In which I fall in love (again)
I don't have enough time to provide a full update -- November has started and with it, my frantic novel-writing; by this time next week, I will be in Barcelona, about to depart for Marrakesh, and very little of that is planned yet, aside from plane tickets and a place to sleep -- but I find it necessary to relate that I spent a long weekend in Paris and fell in love.
It's a different kind of love from the one I feel for London. Queen Mary is another "home" now, and this city feels contentedly mine in a way that only Berkeley really rivals. I still remember the first time I ever went to London, with my hopes all up, and I got this giddy feeling the instant I stepped off the plane, like being there had turned on some kind of switch and lit up something new.
Paris wasn't like that -- I landed at Charles de Gaulle airport at about ten in the morning Paris time, after having been awake since four in the morning London time in order to get to the airport, etc. I don't know when it hit me that I was actually there. But once it did? The beginning of a beautiful friendship.
I've always loved French history. It's part of the reason why I like romanticism so much -- it's a literary and artistic movement inspired in large part by the actions of the revolutionaries in France in 1789. I spent the summer reading and re-reading A Tale of Two Cities and thus getting to know Dickens's Paris like the back of my hand. When I was walking the streets, everything came back to me, and even if I didn't have a map in my head, I could tell you who the streets were named after. I love London for its history, as well, but the history in Paris has a different flavor to it, something I can't quite pin down.
In four days, I saw so much that I had wanted to see -- everything, in fact, that was on my list, and more besides. And yet I still know that there is plenty that will pull me back. It's hard to say that I like it better than other places I've been, because all European cities are different, and admirable for different reasons. But still, I think it wouldn't be entirely incorrect to state that, after London, Paris is the second most amazing city I've seen in Europe, and that I know I'll be returning.
It's a different kind of love from the one I feel for London. Queen Mary is another "home" now, and this city feels contentedly mine in a way that only Berkeley really rivals. I still remember the first time I ever went to London, with my hopes all up, and I got this giddy feeling the instant I stepped off the plane, like being there had turned on some kind of switch and lit up something new.
Paris wasn't like that -- I landed at Charles de Gaulle airport at about ten in the morning Paris time, after having been awake since four in the morning London time in order to get to the airport, etc. I don't know when it hit me that I was actually there. But once it did? The beginning of a beautiful friendship.
I've always loved French history. It's part of the reason why I like romanticism so much -- it's a literary and artistic movement inspired in large part by the actions of the revolutionaries in France in 1789. I spent the summer reading and re-reading A Tale of Two Cities and thus getting to know Dickens's Paris like the back of my hand. When I was walking the streets, everything came back to me, and even if I didn't have a map in my head, I could tell you who the streets were named after. I love London for its history, as well, but the history in Paris has a different flavor to it, something I can't quite pin down.
In four days, I saw so much that I had wanted to see -- everything, in fact, that was on my list, and more besides. And yet I still know that there is plenty that will pull me back. It's hard to say that I like it better than other places I've been, because all European cities are different, and admirable for different reasons. But still, I think it wouldn't be entirely incorrect to state that, after London, Paris is the second most amazing city I've seen in Europe, and that I know I'll be returning.