an entry in bullet point.

• one thing my sisters and I have in common is we seem to think we're capable of writing a kick-ass novel.
• one good thing that has come from my insecurity (and overcoming it...somewhat) is that I can usually tell when someone's weird antics or downright stupid decisions stemmed from their insecurities.
• Room by Emma Donoghue, is one hell of a powerful book. I read that book online and I bought The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo because I can't help it..it's on almost EVERY SINGLE best-selling/recommended shelf in almost EVERY SINGLE bookstore I go to. And I go to A LOT of book stores.
• ...and then I realized that both of them revolved around victims of sexual offenders. what the hell is wrong with me?!
• I've written a couple of entries since the last one but they're on draft because I'm indecisive like that.
  
• this entry is riddled with grammar mistakes I better leave now.

xoxo

Friends Hostel : just another Paris story.

I have travelled to quite a few countries and in most of my travels, I'd stay in a youth hostel. The best hostel was the one in Nice; we got a fantastic rooftop room with good ambiance, fancy bathroom, and room service. The worst hostel (EVER) was - you guessed it - the one in Paris. The kitchen was really small and dirty, the dining area was an open space (worst idea ever, especially in freaking winter) in the middle of the building, and...don't even get me started on the dishes. We specifically asked for an en-suite room so we won't have to share with all the other random tourists with questionable hygiene, but, to our dismay, out bathroom includes a shower, a sink and....no toilet. I know. What. The.

At first I just brushed this over my shoulder and didn't think much of it because, after all, we're travelling cheap. However, something else happened that made it tumble all the way down to the Worst Hostel EVER rank, even worse than the one I stayed at in London.

When we first got there, I checked in for both ourselves and for our friends arriving from Sheffield later that day. However, they said the room wasn't ready yet and didn't give us the keys to that room. They gave us room 3, and said that the rest of my friends are going to be in room 25 for the first night, and would have to move to room 24 for the other 4 nights. Even though we weren't happy with this, they apologized and we just thought we'd let it pass. Malas nak create a fuss.

When my friends arrived that night, the owner of the hostel that checked us in earlier that day has gone home, and I had to deal with a different guy (who can't speak much English). This guy insisted that we're supposed to be in room 24, not room 25. Albeit confused, I was happy enough to check my friends in to that room, assuming it's a good thing because they wouldn't have to move anymore now that they're already in room 24. When we walked in to the room, however, there were other people's luggages in that room, and when I explained this to the guy at the counter, all he said was 'That's no problem! No problem!' and some other shit in French.

At this point I wanted to say 'NO PROBLEM MY FOOT LA WEI' to him, but I refrained. We then decided to move all the luggages down to the locker room and tampal a notice on the door saying sorry and letting them know their luggages are downstairs.

While this was happening to us, two American girls were yelling at him because they booked a room online (and paid in full) but there was no room for them when they arrived, and another Russian girl stood there, frowning, because her booked room was non-existent as well.

The next day was the day we went all the way to La Defense and came back really late after walking along Champs Elysees at night. To our absolute dismay, when my friends went to their room, they found out that all their things have been moved to room 25. Now, let me make a few things clear from this;

1. They invaded my friends' privacy
2. My friends' stuff was all over the room because they weren't expecting having to change rooms
3. The hostel management touched my friends' things
4. Their mineral water went missing
5. THEY'RE GIRLS, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD YOU CAN'T JUST TOUCH THEIR THINGS GODDAMMIT.

Anyway.

I told the guy at the counter (the one who can't speak much English) that he can't just do this to us, and he, not surprisingly, said 'That's no problem! What's the problem? No problem!'. Even though I felt a strong urge to kick his balls, I told him in a calm but firm tone that he can't invade our privacy like that, and insisted to see the hostel's booking record to reaffirm the fact that they won't just randomly move us to another room again. Sensing my discontent, he told me his boss was going to come in later that night, in case I wanted to speak with him.

Before we went for another episode of adventure in Paris the next morning, I stopped by the counter (manned, this time, by the multilingual owner) to drop the room keys. Holding out my hand to give the keys to him, I held it there in my grip and said,

'Don't move our stuff again,' with a smile. He looked at me and said,

'Well why didn't you move to room 25? I told you you had to,'

'No, you told us to move to room 24 FROM room 25, not the other way round. You even wrote it on the receipt,'

'Really?' He said, confused, and then he took the huge log book and started flipping through it to see the booking records. After a bit of flipping he stopped and said,

'Well maybe I made a mistake, I didn't realize'

At this point I stared at him, unmoving, my eyebrows raised.

'....sorry.' he mumbled.

I smiled a (bitchy) winning smile - that was all I wanted him to say (because what's done is done).

'I appreciate the apology,' I said, as I dropped the keys on the counter and walked away.


Moral of the story? Tell all your friends to NEVER step foot in this hostel. EVER.


(Jangan ingat mentang-mentang aku pendek kau boleh pijak kepala aku)



xoxo
Atiqah

some more of this.

Did I ever tell you that I always translate things literally from Kelate into standard Malay when I talk, and they don't always work?

At first my housemates never said anything about it and just gave me a blank expression everytime I say something that doesn't make sense to them. Usually I just confuse them because my pronunciation is always correct, it's just that people don't use the words I use for that particular context.

Example being; saying 'hujan dah serik' when the rain stopped pouring.

but since my standard Malay vocab doesn't seem to get any better and I kept on making the same mistakes over and over again, my housemates finally voiced their concerns.


Atiq : Eh...cukup pulak nasik ni. Tadi Atiq ingat nak tanak nasik baru sebab nampak macam siket

K Filah : *stares at Atiq in amusement*

Mas : Yang kau tiba-tiba puitis semacam kenapa?

Atiq : ...???? What??

K Filah : ahahahaha, tu la Mas, akak pun fikir camtu gak.

Atiq : Apaaaa korang niii??

Mas : Atiq, mana ada orang cakap 'tanak nasik'

Atiq : Salah ke?

Mas : Memang la betul, tapi bunyik dia puitis semacam. Masak nasik lah.

Atiq : Mana aku tauuuu habis tu orang Kelantan cakap nnanok nasiikkkk.

K Filah : Lagi satu Atiq suka cakap: dahaga *LOLOLOL*

Atiq : Habis tu kalau bukan dahaga apa???!?

Mas : HAUS LAH!


T___T

the dawn of a new beginning.

the title might have been the result of watching too much Merlin.

I started watching it after seeing my sisters mentioning it in twitter a few times and getting curious, so I downloaded the series.

that show has what I needed it to have; a lot of male characters, none PG18 scene (I am a grown woman alone in a deserted island*. It HURTS watching Blair and Chuck), and a good dose of magic, dragon, and mythical creatures. what it didn't have, unfortunately, is a group of witty and intelligent sriptwriters to pen an interesting plot. as much as I want to like it, the storyline gets a bit repetitive and dull after a while.

anyway. this entry wasn't meant to be about Merlin. I wanted to write about the constellations. my sister posted on facebook about the zodiac dates changing a little bit, and though I am not one who would care too much about zodiacs, it does disturb me somewhat, the fact that I am no longer a Sagittarius. My star is now Ophiuchus. My reason of being annoyed, obviously, is that it is a FREAKING NEW ZODIAC WTF?!**.

In reading many, many, stories involving mythical creatures I have grown very fond of (and attached to) centaurs for their bravery and honor. Never have I encountered a book that tells of a centaur being a villain, or a coward.

Sagittarians have a positive outlook on life, are full of enterprise, energy, versatility, adventurousness and eagerness to extend experience beyond the physically familiar. They enjoy travelling and exploration, more so because their minds are constantly open to new dimensions of thought. The vices to which Sagittarians are prone are anger they tend to flare up over trifles; impatience - they want to rush every new project through immediately and demand too much of colleagues who cannot work at the pace they require; and scorn of the inadequacies of others while expecting fulsome recognition of their own efforts.

...that sums me up pretty good, actually.

In my annoyance, I looked up what all this Ophiuchus is about. The symbol is of a man holding a serpent - despite my secret wish of being a parseltongue, I do not identify with a serpent at all so this didn't please me. Since this 13th zodiac is relatively new to those who didn't study astronomy, there isn't much written about it. However, something in its wiki page caught my eyes;

One of the most used symbol of Ophiuchus, is the Rod of Asclepius. This symbol is no stranger to me. I see it almost daily.

It is, indeed, the symbol of healing, widely used by those who practice medicine til this very day.

The Irish Medical Council

xoxo
Atiqah

p.s. It didn't escape my eyes that someone has cleverly added the link http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/01/13/no-your-zodiac-sign-hasnt-changed/?hpt=C1 at the bottom of Ophiuchus's wikipedia page. I like discovering the random subliminal messages people put into wikipedia pages just for laughs.


*that may have been an exaggeration
**fish. I meant fish, of course.

29/12 Paris, Day 3 - I'm a sucker for pretty lookout points

I'm typing this as I wait for our dinner to be served. We're eating at a Pakistani restaurant at Chateau d'Eau, and I just ordered Beef Vindaloo. Good thing I'm an expert in Indian food, because it's the same thing everywhere, so the french menu was a piece of cake when you see things like 'boeuf Vindalo' and 'poulet Tikka Masala' on it (I took Spanish and knew 'pollo' means chicken. Not exactly rocket science to figure that one out).

Today we walked up the stairs to the top of Arc de Triomphe, and breathed in the spectacular star shaped roads panning out from the roundabout around the arch. Its amazing how Napoleon originally planned this to be the gate through which his victorious armies would march through when they come home from battles. Engraved with names of wars and their generals, it is now just a place where people mostly just visit to take pictures, stare questioningly at the statues and wonder how much power is being wasted keeping the 'eternal flame' alight every single day, all day long. But it does all that with magnificent style, of course.

'eh asal smalam nampak besar lagi bendalah ni?'

Haha...tadi tu dari tepi rupanya -____-" Malu je orang sme pandang amek gamba kat situ.

Champs Elysees from the top of Arc de Triomphe. At the very end of one of these streets panning out from the Arc, we could see the modern Grand Arche at La Defense that I put pictures of a couple of entries back.

After that we walked down Champs Elysees again, this time in bright daylight. We didn't spend as much time here as we'd like, because Mas went to Louvre and texted us to say the queue is absolutely insane. So we hurried down the piss-smelling tube station again, and waited for the train (with an excellent saxophone-playing street musician providing a most pleasant background jazz) to Place Monge to pray Dhuhr/Asr at our beloved Paris Mosque.

I was touched when I heard the Dhuhr athan at the mosque...I miss hearing it recited live,instead of a pre-recorded playback one coming from my laptop. We were lucky enough to be able to join the prayer in congregation with the rest of the Muslims (a wide variety of skin tone and hijab style, with Islam being our only common factor), and hurried to get ready for our Louvre experience.

When we got there, we immediately divided ourselves into two groups to take turns taking pictures and lining up at the same time. I went with two of my friends to line up first. When we were queueing there, minding our own business, a French man came to stand directly beside us, holding a sign. He was the museum's employee, holding up a multi-lingual announcement placard. We stared hard at the paragraphs to locate the English version, assuming the guy couldn't speak English. All of a sudden he said;

'Can I help you, miss?'

To which I replied, 'Oh, sorry. Was just looking for the English bit.'

'It says you will reach the ticket counter in an hour and a half'

'Oh! That's not too bad. Thanks!'

'No problem, anything else I can help you with?'

'Nope, we're grand. Merci!' I said, with a cheeky smile. What? He's cute.

'You know what, miss? The entrance fee is free for you if you're studying in a university in an EU country'

...and just like that, we paid nil for our entrance to Louvre. The weird thing is, it's not written ANYWHERE on the information leaflet that we could get in for free. Trust me, I looked long and hard. If that guy hadn't told us about it, we'd have spent 6.50euro each. There were 9 of us. That's a LOT of money saved.

some random hobo I met at the Louvre

The weird thing is, when we wanted to go up Arc de Triomphe earlier that day, I told the lady at the ticket counter I wanted to buy Adult tickets, and cheekily added that we bought Paris Visite tickets yesterday and didn't use it for discount purposes at all...just in case we can use it today (when it clearly stated on the Paris Visite tickets that we can only use it on the day it was bought).

She took one look at me, winked, and said 'yeah sure', to my complete amazement. But that's not all. She also added

'You sure you want ADULT tickets, miss? Adults are over 25s,'

'OH. Really? I mean...what do I get then? Child ones?' stupidest question of the century.

'*laughs* No, but you can get cheaper ones,'

We got half priced tickets. We saved TONS that day, alhamdulillah. My friends semua cakap nasib baik Atiq yang pegi beli, so muka kanak-kanak yang tak logik above 25 at all, sampai orang tu heran apesal nak beli tiket Adult. Haha....cis kau. Padahal nak gelakkan aku pendek. Bagus punya kawan-kawan. I'm just going to go ahead and take it as a compliment.

Louvre experience was...amazing. I can go on FOREVER about the things in there. If I went there alone I could've easily spent double the time there than I did that day, but alas. Travelling in a group requires tolerance. Not everyone wants to spend hours on end looking at important pieces of history (Code of Hammurabbi! WHAT...I can't even) and legendary paintings (Mona Lisa! WHAT). I won't be pretentious and claim to be in LOVE with museums...but this was the first international museum I stepped foot on, one that displays historical artefacts from all over the globe. Their wide collection was actually really impressive.

This was from a Roman empire building, if I'm not mistaken. It's MASSIVE, and it was one of many, many, tiangs (somehow I can't recall what tiang is in English) that look exactly like it, that was part of the building. Bayangkan how enormous the building was. Bayangkan sekarang.

Tomorrow we head to Bruxells!

non-wintertriprelated rambleblog, GO.

I woke up groggily at quarter past 7 to my housemate's knocks on my door; I've locked it because they always open my bedroom door in the morning and leave it gaping, causing my room's temperature to drop to the deathly zeros by the time I decide to slip out of my duvet.

Subuh is really late nowadays. I think it ends at something like half past eight, because the sun was just peeking out when I was braving the chilly winter morning, walking to the hospital at 8.50am.

First day of rotation after 2 weeks of holidays and 4 weeks of (ultra-depressing) Psychiatry caused me to be really anxious this morning. I haven't met with real, sane, patients and haven't done any physical examination in what feels like eons.

Despite the timetable being crazy, the last tutorial was given by this hilarious dinasour (age-wise, not size-wise) of a Professor, who wore a striped shirt and a yellow bow tie with black polka dots for extra dramatic effect (seriously that's what he wore). I think he has Parkinson's, from the apparent resting tremor in his hands, and from the way he talks. I must say, it's quite a feat, having the flat, non-expressive tone of speech of a Parkinsonian man but still be able to crack us up so much at 5pm, after a long stretch of introductory tutorials.

I walked home feeling completely exhausted.

When I opened the door, I saw a HUGE parcel sitting by the stairs and thought 'Ooooohhh, who is THIS for?' because I, am a sucker for things that come in the post (in all honesty though, the only person who ever send me things in the post is the bank). I get unnecessarily super excited for the parcels Mama post for me despite knowing every single thing that I'm going to find in it, since I specifically told Mama what to put in. But I would always hope she'd put in something extra for me to discover, so setiap kali pun keluarkan semua barang betul-betul and make sure kotak kosong betul-betul, in case Mama tampal surat rahsia somewhere (Atiqah kalau imaginasi tak over slash merepek, tak sah).



ANYWAY. THE HUGE PARCEL. WAS FOR ME. ^_______________^



Perfect ending to a long day.

Domo arigatou, Mush. Took the pictures with the camera you gave me, too.

I don't deserve your affection.

28/12 Paris, Day 2 - I want to marry a French man

Day 2 started at around 9.40am, waayy later than what we planned, because the Sheffield contingent were tired from all the travelling. I was pretty pumped to go see Eiffel Tower from up close and personal. We had to walk to Gare du Nord that morning to buy tickets because the Barbes Rochechuart station didn't have them. Well, there were some men outside the station trying to sell tickets to us ('Billet! Billet! Assalamualaikum...Malay-zee? Malay-zee? Billet?'), but we were street-wise enough to not fall for that. I mean come on, we come from Malaysia.

I thought we won the tourist-conning scheme by ignoring the men outside Barbes Rochechuart, but oh I was wrong. When we got to Gare du Nord, we went to the ticket counters and told the lady that we wanted 9 Mobilis tickets, the ticket that will last us the whole day, and can be used for both the metro and the buses. We bought this ticket yesterday and it costed us 6.10euro pp. To our surprise, the tickets today costed 9.30euro pp, and when I wanted to cancel the transaction, the lady just yelled at me in French and I really just wanted to yell back Malay curses at her, but I had this hijab on my head in a very secular country. I didn't want to give Islam a bad name.

wajah ceria sebelum ditipu wanita Perancis bengis

look at the train's tyres!

Later we realized that she had given us the most expensive option on the menu: the Paris Visite tickets, one that would take us to all zones (Mobilis only takes us to Zone 1&2, but that was enough to take us to most destinations) and included discounts for entrance fees. Trying to not start the day negatively, we decided that we'd make full use of the tickets and go all the way to La Defense today, which was never on the plan because it was located in Zone 3.

First Destination : Tour Eiffel

Eiffel tower was everything I expected it to be and more. It was gorgeous despite the foggy day and crowded with tourists and illegal souvenir-selling vendors. I knew they were illegal because they had all their stuff on a spread of white sheet on the ground, and then the police came (on bicycles!) they rolled it and ran away. It was quite the sight, seeing approximately 50 men (one in a Fir'aun costume, for some reason) got chased by three men in uniform riding their bicycles.

We huddled in a circle right under the tower when Mas was telling us about its history, to avoid the annoying calls from the vendors and the beggars. Since the line to take the cable car up the eiffel is SO, SO, long we decided not to do it. There was another option with a much shorter line and cheaper ticket, though. You can CLIMB STAIRS to go up the eiffel. Eh? Eh? Any takers?

We also walked for a little bit through the park in front of it, called Champ de Mars, and then went through a Christmas market (the first of many, many more) to get to Trocadero for a good view of Eiffel and to get a metro to Paris mosque. French men is a bit like Kelate men in a sense that you can find good looking men selling knitted gloves and waffles in a Christmas market (nasik kerabu and nasik lemak in Kelate's case), only, you know. The French is way taller and, well. Much better looking.





Second Destination : Paris Mosque

We got lost in Place Monge for quite a bit, going around in circles because Mas couldn't remember the exact way to the mosque. But somehow we managed to walk close enough to it, and a French man walking past us randomly asked

'What are you looking for, the mosque?'

To which I replied with a bewildered nod because 1. He spoke clear English, and 2. He knew where the mosque is.

'It's just there, turn left' He pointed.

I forgot that this was Paris I was in, so of course the mosque is conspicuous and obvious to the locals, like the one they have in Dublin. Not, like the one we have in Cork, which basically is just a makeshift warehouse of sorts.

I have to say, I fell in love with this mosque at first sight. I mean, look at it; how can I not?




I had to really tundukkan my pandangan there because the men and women sections overlap a little bit and the men there were gorgeous Frenchmen and Arab men. Kalau tak tundukkan pandangan mesti kantoi mata melilau tak tentu hala wahahaha *cough*. The Muslim community there was very welcoming and warm towards us, despite our weird ambik gambar di sana sini antics.

Third Destination : La Defense

La Defense is basically a place full with splendid modern archictecture, buildings of the giant companies of France. The highlight of it is the Grand Arche, which is a frame-like square office building, aimed to be the '20th century version of Arc de Triomphe'.





It's a whole different world from the classic architecture of the other famous buildings of Paris. At this point of time we were already pretty exhausted and freezing cold; because as you can see, it was really foggy. What you can't see, is that it was actually raining. So we take refuge in a huge shopping mall, in which Mas and I sat down and read the map to figure out where to go for dinner, and the rest of us toured the mall aimlessly. This, was where I bought (only two pieces of) the super delicious, 1euro apiece, chocolate and pistachio macaroon.

spot us.

mmmmm.

We then went to have dinner at a Halal fast food chain in Chateau d'Eau (pronounced sha-to-dow), which was completely flooded with black people, and the streets are lined with stores displaying various wigs, and hair salons *cough*. While we were in the restaurant we played a game that's called guess-if-that-hair-is-really-hers-or-not.

Fourth (and final) Destination : Champs Elysees and Arc de Triomphe (at night)

Everybody said if one is to get the full Paris experience, one must walk down Champs Elysees at night. So we did just that, all the way from Concorde to Arc de Triomphe. This is not a short walk, mind you. And if you've lasted this long reading this blog post, you'd have realized how much sightseeing we did on this day, and at this point my legs were already shaking a little bit (LOL, tua much?). Unfortunately, none of the pictures I currently have captured the night well, so I'd leave it for later when I get the rest of the pictures (or never if none turned out good).

There were two long rows of Christmas market stalls along the road from Concorde to just before Champs Elysees, and we spent a lot of time looking at the expensive pretty things and delicious food they had to sell. Christmas markets are one of my favourite things of December. There wasn't much to do on Champs Elysees that night though, because we went there so late that most of the shops were already closed.



Among the things that I found amusing was that the Peugeot showhouse was only one store away from a McDonalds (and the McDonalds looked prettier, and bigger). And I couldn't understand why the little souvenir stalls sell arabic newspapers arranged directly opposite to 18sx adult magazines. Makes one wonder about the demographic of its target customers.

That was the end of the day for us, and we went home completely worn out and exhausted. I only had one thing in mind that night:

Louvre tomorrow!


xoxo

27/12 Paris, Day 1 - Welcome to Barbes Rochechouart

I spent the day before embarking on my Paris trip at Kak Erin's apartment (Kak Erin is Nana's sister who works in Cork), because Nana decided to come over from Cardiff to spend her winter break here. We laughed our heads off playing Dance Central on Kak Erin's Kinect...while Kak Erin and her husband made us dinner. LOL. Atiq tolong jugak siket-siket, pastu Kak Erin cakap 'Dah, pegi sana kau!' hahaha.

Since our flight to Paris Beauvais was from Dublin, we slept over at Mimi and Hiki's place that night. I invited Lala for a sleepover catch up session (haha suka hati je. rumah, pakaian dan makanan disediakan oleh Mimi dan Hiki), and naturally that night was spent gossiping and facebook stalking secara berjemaah. It felt so good to catch up with everyone. The friends I made in KMB are the best friends I ever made in my life so far.

The next morning I had to take a cab at 4am, and I woke up with a slightly biol head because I stayed up late lying on the bed with the three girls, talking about random things and worrying about my BB which had dropped in the bathroom and went swooshing dead on me. I took everything out (cover, battery, sim, memory card) and put them in front of the fan heater to dry, and it turned back on alright that morning. Phew, alhamdulillah.

Our first destination as we got off the airport shuttle was obviously our hostel, to drop the heavy luggages at and check in. It was a good thing that Mas have been to Paris before, and therefore was a pro at manouvering herself around the Paris underground. Despite the admirable frequency and punctuality of the trains, we could not help noticing that the stations we were at smell like piss (we later realize that this is the case for ALL metro stations throughout Paris). I'm not talking a vague smell like the one you'd get from a filthy toilet in the distance, I'm talking drunken-liters-of-pee-under-your-feet sort of smell. Yeah.

Anyway we got to Barbes Rochechouart station, and realized our hostel is right beside it, which was super convenient.

teknik lilitan tudung futuristik. also known as asal-lekat-atas-kepala

Even though we weren't pleased when we realized our 'en-suite' rooms include a bathroom that has a sink and a shower sans toilet, we were pumped for Paris and headed right out after freshening up and praying.

First destination: Montmartre Basilique du Sacre-Coeur

To be honest we don't know and don't really care about the history of this church, we climbed up the pretty narrow roads of Montmartre simply for the view (my first Eiffel Tower sighting!). I'm not normally a bimboistic tourist who takes pictures with things I know nothing of, I promise. I just don't care much about Europian churches' histories (with a few exceptions).

Montmartre was the town in which we all bought our first macaroons, after hearing people talk about it endlessly. So this picture happened:

wajah minta penampar

We got back home pretty late that night after going shopping for food in Carrefour (things are bloody expensive in Paris!), having dinner at a Kebab place and fetching the rest of the group who arrived from Sheffield in Gare du Nord, the KL-Sentral of Paris. In what I'd like to call a true Cork spirit (bukan kami-pelajar-miskin-spirit...bukan bukan), we walked around the city trying to figure out if we could just walk to our hostel from Gare du Nord instead of taking the metro. It turned out that indeed we could, and it's just a 10minute walk away!

That, was the night we all realized our hostel was located in a very rough area, with (many) black men lining the streets shouting at each other and checking us out as we walk past them. I was scared, obviously, but I put on a brave face, clutched my handbag in a grasp that was way too strong, and walked in a speed fast enough to get me to the hostel asap, but not too fast that I would appear as though I was running.

Either I am just a racist person who is inexplicably scared of black men, or Paris is just generally a terrifying place at night.

I'm thinking both.

xoxo