So here I am.  In Paris. 

I won’t slog through the details of my arrival, but there were some important ones.  Highlights, if you will. 

I was asked to put my carry-on suitcase in the little “prove your bag is miniscule” contraption right outside of security.  It didn’t fit (which, I still protest, it would have on the plane).  So I had to open up my bag and start putting on layers of my clothes to make it work.  And that is how I, Nanuk of the North, departed San Francisco.  The same thing happened outside the gate as I was getting on.

My flights were both on time.  Miraculous.

The man sitting next to me on the flight from San Francisco to Dallas kind of smelled weird, coughed and took up more than his fair share of personal body space.

I had no one sitting next to me on the flight from Dallas to Paris – my own row to myself!  Huzzah!

There was no on-demand on the long flight.  Depressing.  Made up for by having my own row and actually sleeping for a couple of hours.  Miracle.

Arrival successful.  Bag arrives.  Fiasco trying to buy a ticket onto the RER train into Paris.  Takes at least half an hour and includes one nice man who used his card (which has chip and pin technology) to finally help me buy a ticket, one mean man who refused to help me (because I clearly am very sketchy), one check stand woman who doesn’t give change, one broken change machine and lots and lots of sweat.  I actually get on the train.

Discovered recently that Paris actually has a tram.  More drama at said tram.  Realize I have the appropriate change exactly, but machine won’t take 50 centime piece.  Tragedy.  Then realize recent RER train fiasco has left me with a correct ticket.  Crisis averted. 

Arrive at Emiglia’s and am happy. 

I’ve been in enough traumatic travel scenarios to know that this all went very very smoothly.  The first night, I was jet-lagged, had a small nap and managed to sleep the whole night through.  More success.

Paris is well, Paris.  And French people are so French.  Still.  I kind of forgot.  We went to Emiglia’s local farmer’s market yesterday and bought some exceedingly beautiful produce from some rather charming and interesting French people.  Em happens to live in the outer sections of the city in a great little pocket of the 15th.  It’s away from the tourist sections, so the market is frequented by locals, the people working at the market don’t switch to English and there’s a much more relaxed vibe to it all.  The man working at the stand also, in very typical French fashion, told us how to prepare our food.  These tomatoes must be eaten in salad.  You must eat these mushrooms today.  How are you preparing this?  This is very common as food, like any profession, is seen as a job requiring expertise.  Farmers know the produce and want you to experience them in the best way possible.  It’s not as pushy as it sounds, at least not from this man on this day. 

More highlights of yesterday:

Eating beautiful, amazing, over-the-top macarons at Pierre Hermé.

Walking, walking, walking.

Buying pre-roasted beets at the farmer’s market (fast food!).

Meeting Emiglia’s American tour group in the Louvre.  Many who were seeing it for the first time.  Note: Em coordinates the tour, but doesn’t give it, so it didn’t take too long for us!

Going to the wine bar that Em used to work at.  Drinking great wine.  Getting freebies because Em’s a rock start.

Eating tart au citron in public while walking.  Delicious faux pas.

Meeting the first person in my region in my program, R, and having a great time chatting with him!

Drinking wine and chatting with Emiglia who is still, despite having not seen each other for four years (four years!), a great friend.

I have my ticket and am off to Metz tomorrow.  My responsable - my contact at the school where I’ll be living - is picking me up and taking me to my school.  But in the meantime, today is more Paris.

I know that you know that I’m currently in Paris.  But sometimes you just write what’s in your head, and this is it.  If you want to know something, I wrote this blog sitting in a fabulous little Parisian apartment, with the window open on the city, watching the sun set.  How’s that for a little Paris?

I’m pretty lucky.  Over the course of my relatively short time here on the planet, I’ve happened to run into some really amazing people.  I wouldn’t call all of these people geniuses per se, but they’re pretty damn smart.  They’re the kind of people who sit around wanting to learn more.  They read.  A lot.  And not just blogs about cookies and cakes (like me).  So these smart people happen to know when things are happening.  And because I try my best to keep them in my circle of knowledge, occasionally, they’ll share tidbits of things they’ve learned and I’ll find myself reading what they’ve shared and maybe even acting like I know something on the subject. 

In case you didn’t know, Facebook is making some big changes.  I’m not even talking about the recent upheaval with the changes to the homepage feed and sidebar scroll.  Apparently, they’re changing the format altogether.  Like, you won’t even know what hit you when it comes.

And this is where I make a statement on behalf of everyone:  I hate them.  You hate them.  Pretty much everyone is going to hate them.

You see, social network started really taking off with MySpace.  Now, I know there were social platforms before and after MySpce that were popular.  But let’s face it; young people started connecting en masse through MySpace. 

But that was kind of the problem.  MySpace became, well, annoying.  It catered to its teeny bopper set and became bogged down by too many extras (remember the person with pages of animated sparkle kittens or tons of music and videos? Coco Chanel it and edit, girl).  It began to lose its edge when Facebook came on the scene.  As is now famously outlined in The Social Network, Facebook managed to separate itself from the pack by catering to the college set and making it exclusive.  Along with some other drama, the film also basically ends with the imminent, if not already obvious, world domination of Facebook’s creator, Mark Zuckeberg.  It ends at (more or less) And here’s where the story gets interesting.

Something happened to Facebook that’s never happened before in social networking.  Old people started using it.  The term “old” being defined, of course, in relation to the coveted holy grail of advertising demographics: 18-24 year olds.  And, let’s not forget, the teen populations who have dominated social networking sites since their inception. 

So suddenly a new demographic of users has arrived on the scenes.  For the generation that invented Facebook, suddenly our parents are on online.  And they’re not just using it to keep tabs on their kids after college.  They’re actively participating.  They’re playing Farmville, posting pictures, liking, writing on walls, clicking advertising.  They’re turning Facebook into something really big.  They’re making it cross-generational.

You’re probably wondering where I’m going with this.  You want to know why I’m admonishing a very successful company.  Well here’s why:  it’s not that I don’t think the changes may be better.  They may.  It’s not that I can’t roll with a new format launch.  I probably could. 

It’s this: I have a life outside of Facebook. 

And speaking of which, I happen to be in the middle of moving to a new country.  Suddenly arriving in a place with all your belongings stuffed into a suitcase doesn’t lend itself to wanting to take on any more change than is absolutely necessary.  And while my circumstance is a bit extreme, I am of the belief that it’s not entirely unusual.  Much of the population is busy with their everyday lives: working, raising children, dating and generally trying to make their life work.  They don’t like when frivolity (and Facebook is certainly frivolous) suddenly feels like more work.

And here’s where my mom comes in:  despite her internet know-how, she didn’t grow up with computers.  While there are many incredibly tech savvy people of her generation, there are just as many (if not more) who don’t understand computers on an intuitive level.  It’s like learning a new language:  the earlier you learn it, the easier it is to be fluent, the later you learn it, the tougher it becomes.  For my mother, learning to view a new profile layout is like trying to learn a new dialect; it’s the same, but different.  It’s hard and it takes work.  And who wants Facebook to be work?

The problem with making such huge, sweeping changes, isn’t actually the changes themselves.  I figure that those tech nerds in Silicon Valley (whom I genuinely think are great) are up to some interesting work.  But what I question is their respect for the audience they’re working for (and despite the fact that Facebook is not a for-pay service, the users are certainly a vital voice here).  I think they’re missing the fact that real people have real lives and that to many people whose participation has helped cast Facebook into the annals of the internet’s Hall of Fame see it as an extra in their lives.  For many, it’s frivlous.  For many, Google+ is an equally enticing offer.

I’m not suggesting that the changes will cause the collapse of a giant (certainly nothing like the recent Netflix debacle).  In fact, I hope not.  I’m interested to see what Facebook has in mind and they’ll always be able to cater to a predictable base of teens and college students.  But I think, particularly since the most recent changes have caused such a stir, that they’d be wise to know that I joined Google+.  Not because I want to leave Facebook, but because, in the frivolous part of my life, whichever platform is easier, whichever platform dispenses the information that I want to share more conveniently, whichever platform works for my mom the best - that’s the one I’ll use. 

Today’s the day.  I’m sitting in the airport waiting for my flight.  Eventually, I will end up in Paris, but that’s still a whole lot of hours away.  I certainly have things to say today.  But, as you can imagine, packing up your entire life into two much too small suitcases left me with no time yesterday to write the things I wanted to write.  So now here I am at the airport, finding myself uninspired and worried that if I start writing, I’ll inevitably have to start boarding right in the middle of an utterly brilliant thought. 

So I wanted to let you know that I’m on my way.  I’ll be going for a bit, and when I get there, I’ll be sure to check in. 

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” – Lao Tzu