Paris, France
Paris. The City of Lights. And for me, bittersweet memories as it was the last stop on our 6 week, 6 country adventure that I wished would never end. 6 weeks is a long time… long enough to start feeling as if that’s just how “life” was. Traveling around, meeting incredible people, seeing things from the textbooks I studied. 6 weeks where each day we woke up, had coffee together, and decided what incredible thing we wanted to spend our next 12ish hours doing. 6 weeks to pretend that this luxury could be a lifestyle. I’ve always said that learning is my favorite thing to do, and that’s what every moment of this trip was - learning about places and people and art, design, history, cultures. Learning about each other. Learning about myself.
We had a ton of fun in Paris - one of the most notable experiences being our first time Couchsurfing (as least, officially). For those unfamiliar with the site/concept, Couchsurfing is an Airbnb-like platform but minus the money. It is instead, a cultural exchange where the host opens their home to a traveler or two and the travelers bring the world to their hosts. The idea is that friends and stories and human connection is just as valuable as the dollar. Brandi and I stayed with this wonderful couple, Julie and Pascal, for 2 nights in the 18th arrondissement of Paris. We met them for the first time at a nearby farmers market from where they then walked us to their home. They were both from France originally and worked for the French government in Paris in different respects. Julie obviously had a bit more exposure to English in her job, whereas Pascal on the other hand looked to Julie for constant translation. This was the first time I had stayed with and befriended anyone who spoke such little English. Or should I say, the first time I had such little understanding of their language, for we were the foreign ones. Julie and Pascal were so wonderful about it, patient with us through every conversation. As I’ve said before, it was wonderfully humbling to experience being foreign. I think it’s a feeling we should all have more often.
One evening, Julie and Pascal took us to meet some of their friends at a restaurant/underground comedy club. We were wholeheartedly welcomed by the group, a few of whom spoke English very well. We had great conversation over an oh-so-French plate of cheese, meat, and bread. After an hour or so, we made our way downstairs for the show, and to our surprise, Pascal was one of the players! The show was great - I understood justtttt enough to pick out the jokes we Americans were the butt of. There’s something about a room of laughing people that is wonderfully contagious. It didn’t matter that I didn’t understand the jokes, I laughed all the same.
Paris wasn’t at all what I expected it to be. It wasn’t as picturesque as in the movies. It wasn’t as “romantic” as Lady and the Tramp made it out to be. It wasn’t a lot of the things it’s made out to be. In this, many of my expectations were unmet, but in exchange for something so much better: a wonderfully unique, beautifully imperfect city with great food, nice people, and so much to do.
