Eight Hours in Paris

Random adventure found my footsteps during an eight-hour layover in Paris. I was unable to get a closely connected train back to Berlin on Sunday, so I spent the entire day in Paris instead. Darn?

I decided to explore the area near Gare de l'Est train station, when my flawless intuition guided me to Château d'Eau or in bilingual words: African town. It dawned on me that I was in A-town when black men scared me (so I grabbed my purse) with lines like "Would you like to get your hair braided, weaved, styled or how about your nails done in my shop around the corner?" Keep in mind that their hussle was in French. My incompetence of the language made me start walking even faster. A Nigerian man finally convinced me that I wasn't being harassed and COMMITTED (can you believe that?) to showing me the city for the day. Our encounter turned into a free lunch and coffee, swap of life stories, and I learned the ins-and-outs of the barber trade. He taught me how to hussle in Paris. There's not many techniques when you're black. Women think you're trying to harass them and men think you're trying to rob them. We stood next to the Parisian prostitutes (who were hussy-ing, too) at Strasbourg Saint Denis and my Nigerian friend talked to almost every nappy-headed black person who walked by asking if they needed salon service. Business was slow that day. Oh yeah, the prostitutes in Paris don't actually look like whores. They are dressed like normal deviant women. Their services are ridiculously frugal at 50 Euros for one session. I thought hoes were worth more than a penny.

The A-town husslers were on almost every block. Beauty salons and most French stores are supposed to be closed on Sundays. But this wasn't exactly the case. We visited almost every single African hair salon that had its door barely cracked with Yaky scraps and hair-sewing thread spilling out to the street. There was absolutely no disguise from the law that people were inside booming to level 23 American rap music, and clients coming in and out like a brothel. I didn't get it. I sat in on a few weavings and was thankful to be an African-American. In America, we seem to have more hair grease and do-rag options. All I recognized was Pink Oil Moisterizer and some poorly executed hair styles. But, I was ecstatic to see those nappy-headed men with tangled balls of hair on their cheeks to come in for a taper fade and trim. One man actually became more attractive when his village hair with flying dandruff was gone. I swear I had an extremely interesting day! I re-experienced Paris from a completely different set of eyes. I know where most of the best African spots and the Arabic cheap Internet-Taxiphone cafes are, too.

For tradition's sake, I went to Saint Michel to have a Greek gyro picnic on the Seine river again. The Seine and Paris are so beautiful by night. Eight hours in Paris wasn't so bad after all.

I'm on the train back to Berlin now...nine and a half more hours to go.