Mega 97 has decided to have a salsa and merengue party at El Quixote bar around half a block from my home. I was initially excited by El Quixote because it claimed to be a tapas bar. It is not. Instead, it’s a bar populated entirely by hispanic and south american men who leer at me and their occassional girlfriends.

Upon my exiting the subway just ten minutes ago after some lovely time with my friends, I encountered this offensive Mega 97 van parked outside El Quixote, blaring music that I do not enjoy.*

I’m not asleep, not will I be for a few hours. I am, however, enamored of my relative quiet. The noise of NYC doesn’t bother me, but loud music does.

Would it be racist of me to call the police it if continues past 12 midnight? I have enormous white guilt.

* (Music that I do enjoy currently includes:

Lets say you were friends with someone. Well, not really friends. You met them, hung out for a day, and then never saw the other person again because they live in Florida or Oregon or Belgium or something. You had a great time, hit it off, but its unlikely that you’ll ever see the person again.

Do you imagine a future for them? Ever think about what they’re doing, what they would have thought of you if you’d had time to be friends, what they told other people about you? Eventually the world you’ve constructed stops having any connection to their reality. Your friend is a fry-cook in Portland, but you’ve imagined them to be a feminist organizer, wishing you were there to help stir the crowd.

Is this like celebrity fascination? The person is so far away from you and everything you know that it doesn’t matter what you project on them, because they’ve ceased being anything resembling their reality.

Anyway, it’s not super healthy. I should stop that. And to my friend out there, you were really cool. Thanks.

Sunday!

Sunday we got up and had sweet sweet breakfast. I pigged out every morning. I usually had a cup of yogurt with honey, scrambled eggs, two breakfast sausages, a hard boiled egg, two glasses of OJ and two cups of tea. It was lovely. Sometimes I had a croissant.

Anyway, my father had warned me to take a cab to Montmartre. He said the incline was nigh impossible, not to even attempt it, and that no train went there. He was wrong on all counts. We took the train there and ended up right at the bottom of the hill to Sacre Croer. The walk up only took about fifteen minutes and was pleasant - it was a nice day. There were tons of tourists there and a lot of african immigrants hawking something or other. We had to be quite forceful to get past them. Once on the top, we visited Sacre Croer, which was pleasant but not overwhelming. Here, I bought several bad religious postcards to send to friends.

Afterward we wandered around Montmartre. We saw Amelie’s restaurant and caurosel, though they looked so much paler and less interesting than they did in the movie. They really did something with colors in that film. We filed through the Rue Des Abesses, which had some cute shops. I really couldn’t afford anything in all of Paris, everything was so expensive.

We wandered around some more and somehow ended up at the Moulin Rouge. As with other things, my family and Yules’ family all insisted this was vitally important to see. We had no interest - we’ve already seen naked girls. Anyway, Moulin Rouge on this day was surrounded by a crowd of around 200 teenage goths. They were all goth or emo or EGL or related categories. Every single one, to a tee. Was it a finishing school for goths? A convention? How french teens all dress? Well, they weren’t pulling it off very well, and eventually escaped the gaggle of teens.

We also ate at a pretty shitty place at Montmarte, but it’s difficult to get any french place to serve you at 4 pm or so.

We went home after this and rested, then decided to go to Eiffel Tower. Neither of us were particularly interested in the tower beyond seeing it. There were again throngs of african immigrants, this time selling cheesy glowing Eiffel replicas (I spotted a girl wearing them as earrings the next day). We bypassed them and took some lovely photos of the tower. There were huge lines to go up into it, and we weren’t that enthused about it anyway, so we just went home. It was also pretty cold. We had big plans for the next day.

On to Saturday!

We woke up pretty damn late this day, I think cause we were still really jet-lagged. I often find it much harder going east than west in terms of jet lag because coming back I can always just stay up a long time and then go to sleep and my schedule is fixed, whereas when I go east, the plane lands at 7 am and I have to go 15 hours instead of 5.

Anyway. Our first destination was Centre Pompidou, the modern art museum. We woke up so late that we missed breakfast. I wasn’t too happy about that. I will pig out at buffet breakfasts. Regardless, I really enjoyed Centre Pompidou. Thankfully there was only one floor available to look at because we were starving when we got there and even hungrier when we left. Modern art is probably my favorite to look at, with the years 1910-1930 and 1960-now being tops. For some reason, the 40s and 50s really don’t sink in for me. So I got to see a lot of surrealism, modernism, and especially lots of that art with the geometric shapes that I like. I forgot what it’s called. Wow, I sound ignorant, but I’ve never had a proper arts education.

The only other floor with a full time exhibition was under renovation and scheduled to open April 1. That was the contemporary art floor and I was quite sad to not see it. I really enjoy the increased politicization of contemporary art, and that’s why Moma and the Tate make me so happy.

After the Pompidou, we went in search of food. The neighborhood around it, while still touristy, is much nicer and I felt more at home than in the more trafficked areas of Paris. Eventually giving up, due to the french food schedules, we ended up eating at a japanese place for lunch. That was a trip.

After lunch, we began a long walk through the Marais. Our goal was to stop at several museums along the way, after which time we would end up at the Bastille and then on to Pere Lachiese cemetery. The museums we visited included the Museum of the History of Paris, The Church of St Antoine, and a museum we were never able to get the name of. It was distinguished by its pretty courtyard. I particularly enjoyed the Museum of the City of Paris (Carnavalet), for it had lots of pictures of men in wigs and also of Marie Antoinette being beheaded.

It was rainy for part of this day as well. I was miserable walking through the cold, and a little annoyed when I passed Starbucks restaurants. Starbucks. In Paris. What a waste.

We made it to the Bastille. It’s a big traffic circle. oooh, not exciting. Upon referring to our guidebook, we learned Pere Lachese closed at 5. It was 4:30. Not gonna happen. Change of plans! Instead, we boarded the metro and headed to the Champs Elysee, which we figured we had to see at some point.

The champs would be entirely intolerable if it were not wide. Since it is wide, most of the other dumb tourists can be avoided. It boasts a large Sephora, a large Virgin Megastore, a large Louis Vuitton shop and plenty of restaurants, some of which are not bad. We ate at LaDuree, which I loved and Yules did not. It was expensive, the waiter was rude, and I would come back in a second. There’ll be a writeup on Epicuring soon. On the way out, I wanted to buy some sweets. Laduree is a famous sweets-shop as well as restaurant, and there is a huge counter of pastries and candies downstairs. I stood on line, clueless, until a helpful frenchman told me to try the macaroons. I got a lemon and a raspberry macaroon, and they were fucking amazing. I ended up coming back the day we were leaving and getting 20 more macaroons to bring home to america, because they were just that good.

After eating, it was pretty dark, so we walked to the Arc de Triumphe and took some awesome pictures of the cars going by it in the dark. Those are some of my favorite photos from that day. After a few minutes, we figured out that we could go underground and end up at the actual arc, and once there, we figured out we could go inside.

Paris is pretty flat, so the Arc offers great views without being too high up. The Eiffel Tower glowed brightly in the distance and we took panoramic shots at every turn. It was exciting and beautiful. There also appeared to be a sign that prohibited underwear at the Arc.

Well, whatever. We were pretty exhausted by this point and headed back to the hotel, where we went to sleep.

I promise I’ll write about France again soon,

but instead today i wanted to talk about my family.

Sunday was my grapa’s 75th birthday. We are amazed that he made it this far. We are also incredibly grateful.

My grapa was diagnosed with 4th stage colon cancer a while ago and at the same time, was found to be in need of a triple bypass. The bypass was done, and a month later, the colon cancer was operated upon. The chances of survival here were very slim. The cancer was then about a year ago found to have reemerged and to be inoperable. It had spread to his liver as well. He went on chemo and on some new treatments, including an FDA approved version of the treatment my father attempted to get for my mother when she was dying (we spent about 50,000 flying her around and buying illegal medications to try to prolong her life). The chemo took a lot out of him and we had been told he had 15 months to live about a year ago. Still, we pressed on with treatment.

It worked. On a recent CAT scan there were no tumors the scan could detect. Now, we were warned that they could still be microscopic, the cancers, especially considering that stage 4 is inoperable and thought to be uncurable.

Yet there my grapa was, on his 75th, with his brother and neice (my cousin Gina) at his side, looking hale and happy. He drank vodka and congac, he danced, my grama wept with joy.

It’s good to still have him. I don’t have a lot of people.

On the plus side, I got to hang out with Gina. Gina is 25 and lives in LA with my great uncle Matvey (her dad). She’s great. Sunday night we hung out, went to union hall, drank. It was really good to spend time with her. She’s family.

It was really amazing to have family around. I love them all so much and while there are so few of us, it’s good to know that I have a cousin I can feel close to. Also, I think there’s a definite family resemblance, even if I wasn’t looking my best that day.