PUNK'D BY THE FRANCAIS

03-24-09

My first night in the beautiful city of Paris was extremely memorable not only because I was overwhelmed by the scenery, but because I was a victim of a French prankster.

A handful of our group dined out at a fondue restaurant near Notre Dame and got real taste of what France had to offer.

Suzanne Yada and I, being the daring individuals that we are, tried escargot for the first time. The French couple sitting behind us were amused when watching Suzanne fling shells across the table as they slipped out of the grip of the prongs.

Our garçon seemed frustrated as he watched us Americans struggle to get the snail out of its shell. He disappeared to the back of the restaurant, returned with a metal hammer and bludgeoned the shell in front of me. The garçon presented me with the snail's meat and I was surprised how delicious it tasted.

After finishing our authentic French cuisine, we put together 116 Euros to pay the bill. We set the bill on the side of the table and all of a sudden a man grabbed the Euros and ran out the door.

Everyone was confused and thought we got robbed and I was so afraid we were gonna have to pay again or wash dishes in the back to cover our meal. But the act was a prank and the man who grabbed the Euros was the owner of the restaurant.

Bursting in laughter he walked back into the restaurant and asked: "What would you have done if someone really did that?" I didn't have an answer to that question but the whole table breathed a sigh of relief that the robbery was only a prank.

I need to be more aware of my surroundings while in a foreign country and try not to get punk'd again during the rest of my stay in Paris.

Brielle Washington

IF YOU DON'T ASK ...

“Je suis… uh… journaliste… student…?”

I was embarrassing myself royally, but the man and woman behind the counter of the artisan bakery seemed to recognize what I was attempting to say. Joe Proudman and Katrina Kane pulled out their digital SLR cameras as I asked, “Photo?”

We had stopped at this bakery near the St. Augustin Cathedral hunting for a photo opportunity. Its window displayed artisan bread molded into shapes like elephants, bicycles and the Eiffel Tower. If we could just capture them making the bread, shaping the bread, baking it and selling it, we’d have a lovely but simple little photo essay.

The woman was friendly enough but the man was more suspicious after I butchered his native tongue. She dashed downstairs after I asked the question while the man held his hand as if to say “Wait one minute.”

So we did.

Suddenly, a torrent of shouting, clanging and what I assume was French cursing bellowed from downstairs. Joe, Kristina and I looked at each other as another man, presumably a baker, yelled up a storm from beneath the shop floor. Then the man who was still behind the counter suddenly left through another door.

No one else was left on the shop floor but three very bewildered American student journalists.

“What happened?”
“I have no idea.”
“Should we leave?”

My first thought was to repay this awkwardness in kind by taking all of their bread and running like mad. But my taste for practical jokes gave way to my desire to be ethical, and so we stayed for a few extra minutes just in case anyone else would come back and, you know, tend to their storefront.

One girl did, but we wanted to talk to the original couple to see if all was well with them. They didn’t return. And so we awkwardly backed out of the store and on our way to hunt down another story.

“Was it something you said?” Joe asked me as we walked.
“I have no idea!”
“Well I’m going to blame you anyway,” he said half-jokingly, I think.

Will we ever know what the hell happened?
Probably not.

Am I proud of my complete lack of French skills?
No.

Am I glad we asked anyway?
Yes.

Because if you don’t ask, you never know. And if we talk to 100 people who all reject us, we simply move on to person number 101, and keep moving, moving, moving until we get the story.

Suzanne Yada
Managing Editor
Magazine Journalism
www.suzanneyada.com

A FACE IN THE CROWD

London is a great city of public transportation. A tourist like me could go anywhere with a map in my hand, and it felt nice (for me, at least) to walk among London people as if I were one of them.

When I was younger, my family used to travel with tourist groups and I hated it. We left the hotel, got onto the bus, drove to the first tourist hot spot, got off the bus to take photos, got back to the bus … you know the rest. I saw the places, but I won’t remember them for a long time because I was sleeping on the bus and got off the bus with my eyes half-opened.

Now when I travel to a different country, I always try to absorb the lifestyle and fashion. It’s not like I don’t want people to see me as “another tourist who’s taking random photos,” but more like I want to get a sense of what it’s like to live here, even if it’s just one percent.

What I like about this trip is that, not only do I get to visit the places I’ve only seen on calendars and screens, but I also get to be closer to everyday London folks.

I’m the one with the worst navigation skills among my family and friends, and that worried many people around me prior to the trip. Today I did have to walk a few more steps because I missed a block or exited the wrong direction. But at the end of the day, after I finished two back-to-back interviews at London School of Economics, I found myself in a crowded train, walking the same direction and wearing professional-looking attire like everyone else in the Tube station.

I felt like I was one of them.

Ya-an Chan
Copy Editor
Magazine Journalism

Photograph: Outside of London Stock Exchange Group near St. Paul’s Cathedral on Monday, March 23, 2009.

TRASH CANS AND CIGARETTES

During my time in London, which is rapidly coming to an end, I feel I have covered a lot of pavement. When walking around London, it is really rare to see a public trash can. I have had to hold my trash in my hands and pockets, because the only other option would be to put the trash on the street.

However, unlike trash cans, there are cigarette butts everywhere. It seems impossible to take five steps without stepping on a cigarette butt. Maybe if the government put out more trash cans on public sidewalks, people might be inclined to put their cigarette butts into one of those nifty ash trays some trash cans have on their lids.

Shiva Zahirfar
Print Journalism

FREE MUSIC FROM THE WORKING POOR

Musicians litter the streets of London, showcasing their musical talents in hopes of just a few coins dropped in their instrument case. They are in the subway, standing in street tunnels and around every corner.

The sounds of flutes, saxophones and violins filled the air as I ventured out into the Soho district of London tonight. While I walked up and down the streets in search of a non-crowded pub or restaurant, a violinist and his son crossed our path.

My best friend Harvey Rañola, a broadcast journalism major, approached the gentleman and began to ask him questions about being a street musician. It turns out the gentleman is an immigrant that barely speaks English. To make ends meet, he currently plays the violin along-side his son on the tambourine.

I couldn’t help but feel awakened to the harsh reality of what life is like for the working poor. To walk the streets of London, late at night when the temperatures drop, is not something I would have ever imagined my father to ask of me. How desperate must their situation be to have a father ask his son to accompany him as he performs for strangers on the street?

And would Americans do the same thing? I see homeless people all the time in our city of San Jose and they don’t “work” for their handouts. I wonder if, when push comes to shove, Americans would humble themselves enough to try and perform in order to feed their families? Or would they just sit there on the street corner with their hands out?

We gave the violinist four pounds and thanked him for his time. He turned around and with his son by his side, continued down the road playing the violin, and his son shaking the tambourine.

Alex Ruiz-Huidobro
Broadcast Journalism

WHY DO THE WRONG PEOPLE TRAVEL?

"Why do the wrong people travel

When the right people stay back home?
What compulsion compels them
And who the hell tells them
To drag their cans to Zanzibar
Instead of staying quietly in Omaha?

"The Taj Mahal and the Grand Canal

And the sunny French Riviera
Would be less oppressed
If the Middle West
Would settle for somewhere rather nearer."

This windy Monday swept me to the Tower of London, a popular tourist spot that instantly took me to these famous lyrics penned by the United Kingdom's own national treasure Sir Noel Coward.

I was quietly marveling at the humbling history that is the Tower of London when out of the corner of my eye I see an empty Coca-Cola bottle hurtling toward a trash can as though it were a basketball.

The simplest Texan-twang then peeled through the quiet cool morning breeze,"Hey, y'all, did y'all see? I almost made it in!"

My mortification was complete when I heard the teenager's chaperone yell, "That's alright Brad, try again!"

Gentle readers,

"Please do not think that I criticize or cavil
At a genuine urge to roam.
But why, or why, do the wrong people travel
When the right people stay back home?"

Andrew Martinez

Writer

Magazine Journalism

WHERE ARE ALL THE RUBBISH BINS?

As we were making our way through the city of London I was looking around and I couldn't find a trash can to save my life. What I am I suppose to do ... litter?

For a place that has so much traffic from tourists, where are we suppose to put a wrapper from a snack when we are walking through the city?

I don't know, I just notice that while we where out.

Liz Mitchell
Public Relations

THE TUBE IS NO PLACE FOR FALLING

Word to the wise, don't fall up the stairs in a London tube station. It will hurt your knees and bruise your ego - unless you have a good friend to laugh it off with you.

Today I wandered around London and explored a city outside of the United States for the first time in my life. My reaction, welcome to the real world, baby. Without the comfort of my trusted companion, my Blackberry, I felt alone in a city with millions of people bustling all around me.

At home I know the routes to all of my favorite destinations as well as which way cars are going to be coming at me if I try to cut across the street when the light is green going in the other direction.

But today, I was lost.

I was also in the way of far too many double-decker buses. For nearly 30 minutes, three of my friends and I tried to find the right platform we needed to be on before we realized we needed to go up the escalator two more levels to get to Leicester Square.

Why were we so foolish? I'm really not sure. Maybe, though, it’s because we are so used to figuring it out on our own. Maybe we were just too scared to look like "tourists." Maybe we really are the typical American stereotype, ignorant and arrogant.

Either way, the longer we stood in one place looking and waiting, the more annoyed stares and harsh whispers were thrown in our direction. All we had to do was ask someone. Once we started asking for help, people were more than willing and much more friendly.

The moral of the story is, don't be afraid to ask for help when you're in new territory. Also, slow down and smell the roses - or else you just might fall and smell the pavement.

Heather Nacht
Magazine Journalism