My City of Light

My first impression when arriving in Paris was like I expected; like any city Paris was big and old. We settled into our apartment for the week in Montmartre, in the 19th arrondissement, a neighborhood right on the outskirts of the heart of Paris. What I didn't expect was how much Paris would grow on me and how after I got back to the States it’s mostly all I can think about.

For nearly the entire week that Kelly and I spent in Paris, the weather was gloomy. There were only a few days where the sun poked through, and only once did a downpour stop us in our tracks, but for the most part the rain was kept at bay. We were able to fit in a week packed with museums, pastries, and taking time to get lost, which turned out to be one of my favorite parts of the entire trip.

As I imagined, the small streets throughout Paris, like most old European cities, wind about with quaint cafes and overhangs where Parisians gather to enjoy company (et les cigarettes) near the copious brasseries and bistrots that run throughout the city. I could go on describing every day we spent in Paris if asked. Even without the sun poking through the clouds, everything shone. The old buildings are rich with history as well as the people who live in them; they are rich with traditions and a way of life that has been stubborn to adapt to any influences that are not French. By the end of the week it was second nature to walk in and out of stores personally greeting the owners and taking time to marvel at a craft that is someone’s livelihood, and probably has been for generations.

It wasn't until mid-week, sitting in a Montmartre Starbucks of all places, that I fell in love. It was still the same dreary sky that blanketed Paris that morning, but spending the day climbing to the Sacre Couer cathedral captured my heart. Kelly and I spent the day on our own self-guided walking tour, winding the back roads to one of the highest hills in the city where we could see everything in Paris wonderfully illuminated beneath us. We saw Le Moulin Rouge in the morning, squeezed in a peek at Picasso’s old apartment and the Dali museum, and finally toured the Sacre Couer, or Sacred Heart. I remember looking over the city and couldn't be more grateful that Kelly took time to come to Europe with me, to see out my fascination with a city that I had been dreaming of visiting for as long as I can remember.

After getting back from Europe I was so eager to blog about our adventures so that I wouldn’t miss any memories. Time passed so quickly and I can’t believe how just now I’m sharing only fractions of what I remember from Paris. If I could spend every morning waking to the smell of the patisserie below our apartment in the 19th, or roaming the open air markets alive with such colorful produce that it seems too good to be true, I would in a heartbeat. I know that someday I will make it back to Paris. I'll try the nearly twenty five other restaurants and bakeries that we missed along the way. I would take many more days getting lost and sitting on the banks of the Seine with a good book. What Kelly and I learned was that it is impossible to cover everything that makes Paris so fantastic in one short week, and there are so many more wonderful adventures to be had. After sitting down for months hoping to finalize this post I found that finding the words to describe Paris is like trying to chercher une toilette : nearly impossible to do but once you have, it's definitely worth the wait.