Tourist tip #1: Stay the hell away from the Champs Elysees!

Nah nah, mate, horrible horrible place. I had to go there cos I wasted last Friday and Saturday joyriding around ferris wheels and hanging out too long in people's apartments, drinking their wine; thus neglecting to buy my one book for class. As it turns out, most every establishment in Paris is closed on Sundays, including most of the FNAC's. This stupid country!

(haha, it'd make sense if people actually went to church, but you know...)

My saving grace, however, is the Champs-Elysees, Paris' main avenue running from the Arc de Triomphe to the Louvre or somewhere like that...well, whatever; luckily the avenue lies a few metro stops from my place, so it's just a matter of hopping in. Technically our teacher recommended the Gibert-Joseph bookstore, and our little guidebook had a few infos on some bookstores open on Sunday, but most of them were in the Latin Quarter, and after yesterday's debacle (whereby I woke up late for our group's meeting and ended up chasing them through most of the city, missing the Paris Technoparade in the process) I did not want to spend more time on the Metro...(OK WAIT! Now I'm really unhappy; it turns out my new favorite pop singer Yelle made a surprise performance @ Technoparade, at least that's what one of the MySpace comments says...triste) Luckily, our teacher also told us that we could probably find the books @ a FNAC. While most were closed, the one on Champs-Elysees is open Sundays.

I get off from the metro, and the first thing I notice in the beautiful but insufferable Parisian sun is that one of the earpieces on my sunglasses came off! My cool sunglasses! My cool $20 Ray-Ban-ripoff imitation sunglasses! Noooooo! How am I gonna look hip and retro and detached from the world?!

Things aren't so bad when I'm just walking by a small park (conveniently staffed with a small hot dog-and-crepes joint where food was going at 2-4 euro -- memo to self), but once the movie theatres, the tourist restaurants and the megastores, including Gap and Nike stores, come in, even I struggled with the crowds. Mind you, I was by myself so I could travel way faster ad I'm used to traveling through crowded city streets and shopping centres, but this is insane! Not to mention that the Champs-Elysees is like all Haussmannian streets ridiculously long, ridiculously wide, and ridiculously straight. Weaving my way through the crowds, I eventually found my way to a shopping centre filled with overpriced clothing shops and the blessed FNAC.

FNAC is basically a multimedia giant in France; their stores are kinda like Virgin Megastore, except they have that, too. They sell books, electronics, CDs, as well as creating promotional music events for French artists. Like Virgin, FNAC has listening stations all over, as well as a fairly diverse and broad selection of different genres, particularly Anglophone indie rock and French music (Admittedly, D'uh! on the latter). On that day, unfortunately the bookstore wasn't open, and I was pretty pissed off. Still, against my better judgment, I stuck around, being the music nerd that I am and tried out as many of the French music listening stations as I could:

• Most of me screams "eww..." at the mention of Manu Chao, mainly cos I think his fans are a Venn diagram of hippies and Eurotrash. Still, I've been hearing songs from his new album Radiolina everywhere, from the radio to the used CD store on Av. de Clichy, to the FNAC. It's good. Lame protest lyrics? Maybe a couple. But the music is undeniably catchy. Damn him (but mostly his fans.)

• Rose -- a random French adult contemporary-type acoustic pop singer with a folky style. For some reason, parts of the song "La liste" remind me of Camera Obscura, believe me she isn't that depressed -- reason to love this is her vocal inflections, not to mention the lyrics which ocassionally venture into quirky territory. Actually, she sounds more like Jenny Lewis, heh.

• Vanessa Paradis -- oh but I had such high hopes the first time I listened to her! She has such a perfect, high, pixie voice, like a French version of Amaia Montero of La Oreja de Van Gogh, a band I worship; even the style of the songs are similar (guitar-based pop-rock). After repeated MySpace listens, "Divine Idylle" disappoints a bit -- with such a voice, one ought to be a bit more adventurous, a bit more spunky, a bit more intense. On the other hand, "Chet Baker" shows precisely this kind of potential. I'm on the fence about her.

As for French R&B, I'm not a big fan of any R&B to begin with; just ask my friend Becky V. (who would probably be thrilled to be mentioned here), but one must know:

• Kenza Farah -- beats go from R&B sappy piano lines to crashing electronic drum-beats; her Arabic pop-influenced vocals wind through the songs and hold your attention for one extra second. The lyrics are personal and introspective enough to make you sympathise with her, rather than regard her as another in a line of generic love-song regurgitating pretty album face covers (my American prejudice). Besides, it's something you don't really get in America. Though to be honest, I know nothing of how the French run their R&B or where their inspirations come from.

• Amel Bent -- once again, know very little, though her music sounds more late 90s, more clean. She has a very smooth voice, is all I can say.

I found a bunch of France Gall compilations, most of them quite expensive (some ran as much as 22 euro!)...I'll have to be very careful about the way I search for ye-ye stuff...

Thankfully, I found Keren Ann's La Disparition for 7 euro, a deal even with the crap exchange rate factored in, compared to Virgin's Keren Ann CD's back home. I know I'm running out of euro, but maybe this once? Same I can't use the same reasoning with the Yelle CD.

Didn't find the book, though. I was on my way to take the nearest metro to the Latin Quarter when I figured, well, we can always try the Virgin Paris, so I did. One peculiarity: the security guy asked to see my FNAC bag, and stapled it shut, presumably to prevent me from shoplifting. Never mind that I can easily rip the staples apart, or even more that I had my shoulder bag with me, full of ample space to stuff books and CDs (as well as my FNAC bag) in, which they did not even take a look at. From a store security standpoint, I don't get it... Still, I did find the book at 15 euro (+ a 10 euro answer key I decided to buy just in case I'll need it), which while bad, was much less than I feared.

Odious, odious place -- the crowds were so packed in that walking was almost impossible. I figured it'd be better on the street but no luck. The sun blinding me, sweating, feeling for a moment about to faint from the sheer crowdness...bloody tourists! they're everywhere! (this coming from a guy who's been in Europe for less than a week). Then there's the bloody French and their rampant PDA'ing while I'm trying to eat my little 5 euro lunch of a hot dog on a baguette and a Coke. Annoyingness is shared by all today.

Moral of the story: Champs-Elysees is a shithole and you should never go there unless you really need to. As M. Hourriere said, French people don't ever really go there anymore. It's not chic. So there, a French person agrees with me.

Oh yeah, I didn't take any pictures.