Being Aussie

It's a problem while travelling, this being Aussie sometimes, it's a label and it's something you can't escape or hide from. It's in your idiosyncratic look, that generic beach clothing that we like to wear, that accent when spoken that gives the game away. It's deep inside your thoughts and being without even realizing it, your sarcasm, larrikinism, humour, pathos, it's down to all your collective experiences.

I felt this most when we were in Paris, we would go and eat out at this nice French restaurant at Montmartre and feeling like, wanting to be less Aussie and more Parisian. It's a feeling like wanting to experience the moment like a real Parisian, rather than this Aussie bloke, but you can't shake it off or turn it off, it's just there.  Wouldn't it be great if I could have felt, loved, drank wine, thought deep political, artistic and philosophical thoughts, moved around like a true Parisian, that's what I would pay money for, to totally inhabit my time there as a Parisian, now that would be a total holiday & break from reality.

It's hard to describe, it's like you are there, as you, a visitor, a tourist.  You know the rules, you do the tourist things, you walk through the streets with those touristy thoughts of soaking it up, but you know you are missing out on the authentic, the real. You visit all the tourist sites with all the other tourists, you enjoy it all for what it is, but you are still this Aussie abroad.

 What would that be like, to don this other Parisian persona, I would imagine, I would be more aloof, more direct, I would just be doing what i wanted to do, without thought or consequences. I would be thinking deep French free thinking thoughts, I would feel like a King of a free thinking feeling world, I would appreciate my culture, my art and our history, I would loathe Americans. I would like cheese and especially the smelly blue cheese. I would be in tune with my feelings and crave,demand, have the beautiful caress and touch of a beautiful women and many of them.

What if it wasn't like that at all, what if it wasn't what I imagined to be like at all, that I had more anxiety, I felt more insecure, I was wary of tourists and I envied especially those Australian tourists who seem so self assured and genuine but crazy. Now it's just getting stupid, imagining this, to imagine that, who is imagining something else.

It was a thought at the time, is all this was.  This feeling of being Aussie when you want to feel being Parisian instead.