Paris and friends

I never stayed in a city, or rather a country, long enough to really know the people and their culture; Paris was not an exception, although compared to my previous 2 destinations, my sojourn was a bit longer.

During the first 4 months of my arrival, I almost hated the city mostly because I was only traveling underground from school to my small studio apartment, and I had lots to study.

My dearest friend visited me for a month in November and stayed most of the time with me inside, so I could study. We went out every other day but then, apart from the touristic sites that we visited, I only knew 2 places: 1-Bastille with its famous rue de la Roquette, full of bars, pubs and restaurants and 2-Saint Michel with always crowded narrow streets of Rue de la Harpe and Rue de la Huchette.

I didn't even know Rue Saint-André des Arts which I discovered months later. So for those of you who live in Paris, you can imagine why I didn't like the city! I almost knew nowhere else.

After 4 months, I told myself, this city cannot be famous for nothing and so there is something wrong with me for not loving it. I set out to discover Paris. It was by jogging and biking that I fell in love with the city I lived in for one year.

The bouquinistes alongside the Seine, gave the city a special charm and attraction. The term bouquiniste does not only refer to secondhand booksellers, but also to those who sell postcards, prints and photos from the old city, though they're not limited to Paris and often contain photos from artists who visited Paris, especially Jim Morisson.

I really can't say which quartier was my favorite. Quartier Latin was the place I visited often. Le Marais, the Jewish district which was also full of Gay bars, was my other favorite place since it was the only lively place on Sundays where everywhere else were closed.

Marais was full of Jewish delis, restaurants and pastry shops. "Sacha et fils" was both a deli and pastry shop with marvelous Eastern European buffet and delicious Vatrouchkas (cheese cakes). In front of it was another restaurant, deli and pastry shop called "Chez Marianne". The good thing about it was that you could go and sit inside the restaurant with its cozy ambiance, with tens of bottles of wine, piled one on the other, in the wall hole near the tables. You could also sit outside if it was not cold and enjoy your meal with fine wine, while sometimes listening to street musicians like this man who played piano incessantly, for almost 2 hours.

Here's a photo of Nazgol, after we had eaten in Chez Marianne.

Unfortunately I didn't have a chance to take more photos of her, she was always traveling! She has one amazing, nonpareil look; wild is the word.
Apart from places where you could indulge yourself in food, there were plenty of galleries in Marais where you could spend hours enjoying different genres of art.

I also met these 2 young girls while walking in Marais one night; Rachel and Jade, who were kind enough to let me take some photos of them.

Here's a candid shot of Jade:

Paris 20, was the place I discovered during the "fête des artistes". The following photos are from this festival in Belleville and Ménilmontant.

Mouffetard was another lovely quartier, where I spent the last 2 weeks of my stay in Paris, with a friend who hosted me. Here she is, Mahka, while she's walking down the narrow streets of Mouffetard, paved with cobblestones. 

Here are 2 more photos I took from her, a day when we were walking around Rive Gauche.

I like the red of her cardigan which stands out in the photo.

I like the black and white photo of her as well, with a bit different setting.

And here is one I took on the "Jour de Patrimoine", the Heritage Day, near Rive Gauche.

On this day, I went out with Hasty, my closest friend in Paris, who also hosted me for a few days. We enjoyed tasting wine, cheese and pastry specialties on the side of the Seine.  I also wanted to take some photos of her. Here are some I came up with.

And my most beautiful friend in Paris, Nastaran, with her ravishing look and seductive eyes.

We went to Jardin du Luxembourg on a sunny day in summer. Isn't she stunning?

I have to confess I was stressed during the time I was shooting her. I am definitely not good at directing people on how to pose. It's because I found myself mostly interested in documentary and on the spot photography. I asked my friends for a photo shoot cuz I wanted to have a go at figurative photography as well. But for that, a good photographer is the one who makes her subject feel at ease and comfortable and I am not yet strong in that as my friend Dominique, who does a different type of photography but has become really good in it, in just a few months.

Apart from narrow streets in old cities, I have a keen interest in old doors!

And lastly, sweet Marcia, a writer I met about a month before I left Paris.

We met in a cafe near Shakespeare bookshop close to Notre Dame.  This homey bookshop was one of my favorite places as well. Inside, there was an old typewriter, a piano and cushions all over for visitors to take their time and leaf through the books.

I think this post got really long and I hope most of you made it till the end!

I will have more photos from Paris which I will post soon. Stay tuned!

At last free

I will never forget the feeling I had 3 days ago, when I left the research lab I was working at, for 6 months. I felt tremendously light to have stopped carrying a burden in the past year.  A colleague of mine who also became a friend, listened to my story one day, following my complaint about why people in this lab, talk about technical issues even at lunch. Topics like how much the packet loss, bit rate and ping from their iPhone or home ADSL remote connection to office network was, or talking incessantly on technical papers. This was beyond my imagination to talk about these issues at lunch break and when I asked few of them: “where did you go for music festival last night?”, the answers were : “I was working from home”, “ which festival?”, “I was watching TV” , “I’m not interested in music”!

I tried asking the similar questions on films and current events to start a conversation but most of the times it was in vain. So unlike the conversations I had with my friends and colleagues in Iran and Lebanon, on current events, politics, music, films and books, which made our time fruitful and interesting everyday at lunch, at this research lab, I just went to have my lunch as fast as possible to come back to work. In Iran and Lebanon, lunch times sometimes turned into heated conversations but we all enjoyed it, cuz we were exchanging ideas, discussed our stance and sometimes realized that our stance needed to be changed.

So that colleague of mine told me that these people have passion for what they do, so they don’t look at it from your perspective. I said: “I know they have passion, it’s just that I don’t understand this passion. I’m alien to it. Look at yourself, you are also passionate about your research but you have interests like psychology. We talked several times on Jungian and Freudian experiments. I’m just saying how can people be so directional? That I don’t understand. Perhaps they ask the opposite question from themselves about me.”

He said: “you have to have a goal in your life. Do what makes you feel good. If this doesn’t interest you, you should change and the sooner, the better. It’s like keeping a stock in the hope of getting increased value but it just doesn’t grow, at best, it stays there or drops a great deal. It’s lost then. That’s your life.”

The way he put it, was truly meaningful and real. Suddenly many similar things came to my mind; an unforgettable moment in “Papillon” when he dreamed of being judged:

“Your crime is the most terrible crime a human being can commit. I accuse you of a wasted life.” 

A verse in “modest mouse” song, “ocean breathes softly” was echoing in my head: “you wasted life, why wouldn’t you waste death”

And finally what a friend told me after his concert, while we were telling each other our stories: “ Follow your heart Acey”

…

Yes, I’m gonna follow my heart!