a Kings Cross of migrant sex workers in their declining years
Friday, April 1st, 2011The first leg of the flight from Brisbane to Hong Kong was packed with trying to fit in as many episodes of 30 ROCK and MODERN FAMILY as I could before we landed. I had 3 hours in HK airport, a building with over 500 arrival/departure gates. I took great pleasure in refereeing a game of hackey-sack between a group of six elderly asian men all dressed in practical combination tracksuits and pulling out impressive splits maneuvres. I took a combination sedative of family size margarita pizza, a large glass of shiraz and a 30 minute reflexology foot massage. I just made it to board my next flight and then fell asleep before the safety demonstration and awoke startled and disorientated when the plane finally took off. I then slept a full 9 hours on the leg to Paris.
I arrived at Charles de Gaulle airport an hour late, without an arrival card (I had slept through getting that too), without a map of where the studio apartment was located (just an address), without a way to contact my girlfriend (no phone) and without Euros – but I was feeling confident. I made my way through customs (which was one uniformed man and a beagle standing authoritatively eyeballing everyone that exited). I took the overland train (RER) to the city and changed to a metro to connect to Strasbourg Saint Denis station which is in a central Paris location (2nd).
When I emerged from the station it became clear this was not the Paris I was familiar with. Picture a Kings Cross of migrant sex workers in their declining years huddled along the supermarket shop front, around corners and up alleyways. They work long hours here, from 4pm to 8am daily, with a precision you could set your watch to. They even approaching early morning business men with a french form of “How YOU doing?” We have found it easy to naviagate our way home by sex shop directions e.g. turn left at the zapping parlour, opposite the peep show. But behind closed doors our studio could be anywhere and we are loving it.
We spent a day at the Louvre looking at thousands of paintings that seemed to repeat two central themes. 1. women exposing their breasts without any context to do so (like during a hunting expedition, or in the background of someone dying in the foreground) 2. men with chisseled features wrestling each other naked – but not in a gay way of course. I guess not much has changed since the renaissance.
We had dinner last night with my old flatmate Gwenelle in Montparnasse. She served 3 courses starting with a white port aperitif and a selection of cheeses direct from the fromagerie. Next a sweet potato and white bean puree with crusty bread torn off the baguette and eaten just as heartily. For dessert an apple tatin with burnt caramel icecream. We rolled home merry with carbs.
The rain has set in today which challenged our plans for a picnic on the Ile st Louis. Instead we wandered through Paris’ oldest food market and discovered some cobbled streets with speciality butchers, florists, bakers, pastry makers and the like. We found a local camping store and have got the bare essentials for our trip: mattress, cooker, seats and crockery. Most towns have camping so planning to wing it and keep the itinerary as open as possible.
We pick up the lease car tomorrow and have already completed three rounds of paper/scissors/rock to see who gets to navigate us out of central Paris (why am I so predictable – always with the scissors). Tomorrow night the Loire Valley staying on an old friends farm.
Jyai