What ever you think about Paris, must be the city with the biggest personality and/or charm in world... whatever way you want to measure it... culture, museums, multiculturalism, wealth, beauty, music, bars, beautiful and horrible people, public transport facilities...
Is no way I could enjoy living here... But, is great for a couple of weeks or training under a scholarship!
And that is what I’m doing.... the World Bank organizes an annual course on “Environmental Economics for Development Policy”, you apply and based on some obscure standards some 30 persons from around the world get chosen... et voila... here I’m.
The main reason why I’m doing it is because I was in Europe anyway, and I got cheap flat to rent for the 2 weeks I’m here... Paris is just so incredible expensive... any form of dinner is at least from 20-25 to ∞ € per head in any restaurant... 2 cafés in Trocadero 9.20€!
However, the course very impressive, in all aspects... basically is about economics of regulatory decision making, how to calculate the values of natural resources, ecosystems, human and social capitals, and how to perform the cost benefit analysis of whatever regulatory instruments you are planning to use, and use that as a tool for the design of the most convenient method... we are discussing present issues; global warming, fisheries, deforestation, traffic and congestions, oil, energy, sustainability indexes, paradoxes, and so on... without going into details... the situation is VERY somber... even this sort of people is agreeing on that. (the former director of the Environmental area of the WB started the 1st day saying that he found it embarrassing to live under Bush)
I like the feeling of my brain going... mhhhh.... and the buzz of learning... particularly when like in this case, is kind of cutting edge thinking... the guys that are doing the lectures are the top people in their fields, honoris causa from college of London, MIT I don’t know what, director of the Swedish Environmental Economics institute, and so on.... plus the top layer of the environmental economics section of the world bank...
Is very intensive... all day in the meeting room of the World Bank building in Paris (200m for le arc do triumphe).... all very posh... there is a permanent bottle of Evian in front of me, a very nice bloke called “Claude” that does the best espresso, and all sorts of characters as my “coleages”... from some ultra unbearable, to people I would be friends wherever we had meet. (i.e. Mandy the southafrican biologist that is friend from the people of “African Dope” a music label from Cape Town that blow my mind away while there)
Even if it is for my own interest and I get never to use what I’m leaning, it is worth all the effort to be here (I even learn the new PC lingo for the underdeveloped world: "2nd best world"... you just have to love some of this people)
Anyway... I’m living in the 11th Arrondesiment, in la Rue de St Maur, that remind me to Buenos Aires in the 80's, the bars, people out late... sitting in the street talking shit... but obviously more multicultural... today's Bs As is more crime ridden... but well.... btw.... i saw a car chase and the police in plainclothes (i would have never said they where police!) jump out of a trendy Peugeot 306 and busted some 2 blokes and a girl... while the neighbors keep eating their baguettes and bierre...
The place I rented is small, a bit decrepit, with no view and in a 4th floor ... i don't mind to be here... feeling like a student again... Coincidentally I stayed no far away in 1983 or 84, when I was roaming around Europe trying life...
L’ Rue de Oberkamp (200 from my apartment), is today, definitively the place to be for our demographic, all bars and restaurants slightly of beat, alternative, multiculturalists, some people with babies, and so on...
Vib came for the weekend after a 7 year absence from Paris, but this time instead of trying to make it into a Daft Punk concert and finishing the night on a 60€ per vodka bottle type of club, she just brought Kika with her.
The Paris scene has become really multicultural, the variety of people you see on the Metro is amazing; the change in the last 20 years is massive, I guess that part of the resentment that fill the far right and the power of Le Pen almost challenging the presidency a few years ago... I guess the image of the Parisian as a white man with the baguette under the arm is gone for good... the same image today has a man of every potential color.
The local music just reflect that, radios are great (particularly Nova 101 FM, that yesterday played NZ ‘s own “le Fat Freddy’s drop”) and the local Dub is just... scarily good... as the 100€ dent in my finance will testify
French economy is very sluggish, the “no” at the EU constitution was for that reason, I been told that by friends that have been here for years as well as for the locals.... however the influx of tourism is impressive, even in the middle of summer... which is justifiable, because it is a very beautiful city... every thing is so well maintained and decorated, all is very grandiose... that could only be built at a time of “magnificent” social inequalities, there is no way that you could pay today people for that level of attention to detail in public building.
Everything has changed a lot since last time since I was here, but you still find the yoghurts in glass jars and the bread done in wood ovens... i like that... make me smile.
