the field of crosses

cross: close up, originally uploaded by julienpaul.

Easter weekend was spent in Marseille(s) with Zen, Hugh and a bunch of Josh's workmates.

Marseille was quite unlike any city I've been to before. It doesn't quite fit the European model I know of (old central town + suburbs), nor a damaged European city (ie Rotterdam), nor a western city (sky scrapers CBD). Tall public housing towers collide into old streets, all sculpted out of the hills and cliffs, jutting into the sea.

An unexpected highlight was an old ammunition storage facility on the Frioul islands. They had been built in ww2 to look like a cemetery from afar. The floor planks have since disappeared (where they made of wood? pre-fabricated concrete that was taken away?) and what is left is a grid of beams and columns with crosses at each peak. Haunting, intriguing.

Of course, we also saw corb..

the silliness factor

ayano, zen + james @ alex's birthday, originally uploaded by julienpaul.

The greatest factor against living in Paris for me is the lack of Karaoke. It single handedly represents the unbalance between silliness and 'reality' that has weighed me down at times and made me want to cry.

Don't get me wrong - there have been some utterly delirious moments here in Paris, usually involving large amounts of wine and running through streets singing. But these moments are not as plentiful, nor as varied as in Australia: the fact that I had friends from different stages in my life, with different interests, meant that I could be called out on any given Friday night to do.. well, whatever. And often it would be silly, fun, and utterly different to my work life.

Paris, on the other hand... its funny how much more exposed you feel when you a) don't have your parents in the same country and b) no one knows you.

You arrive, having difficulties with the language. You have to build up a new version of yourself that can't rely on earlier conquests. When work batters you down you have so little to prop yourself back up with.

Paris is so much stress and so little silliness. It is definitely lacking in anime, karaoke, gigs, and all those little escapes from reality that were more easily available in Sydney.

error!

error!, originally uploaded by julienpaul.

The Rise and fall of my Canon G7 camera:

- January 2007 - Bought 3 weeks before leaving Sydney, early 2007, it lasted 4 days in Japan before deciding to stop working after a rather bad rain storm in Okayama.

- September 2007 - 6 months and many phone calls later, I send it back to Australia to get fixed and they reply: "the camera is working perfectly, it was your charger that wasn't working."

- August 2008 (so only a year of real use), the zoom lever breaks and zooming becomes unreliable.

- September 2008 dirt gets into the lens and ever since various particles enter my photos at random moments.

- November 2008 white bands start to appear on photos and exposure seems to be unreliable.

- January 2009 photos often seem to be purple in the lcd screen but come out ok

- March 2009 photos are now coming out purple, with duplicate copies, strange lines across the image, often overexposed.

What next?