Paris for the Parisiens?

The past week, I received a visit from a very good Brazilian friend and as it was his first time in Paris, we did the whole Eiffel Tower, Champs Elyssee, Saint Michel, etc tourism. One of his comments that I found interesting was that the people he was seeing in the metro and other public places did not look very French. I immediately responded that he is completely right because the Parisiens are long far away for their holidays.

Most of the world knows Paris and would like to visit or live in Paris: La ville de l'amour! However, now that summer began and with that the student holidays, Parisiens are all away, leaving the hordes of tourist behind. Because of this invasion of tourists, Paris does not feel to be empty at all. The metro system is fuller than ever, as well as the streets and squares. I guess this is normal for touristic cities, such as Rome, Paris, London, etc.

This is very curious for a Brazilian because for vacations we usually go to the beach, leaving our cities completely empty. Furthermore, the people that are in the costal cities do not go to other cities but just overcrowd even more the restaurants and bars near the shore. So it is very seldom that a Brazilian city is full of people that do not live there.

The Orange Machine is showing how to do it

These pasts weeks, I've been following the European Football Cup, and after watching almost all games, up to now, the Dutch team really seems to be the one taking the cup this year.

I always liked the Dutch team, as they say it is the European team that resembles the most with the Brazilian style of playing the game. However, they were always eliminated, most of the time not even reaching the final. But now, after beating Italy and France by big margins, I think it has come time to make justice and give the cup to them.

Well, football is not basketball and not always the best team wins, or as we say in Brazil: football is like a surprise box. So it might be too early to put all my money on the table, but from now on I am cheering for them.

German Nationalism is Back

Before the last world cup, held in Germany, it was always a taboo for a German to show his nationalism, as this was considered almost as a Nazi tradition. For instance, when I arrived in Dresden three years ago, it was easier to find a person wearing a Brazilian shirt than a German one. However, after the football event, this taboo is surprisingly over and now because of the European championship (EC), you can see everywhere cars displaying proudly the German flags on city streets.

Though it is nice to see that this long lasting taboo is over, it still makes me feel a bit uncomfortable. There is clearly a segregation of the Turkish community in the German society. For example last Saturday when Portugal and Turkey opened the EC, it was surprising to see that most of the Germans that I saw were supporting Portugal and not Turkey. I cannot see any good reason for Germans to do so, other than their xenophobia towards the Turks. In Brazil, we usually cheer for the weaker team, or the team that is plays fair, or if there is community of that nationality living in Brazil, we support them. But this was not the case in this match, since Portugal is clearly one of the favorites for the title and as far as I know the Portuguese community in Germany in very small.

What makes me more afraid is that the Germans that were supporting for Portugal were not uneducated people, but university students. After the match, I asked some of them, why you do not cheer for your fellow Turkish? They immediately demonstrated their discrimination towards them, by saying that the Turkish community is terrible and low-class people. From where they got this idea is not very clear to me, but I could only think that in Hitler's time this was the same propaganda towards the Jews. I just hope that this uprising German nationalism is controlled by not following the examples of Germany's recent history.