don't want to lose this writing about Paris.

I did this a while ago and had it edited. I'm still very happy with it. I'm posting it here.





But one thing about Peter Szitas that was so prominent, yet ambiguous was his lack of any exotic cultural traits. A man of Hungarian descent, yet born and raised in the outskirts of Stockholm, raised on items of American culture and the popular media. He had no accent at all, he could have been living in the San Fernando Valley all his life and his Swedish tongue was so difficult to discern like a king snakes rattle from a corner of a crowded room, which would appear only at every other while and one wouldn’t raise any a thought or pondering moment about it.



He had been working as a bouncer he told me but I forget what motives brought him to Paris. Perhaps they were enrichment or just for leisure, reasons somewhat like mine, but we both understood that while we were unsure of an exact reason to be here – perhaps looking for something or just wanting to have some fun – we were here and we were gonna make the most of our time in this foreign city of exploration with childish wonder.



Who cared what the cynics said? When we took chances to say crude or offend there was no harm in good fun laughing off the absurdities of “Cabinetes Automatique” and weird lights in the redlightdistrict Pigalle and most days ended with us failing to find a GOOD AND CHEAP bar (had to be both we insisted on it) and disappointed but sometimes they ended with us buying our own liquor or beers from the local grocers and playing cards with our suitemates so it really didn’t matter what the cynics said in the end.



And every day ended in the end because we were a featherplume’s drift away from vagabonds and because when hostels run out you gotta find couches but we had the security of Lucky Youth on our side. Every day ended in a makeshift bed, whether a cot or converted couch in our fanciful hostel’d apartmentsuite and without regard to the hours of sleep we got we woke up with the vigor of Norse berserkers in the heat of battle but we lived for peace between common men, at least here we did. And no matter what, each day was a new beginning of a silly comic strip about toilet humor and mistranslations, there were no bounds or cares just disturbances of confusion sitting on a scale of droll and jest but I say we as a collective because I spent time with a number of other hostelmates but it wasn’t until my second week with suitemates that I discovered something and I think it was Peter who contributed and made me realize this the most: It didn’t matter nothing mattered just our joy and we were here to make the most of our time in this strange metropolis of images and sounds.



While I thought I had fun chasing museums by myself and taking pictures of art, I didn’t realize it until the second week it’s the journey that matters most. And while we weren’t really going anywhere, only residing back at the lodging to eat a meal or rest, we were going everywhere. And sometimes I got lost by myself going in circles failing to read the map correctly I always had a destination: le métro. It was so easy watching and squeezing into it but I chatted with patrons only sometimes and I felt more toward looking about sometimes in demure and primed myself to be affectedly modest as some folks stared at the American heart seared into my wrist. And it felt so nice to be the foreigner and not the local for once.



thank you