Marches in Paris

Eiffel, Louvre, Arc de Triomphe, Champs Elysees? Positively a must spot to go for the first time visiting Paris. Since last week was my second chance visiting Paris, the city of love (literally), I won't wasted my time being (common) tourist anymore. Local markets were being my focus to spend my 2 days off. I cant help the sensation of seeing vintage gimmicks in real and Paris is one of the city that provides many vintage stores. Suitable combination, ne? Okay, where were my destinations?

Marche des Puce de Saint-Ouen and other marche located near it

Since I was still on Firda 's room, she insisted me again and again that this marche will be quite dangerous for the first sight. It was like Jatinegara in Jakarta. And what I found that time? Yes, positively 100% true that it was dangerous. Getting out from metro station, I saw sort of immigrant area, people most of them were Arabs or Africans. I was kind of intimidated there, tough there were two of us, but still we were like the only Asians there, and we were very small compared to the others.  But the show must go on, so we continue our walk to the marche.

At the first area, it was more like market in city terminal in Bekasi (hahaha). Things to sell, were more about fake branded shoes, fake branded bags, pirate CD or DVD, even underwear. The seller were both Arabs or Africans. Some were friendly, some irritated. Similarity for both of them was offering goods in nonsense price for tourist. How can they discovered us as tourist? Disability in speaking French -_- 

The second area was more about theft zone (hahaha). Okay, it was us who claimed about the area. The seller looked like homeless people. They spread their goods in cloth in the road. The space between one seller to another seller was very close so that buyer will touch each other. I found the goods were very very very random, that anything you imagine can be easily found there. What do you think? Button? Laptop? Battery? Lipstick? Cement mixer? Shoes? You can find it there. Funny so funny! You just have to be really careful with your belongings there, you won't know whether your goods will be there in days to come. Hahaha.

After that, we passed the area of vintage furniture. Some of them were real vintage i mean it was a real old furniture,  and some of them new furniture but influenced by vintage sense. I kept saying wow and wow and wow, stopped at most of the store, grabbed random pictures, gazed and focused on unique furniture, smiled, and imagined if I can put them in my future home (hahaa). I believe that design interior architect won't leave that marche because there are too many inspirations there. :)

Lastly, we bumped to the marche that sold sort of The Goods Dept offered. We can find old postcards (really old like 1900 something with real stamp and real handwriting), random photos of someone's wedding party, grandma or grandpa, pictures of paris or france in general in 1800 or 1900 something, phonograph records, old comics with french as usual, and others. It was quite pricey there that I won't give 2 euros to get a small photo of grandma. Oh yeah, since this marche is indoor, you can hear random old french song played there. Good atmosphere :)

Marche aux Fleurs

Fleur, you must know what's the meaning of it. It is flower indeed. To get the best experience at this marche, just come on sunday, like me. Why? Because you won't find only bunch of flowers sold there, but you will find chirp of birds also!

My declaration is that this marche is very sweet (not sweet in taste), but it is very cute, lovely, and heartwarming. The first time I went off from Cite Metro Station, the sound of birds came to my ears and the sunlight passed to my eyes. It was positively relaxing moment. I went through the alley, saw various kind of birds in the cage, and also talked to the French-speaking seller who able to speak in English (finally!). 

Satisfied with the birds things, I moved the next alley which consists of numerous flowers, seeds, pots, park decors, and others. Some of the stores also offered unique Paris souvenirs that wont be found at other markets such as small merry go round, vintage plats, dreamy postcards, well hard to be mentioned all of them here. I recommend you to buy Paris souvenirs here rather than in popular tourist attraction spots. For the flowers thing, since I am not a flower experts (read: flower enthusiasts only) I just gazed through the flowers which can't grow well in tropical island in Indonesia, and praised their beauty.

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A tout a l'heure Paris!

See you again soon Paris!

Faith, so what?

Menjadi bagian dari kelompok minoritas di Indonesia, saya sudah biasa mendengar adanya diskriminasi dari pihak mayoritas. Baik perbedaan dalam tindakan, prioritas dalam pilihan, terkadang pengucilan, dan lainnya. Memang (syukurnya) saya tidak pernah merasakan diskriminasi secara langsung dari orang sekitar, atau mungkin saya berpikir terlalu positif sehingga tidak menyadari diskriminasi tersebut. Namun, saya sering kali punya empati yang besar kepada individu dari kelompok yang sama dengan saya yang menerima diskriminasi.

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Kepercayaan. Iman. Agama.

Saya percaya ini bukan hal main-main. Hal sakral. Perihal Dia dan individu, masing-masing, tanpa campur tangan orang lain. Memahami dan menjalankan arahNya melalui pemikiran, perkataan, dan perbuatan. Tahapan selanjutnya mengimplementasikan ajaranNya kepada orang di sekitar kita. Prioritas bukan kepada kelompok tertentu, semua sama, pukul rata. Selain itu tidak ada ajaran yang menyesatkan, semua pasti mengajarkan kebaikan.

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Hari ini saya dihadapkan pertanyaan bersifat diskriminasi dan kepercayaan kelompok minoritas. Namun kali ini saya duduk sebagai si mayoritas (ingat, saya sudah bertahun-tahun berperan sebagai si minoritas). 

Saya memang tidak paham 100% mengenai kepercayaan tersebut. Namun berbekal keyakinan bahwa kepercayaan adalah hal individual dan tidak mungkin mengajarkan kesesatan, saya lantas membela dan memberi jawaban dari sisi positifnya saja. Perasaan saya antara geram dan kesal. Lucu memang, bukan saya yang mengalami diskriminasi, namun saya tidak senang si minoritas mengalami diskriminasi.

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Mulut digunakan untuk berbicara. Otak digunakan untuk berpikir. Nurani digunakan memahami nilai kemanusiaan. 

Akan sangat bijak jika ketiganya dapat digunakan bersamaan.

Two Weeks at Ghent, Belgium

Bukan. Ini bukan menceritakan kisah gw selama dua minggu lebih ini di Belgi, Ghent. Sekalipun gw memang sudah disini selama dua minggu, berpisah dengan keluarga dan teman-teman di Indo, gw merasa momen-momen gw disini menarik hati gw dan membuat gw ingin mendapat lebih dan lebih lagi. Mengapa gw berkata demikian?

1. Kesempatan untuk hidup dalam jangka waktu yang lama di luar negeri (Eropa bahkan) tidak bisa gw sia-siakan begitu saja. Berbagai budaya dan kebiasaan lokal yang baru dan berbeda dengan di Indonesia sudah pasti membuka pikiran gw. Yah, memang tidak semuanya bagus dan dengan mentah-mentah diserap begitu saja oleh otak gw. Namun dengan memfilter antara yang baik dan buruk sudah jelas gw mendapatkan pelajaran baru dan baiknya sih turut merubah gw menjadi lebih baik.

2. Selain kehidupan lokal, sosialisasi dengan student dari multikultural itu mengagumkan loh. Gw merasa berada di satu melting pot bersama dengan orang berbagai negara. Mulai dari India, Jepang, Jerman, Peru, Zimbabwe, oh my.. Just name the country, and you will find it easy to find the person here. Semua membawa karakter khusus dari negaranya masing-masing, ilmu terutama studi kasus negaranya, kulturnya. Melalui itu, gw bisa melihat hal-hal positif dari mereka, dan syukur-syukur selain bisa mengimprove diri sendiri, gw juga bisa memberikan pengaruh positif kepada mereka melalui kultur Indonesia gw.

3. Ilmu melalui perkuliahan. Well, terdengar membosankan ya? Namun jujur, gw cukup ga sabar mendapatkan ilmu yang lebih dalam terkait rural economics and management sebagai pondasi untuk profesional karir gw kedepannya. Sejak gw sudah memastikan diri gw untuk bergerak di bidang ini, dan ini merupakan tujuan utama gw berada di Ghent, oleh sebab itu gw ingin mengeksplor teori serta terapan bidang ini. Honestly, I am still bad at economics, and I have to learn harder for this. Welcome back to study era then, Liz!

I am looking forward to what I can do for next 22 months. See you later!

*pardon my english and indonesian.