Blond doesn’t blend

There is something particular in having bright blond hair in Paris. I have always thought that people with goldilocks enjoy as special status in this city, but now I am convinced we are not only considered eccentric but nearly as endangered species. I was once walking on the street when a car stuffed with guys passed by. The comment was as eloquent as it was profound: “Look, there is a blond walking on the street!”

Who can catch a blonde?

Being a blonde has its pros and cons. First of all, you never forget your existence. No matter what you wear, even if you go out with an overall covering you from top to bottom, but there is a lock of hair jutting out of the mass of cloth, you will feel distressingly conscious of yourself. Secondly, you get your logopaedic skills to a whole new level when you learn to interpret sounds like ‘muuah’, ‘tssss’, ‘hrrrr’ or ‘uuuuph’. You also develop Matrix-like abilities to dodge every suspicious man on the street who wants to touch your hair, I suppose there is healing magic in it.

When you have lived almost quarter of a century with a bleached mop, you certainly do not consider it something out of the ordinary. Nonetheless, some men think it a compliment to state something as evident as the colour of my hair. Once a man sat next to me in the metro and started something vaguely reminding a flirty discourse and said ‘I like blondes”. He obviously thought to he had hit the nail and now was waiting for the reaction with the most satisfied look on this face. Understandably, I was not so impressed.

Magical magnet

Despite some testosteronic reactions that sometimes trouble my everyday life existence, it is actually very nice to be blond. I feel I am excused a lot of things and I am sure I would be even pardoned a state crime because of my golden hairline framing my angelic smile.

Fair hair also works the other way around: Things tend to happen to you when you look different. Human is not only intriguing but also a curious being, and I get to meet a lot of people because they come to talk to me. In addition, there are all sorts of little things you obtain like a Japanese pornographic anime film I “won” in a lottery in a bar.

Give me an inch and I will want a mile

However, there is a sort of a spoiling effect: You are so used to being an exception that you are appalled when treated normally. How come I have to pay the same price as everyone else? No reduction for blondes?

Or, if by any chance I see another goldilocks walking on the street, I feel a sudden rush of jealousy: Who she thinks she is? I am the blonde of Paris.

An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of Mundane life of A Student: A Presentation

There is nothing more thrilling than a public performance, especially when it is done in French which still, after six months of serious efforts, is not my mother tongue. This week I had my true baptism of fire – my first exposé en oral, a presentation. It also tested how well I had managed to soak up the golden rules of the méthode francaise.

At the University of Sorbonne for every course you have an hour of a cours magistral which is a lecture with a professor and two hours of a travail dirigé which is a course in smaller groups. The idea of the latter is to have more time to go into details and to be more interactive. Well, it would be too good to be true. What actually happens is that every student picks up a subject on which he does a presentation what means another two hours of lectures per course per week. After six moths I have had to struggle through quite a number of them, and the méthode francaise with the constant repeating of the “la première grande partie, la première sous-partie, la deuxième sous-partie, la deuxième grande partie etc etc ” has started to sound like some liturgical verses from Carolingian era.

Lecture 1: Not like this

The quality of the presentations has been varying. Most of the times the exposés are very dull because students just run through their dozens of pages of notes. However, sometimes the performer gives you an impression that there is something rather stimulating coming, he or she introduces the theme still proceeding in a humane pace. And just as you lull yourself into the illusion that the performance might be listenable, the student stretches his hands, grabs his pile of notes and starts lecturing with the speed of light. This is when you have what some people call a near-death experience; names, images, dates flash past you and turn into letters and numbers without logic. But, if after half an hour you are still conscious enough to find your way out of the class, you can survive anything.

Lesson 2: Like this

The fact is when everything is happening in a foreign language and you spend a lot of time just staring at a person and not understanding a word he says, you become very sensitive to other things. For instance, articulation is my concern number one. Most students settle for muttering monotonously for 30 minutes so that you have hard time trying to make out when one sentence ends and other begins. Thus, when I had my own presentation I made sure E-V-E-R-Y W-O-R-D was well pronounced. As a result, it probably looked liked I’m lecturing to a group of half-deaf pensioners and not showing much respect for the auditory organs of my alert audience.

Secondly, every presentation goes according to a plan and most of the time students would write it on the blackboard. This is the point where you can see the effect of the developed information technology and the constant tapping of the keyboard: the handwriting is impossible to read. Consequently, I had decided to save my fellow students the trouble of deciphering my scribbles, so I had my plan printed and distributed. This way everyone could stare at their paper and look very interested while decorating my grandes parties and sous-parties with flowers.

Conclusion: Why do we assist the lectures?

What is the secret? What keeps us dragging ourselves out of our beds at seven in the morning? It is the reprise, the magical moment when the student finishes and the lecturer takes the stage and fills the gaps. You rediscover the meaning of your scholastic existence and you feel astonishingly motivated. Unfortunately the effect is short-lived, there is always another student waiting for his turn to take you on an intellectual adventure.

To be fair and honest, sometimes presentations are very good, you actually enjoy yourself and you are delighted to observe that our generation is not totally lost and is competent enough to step into our fathers' shoes. However, you feel even more empowered when it is you performing, and you are able complete the mission successfully which means a half an hour with no sound of snoring in the room. You know it is over and never again will you be exposing your fellow students to such a torment.