There’s something about Paris that makes me not want to avoid cliches.
Arriving in Austria I immediately saw a mountain village, in Romania gypsies with a horse and cart, in Turkey a mosque and in Syria a man wearing a red and white checked headscarf. It felt like I was winning at stereotype bingo.
Lunch in a Parisain cafe is fine with me.
Leaving Strasbourg I look up at the ceiling at the train station and see it is wooden and painted with a flower design, similar to the one in Aleppo.
The old part of the station is covered over with a glass structure. It’s a bit like a glass dish placed over a piece of aged Roquefort.
Pulling out of the city we pass timber framed farm houses but none of the shacks improvised from boards and plastic sheeting which sprout on the edges of Belgrade, Bucharest and Istanbul.
I’ve used eight different currencies on this trip; Euros, Hungarian forints, Romanian lei, Turkish lira, Syrian pounds, Serbian dinars and Sterling.
It’s been the most difficult thing to keep track of.
Lovely Strasbourg claims to be the Capital of Christmas 2008.
When I arrive I see people waiting for the shopping mall to open its doors for the day. Thinking of Damascus Souk I go in and look around the same way, as if everything were strange and all the details were deeply interesting.
We head together up an escalator under a pyramid skylight. The multimedia store Fnac’s crammed with gadgets and gifts, including Johnny Hallyday CDs and electric photo frames.
I leave.
