Paris Au Revoir

After over 7 weeks living here and touring bars, hotels, sights, and bars (wait, I said that already, didn't I?), Paris has really grown on me. Or more accurately, I've grown on Paris. People come here and expect romance, architecture, and baguettes, and leave with a better understanding of Indian food, how to say "piss off" in Romanian, and maybe some minor salsa dacing skills. Being a fast paced, often cold city, Paris causes you to throw up your guard upon arrival, but it's not until you finally let that down that you learn a few things. Whether it's a healthy sense of skepticism, a better enjoyment of living life from one cup of espresso to the next, or blowing off that museum because it's sunny out, Paris forces you to change some behaviors. Like most changes, you'll try and fight it (and fail) but it's not until you give up and just go with it that you learn the place from the inside out and not the other way around.

Unfortunately some of the best stories were those that can't be published, as my grandparents (and most likely some authorites) read this blog. Some highlights that I can divulge include having your "bonsoir" corrected to "bonjour" when you leave a bar at closing to get pains au chocolat, having French tourists ask YOU for directions and being able to answer in accented French leaving them terribly embarassed and confused, being able to spot Americans from the volume of their voices alone, and (most of all) being annoyed at the Eiffel Tower. I'd imagine it works like that wherever you live (adjusted for certain cultural differences of course). Especially with travel, having the balls to step out of your comfort zone is the most rewarding risk you'll ever take. France just has some strict guidelines of social behavior that you have to follow, but once you learn them, you're all set.

While I'm not leaving Paris yet, the coverage for Paris is done and I will finally have the chance to be a normal human being (as normal as I can be). No sense of urgency to knock out the rest of the museums in the Marais, not begrudgingly bar hopping until 3am, and most of all not having to climb church towers. I've seen it and done it all, and now I have the chance to research the slower parts of the country: Tours, Orléans, and Blois. If anyone needs me, I'll be having milk maids hand serve me fromage blanc while lying on a stack of hay under some old château (that is, after I climb to the top of it).