TOURIST GOES HOME! HEARTS HEARD BREAKING ACROSS EUROPE!

From TORINTO,

May 23rd, 2008

It was both deafening and heartbreaking, the great wail that went up as my plane lifted off European soil. Alas, I was eager to get back to my mom's basement in Etobicoke and, ultimately, the little hamlet of Blyth, Ontario, favoured summer destination of all world travellers.

And the cheering as I landed made up for all the broken hearts so very far away.

What can I say? Paris. It's, you know, okay. If you're into that kind of thing.

First of all, everybody and everything was just so gorgeous. So obviously I felt right at home at once. I mean, don't get me wrong, Berlin was cool and hip and everything, but I don't find the people there particularly attractive. So Paris was a bit of a relief in that regard. I don't think I could ever live in a place where I wouldn't make out with at least, say, six percent of the eligible adult population. Okay, maybe that's a bit high. My point is that Paris is far more Makeoutable than Berlin, in my opinion. I'm just not down with the whole Aryan thing. Not my bag, as the kids are saying.

Skinny jeans finally made sense there. On us fatass North American bitches they don't work at all, but there seem to be a lot of slim hips and skinny thighs wiggling around Paris - must be all the pastry - and on them, the whole thing works a treat. I did see one chunky Parisian girl frumping along in skinny-bottomed jeans and I chased her down the cobblestones shouting "Non! Non! Pas pour vous!" Civic duty and all that. Nothing I wouldn't do at home.

They're all wearing these weird little ankle boots with a slit in the back of them. You tuck your skinny jeans inside them and they peek out throught the slit. It's odd. But works somehow. It's all in the confidence. And the wrist, for some reason. I only saw one gal in Harem pants, thank God. I think she was from some silly place like Spain.

I felt I fit right in. For one thing, the owner of the apartment I rented for the week (no hostel in Paris, no ma'am, not for me) left for my use, among other things, a big straw shopping bag, which served as my instant French disguise. No tourist would have that bag - c'est impossible! She must be one of us!

I always have prided myself on a general ability to blend in and not look like a tourist. Part of it is my one-eighth-everything ancestry, part of it my superfantastic acting ability. It didn't work so good in Germany, at least until I put my blond wig on (and then it was assumed I was an escapee from a local institution). But in France, as other places, I did all right. One help is that I have never set foot in a pair of Tevas/Birks/piles of puke with buckles(TM). Secondly, I ain't wearin' no damn fanny pack. And third, I walk with confidence, as if I know exactly where I'm going, even when I have less than half a clue and have forgotten to put on my glasses. Which is a lot of the time.

Seriously, I'll bet ninety-nine percent of people who get pick-pocketed in Paris are wearing fanny packs. It's like wearing a sign saying "Rob me! Rob me! Idiot tourist here!" Hell, even I wanted to rob those people. Teach them a lesson. And also score some extra cash for lingerie.

Of course, due to all this cockyness, I did pick up some hubris feet. I had cleverly bought a couple pairs of flat shoes (having not worn flats since 1982) before my trip, realizing that I'd need something comfortable for skipping merrily along the cobblestones eight hours a day. I got two pairs of little slip-on Champions. But early on in my European adventures - on the walking tour of Berlin, in fact - the white ones tried to destroy me.

I got a massive, and massively painful, blister on my left heel, and it was a bad, bad chain reaction from there. I'd show you a picture of my left foot as it is right now, but I honestly fear the feedback from people telling me it's the most hideous thing I've ever seen. These shoes are Champions? Champions of WHAT, I ask you! Champions of pain??! (Though the black ones are brilliant, if by now more than usually smelly.) But you'll never get me Tevas! NEVER!!!!!

Okay. I've calmed down. What you really want to know, I am fully aware, is where exactly my ugly little feet took me.

First things first: No, I did not go to the effing Louvre. I did not line up to see the Mona effing Lisa. Not interested. Everyone who'd been to Paris, in advance of my visit, told me the same thing, in a weary tone of voice: "Well you have to go to the Louvre, of course..." Why? Why do I have to go to the goddamn Louvre? Especially if you, who have been there, can't even seem to get worked up about it?

So I went to the Pompidou, the contemporary gallery, and hung out with my buddies Matisse and Man Ray and Picasso and all those cool motherfuckers. There was a temporary Louise Bourgeois exhibit, which was fantastic, and several things that made me nauseous, which is all I ask of modern art.

The other temporary exhibit was called Traces Du Sacre, and was an exploration of artists through the ages working out their relationships with God. I was all, like, who cares, get over it already, but it started to get to me after a while. There was a psychedelia section, which really made me ill - all right! - and then this piece called "Him" by Maurizio Cattelan, which left me shaken to the very core.

It really has to be experienced personally, but here's a description. You walk in to a room in the gallery, and in it, there is a little boy in short pants down on his knees facing a wall, his back to you. He seems to be praying. It takes a moment to realize the little boy is a sculpture. You walk over to the wall and look at the card that tells you that the piece is called "Him", which you take as meaning "God". Perhaps you, as I did, start to walk out of the room and on to the next thing, when you decide to move around for a closer look, see the boy's face. You approach, and realize that the boy is the adult Adolf Hitler. Completely lifelike, his eyes skyward, praying. I felt instantly terrified and frozen. I felt like running clear out of the museum yet couldn't look away. Maybe it was especially strange having just been in Germany, I don't know, but it was like being in the room with the man. I get freaked out just thinking about it.

Do look up Cattelan; his other work is pretty fascinating. Here's "La Nona Ora" (The Ninth Hour), his sculpture of Pope JP2 hit by a meteor:

Yup.

I had decided, before coming to France, to spend a day in Giverny, at Monet's house among other places, and this turned out to be one of my favourite days of the whole trip. I've never been totally gay for Impressionist art, but last year when my mom and I visited the NY MOMA and I saw the water lilies full scale for the first time, it suddenly made sense. Quite different from my previous Impressionist impressions, which had been from the usual Renoir dog food bowls and Degas keychains.

So anyway, they've got Monet's house open as a museum, preserved in its original colours, which are basically like the Best Little Whorehouse in Strawberry Shortcake Land. And - the exciting part, and the really big draw - they've maintained his enormous gardens exactly the way they were in Monet's life. So you can hang out on the green bridge with the lilacs and look out at the water lilies. And shit like that.

Understand that the day in question I was proud of myself for being up and about at all, as I had been awake until the wee hours with blue-eyed Danny, an other, even more extraordinary, gulp, twenty-one year-old from Chicago. Too weird. Later, back in Berlin, I would make fast friends with Tracy, an L.A. animator who turned out to be originally from.....you guessed it. If these three are any indication, I oughtta just go ahead and buy myself a one-way ticket. I'm thinking ol' Chi-town would score pretty high on the Tourist's Make-Out-O-Meter.

All that to say I was a little in the way of a hangover that was trying to walk through me, and rather underslept, when I awoke that morning, but what a beautiful frenchy day it was, and I was determined to get out into the country.

As planned I took the train to Vernon, about 45 minutes NW of Paris, and then rented a bike across from the station. There's a lovely bike path that runs between the two towns, which I enjoyed very much once I finally got on the damn thing. I'd stupidly taken the wrong turn I knew full well not to take, and then ended up cutting through someone's yard and up a hill and ripping my arm open on some rosebushes.

I didn't know I'd cut myself until I was in line, dripping blood all over Monet's sidewalk, and heard some British tourists behind me contemplating what I'd done to myself. They assumed I didn't speak English, you see, on account of my straw bag.

I was glad I went to Giverny for several reasons: It was amazing and liberating to get out on a bike and away from the city in the middle of my urban vacation. It was perhaps life changing to discover my future career as a photographer of flowers, fences, and blades of grass. (I would add monkeys later in Berlin.) And lastly, I think it's very important for everyone, at age thirty-two, to decide where they want to live when they retire/get rich and famous and married to George Clooney. The French countryside definitely tops the list right now.

What else? Champs D'Elysee? Check. Arc de Triomphe? Check. Eiffell tower, gathering place of the rudest, pushiest tourists from everywhere on Earth? Check, twice, day and night, though I never did go past the second level due to a bomb threat or mechanical problem or the top level being rented out by the Olsen twins. Umm.....Broken Social Scene show at the Elysee Montmartre? Check check checkity check. (Great show, the french are NUTS for BSS, and when they were filled in that the chick onstage that night was Amy Millan of Stars, they all started saying "Ooooh, Stars, Stars," in hushed awed voices and taking lots of pictures.) Caught in an insane thunderstorm on the streets of the left bank? Check. Turkish bath house full of mostly-naked French girls? Check.

Now that was one ill-planned Saturday. I had decided I didn't want to visit Versailles on a Saturday, thinking it would be lousy with tourists on the weekend and wanting a relaxing final day.

I'd read about this beautiful old Hammam called La Grande Mosquee and figured that even if it were busy on the weekend, surely a quiet spa atmosphere of tranquility would reign. I didn't know it was the one place where all the loudest girls in Paris congregate on their day off. It's beautiful all right, but full of hundreds of women all shouting at the top of their lungs, in very echoey rooms. The massage and gommage (a big ol' mama scrubs you all over with gritty stuff and a mitt until your ass near falls off) take place on tables all over the place with people constantly shouting and shoving their way past and checking out each other's tits. Now and then the front desk decides to blast half a Turkish song at full volume for some women near the door who feel like dancing, and then it stops abruptly again.

By the time I realized you had to take a number for your massage, I was number 178, and plonked down and half-napped in the courtyard for close to three hours while trying to listen out for the shout of "Mille Soissant-Dix-Huit!" I tell you, it takes some kind of Jedi power to relax in that place. I managed to do it somehow, which maybe just shows how worn out I was by this point.

I also saw my first real-life naked pregnant lady, who asked to go ahead of me for her gommage. (I said "Back off, fatty", but she didn't understand English.) She was stunning, as are all the pregnant women in Paris. I would see them walking down the street with their beautiful dresses and their chic haircuts and their glowing skin and want to cheer them on. "Yes! Go, you beautiful French ladies! Populate the earth with more like you!" Later I realized how rare it was that I saw any actual infants in Paris. Where were they hiding, I started to wonder. Then, on my last night, as I left La Canaille, the exquisite restaurant where I had my last French supper, a man was heading in with a wailing baby in a basket. And it hit me: I was witnessing a delivery. Yes, my friends, the French eat their young. But who can complain, when they're prepared so well? Nothing like a Little Boeuf Babeignon. (Hardy har.)

By the way, I didn't find Parisians to be particularly rude. Then again, I'm from Toronto, so I figure if you punch me in the face you're just saying hi. No, I look at it this way: Paris has been a tourist destination for hundreds of years. People come, people go, most don't bother to learn the language. So they're just not gonna bother all too much with you. I mean, even in Niagara-On-The-Bloody-Lake, we developed a rather dismissive view of daytrippers; now imagine you're a waiter in Montmarte. So, no, you don't get much Where y'all from?, but I can deal with that. Besides, even the people who are stuck up have got pretty good reason: they live in fucking Paris! Look around for chrissake!

I was getting by speaking mostly french, so that helped right off the bat. My problem is, and I have the same problem in spanish, and now in german to some extent, I sound pretty good. I'll decide what I want to say and it'll come out quick and confident, and then the native speaker will come back at me full speed ahead, and all I can do is giggle and shrug and look like an ass because I have no idea what he just said. So I learned to start off with a little "pardon my French" right off so they wouldn't think I was a local. Or Swiss. Apparently I speak french with a Swiss accent, which is I guess what happens when you learn it in Ontario.

The only time someone was patently rude to me, it was a huffy, impatient transit employee, but any TTC driver could give him a run for his money any day of the week. I am in love with the Paris Metro system, by the way. It's efficient, and easy to use, and the windows open on the trains, so you can feel the breeze rushing at you as you zip through the tunnels..... The automated lady who calls out the stops sounds kind of hot, and the signs on the platform telling you when the next train is coming are aways right. (This was true in Berlin too, though I found their system more confusing as all the trains run on the same tracks and everything is in stupid german for some reason.) Toronto, man. It's one thing that they don't let you know when the train's supposed to come; I thought they went a bit far when they put up signs saying "It'll get here when it gets here. Go fuck yourself."

I was a little sad to leave my honeymoon for one in Paris after just one week. Especially to have to leave my little loft in the Marais to go back to the (totally great, mind you) hostel.

But I did get some great souvenirs, some world-class photos, and yes, some slinky lingerie - along with the exciting knowledge that, in Europe, I am bra size 85B, which makes me feel like I have a ENORMOUS rack. Even if it is the smallest size they carry.

The train ride back to Berlin was beautiful and scenic and featured many a field of windmills. I observed that Germany's main crop is grass: lush, green, ordinary grass. Which they dry and stuff into little baggies for export to Amsterdam, where it is sold to morons from Toronto. I also learned the importance of knowing the difference between "Is this seat taken?" and "Is this seat available?" in the local language. I was confusing Germans left, right and centre, as I tried to save the seat for the stupid woman next to me who kept disappearing every time new people got on the train and leaving me to deal with them.

One unavoidable and perversely fun game is to imagine all the stern train employees - and later everyone, everywhere - in Nazi uniforms, and decide their rank. Okay, maybe that doesn't sound like fun; in fact now that I've written it down it sounds really, really fucked up.....but you go to Germany and try not to do it. I mean, they're actually strolling up and down the aisles shouting for your Reisepass! "Herr Jones?!"

On my return to Berlin, I checked back into East Seven, where this week's roomies included a sweet child-like Brasilian, several Canadians who seemed to have come to Europe in order to take a nap, and a dude from Dubai who was a dead ringer for Gene Simmons, never took off his cowboy hat, and insisted that I was from some place called "Torinto".

"Nope, I'm from Toronto."
"Toronto? No, no, I only know Tor-in-to."
"Okayyyy...but are you thinking of Canada?"
"Yes - what is the capital?"
"Well, that's Ottawa.....but you're probably thinking of Toronto."
"Torinto."

In the end I conceded. Quite frankly, he was so confident that I started to wonder and became really embarrassed about the fact that I've been pronouncing my hometown's name wrong all these years and everyone's been too nice to tell me so.

So I was all daytimey and good this time around. The next few days if I met anyone from Chicago or London I ran across the road and insisted they keep a fifty metre distance. So I done did the Deutsche History Museum (for six spellbound hours or so), went up the Berlin TV tower (meh), checked out the Reichstag's beautiful new dome (fantastic), and on my last, glorious day, rented a bike and rode through Tiergarten Park and to the Berlin zoo, which is amazing.

Aforementioned monkey photography to follow on another day.

I had wrongly been prepared for a lot of ack ack ack, but the German language really is quite soft and full of shhh sounds. It's like visiting a country full of well-heeled librarians. Or maybe they were actually telling me to shut the fuck up. Ang go home already. Which sadly, I did.

My neighbours on the plane were a gang of drunken redfaced Germans wearing headphones and shouting at the flight attendants over the sound of 27 Dresses. They yelled "Viskey!" on repeat until there was none left on the plane and then demanded that we touch down immediately. I'm pretty sure the big one next to me stole my peanuts as I slept.

Stay tuned, my sexy friends, and even hotter family, for the trip photo issue, for the return to Blyth, and for The Tourist's Practical Guide to Airport Etiquette (or how to tell customs to

suck it and not end up in prison).

Until then,
Send a file or dynamite,

The Tourist