Dealing with some shit at work and trying to be less bothered. I hate how a person so inconsequential can affect me so much. (Die, vermin, die!)
After last week's whirlwind visit to Paris, this was a necessary day of calm. I read, I slept, I unpacked.
Paris surprised me by being wonderful. I had always feared I would dislike the city, because I have come to realise that people are what make or break my travel experiences, and there are simply far too many stories of Parisian snootiness.
Copenhagen is one city that left a bad taste, mainly because of how distant the people I met and interacted with were, and one unpleasant sales assistant. Not very fair to judge a city based on a touristy three to four days, I know, but that's the nature of how many people travel these days, and how quickly the switch in my head flips to "like" or "dislike". I read somewhere that the Danes are slow to warm to strangers, which is great, because I do like people like that, but I'm probably not going to back to find out exactly how slow.
All my encounters in Paris were good -- or at least interesting. There was the man who approached a map-holding-and-lost me to offer help, the intimidatingly stylish sales assistant who didn't know where the place I wanted to go was but offered to check with her colleague, the black guys hawking Eiffel Tower trinkets who called me Lady Gaga (???) on two different nights and locations, and the rather creepy man who chatted me up in the glorious Jardin des Tuileries (well, he was a very polite creep). Even the man touting metro tickets illegally was nice. He taught me how to use the machine after I quickly said no to his tickets. Although I suspect he jammed the coin slots. Bought a ticket from him in the end. It worked just fine.
Actually, all I wanted to say when I started this post was this: I did a rough tally. I've read about 50 books so far this year. The one I loved most was & Sons by David Gilbert. That's it. Off to read the Henry Miller (Tropic of Capricorn) I got at Shakespeare and Company now.
2 comments:
I'm about to do my annual tally too. I think I read a dismal 25, at most, and it includes "books" like All My Friends Are Dead and All My Friends Are Still Dead.
Heh. At least those are really cute "books" to have read! One more month to go. Hoping to finish another 2-3 books so I can feel like I have at least read enough to justify all my book-buying/hoarding this year.
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