Oh! Que la Provence est belle!
I nearly wept when I stepped out of my apartment today. This is the most perfect city I have ever seen, and I fail completely at explaining it. Wide avenues, lined with trees in full foliage and bloom. Ivy and wisteria climbing walls of yellow-gold clay. Fountains at every intersection, from tiny streams to excessive, extravagant splashing pools with 13 swans and three bathing muses. Never a more perfect mix of nature and civilization have I experienced. The crowds, oh the crowds. Bustling, dancing crowds of colorful people. Accordion and violin fill every quarter (nothing makes me feel more in France). Cafes and markets, street-singers and gorgeous people.
The sunlight deserves its own stanza. The atmosphere is strange here, and the colors all live like you wouldn't believe. I stare at flowers that wouldn't shine the same way even if you took them home, and on clear days like today I barely manage without sunglasses.
Now that I'm happy here, I have only a few weeks left. But that's ok. I miss home too much, and I need something a little wilder, as much as all this order and splendor move me.
The sunlight deserves its own stanza. The atmosphere is strange here, and the colors all live like you wouldn't believe. I stare at flowers that wouldn't shine the same way even if you took them home, and on clear days like today I barely manage without sunglasses.
Now that I'm happy here, I have only a few weeks left. But that's ok. I miss home too much, and I need something a little wilder, as much as all this order and splendor move me.