As I rolled up my skinny jeans and shoved them to the bottom of my camping backpack for our trip to Paris, I was suddenly struck by that prickly feeling they call excitement. I was just as excited to add another awesome stamp to my passport as I was to see the Eiffel Tower! And eat real croissants! And meander the romantic streets that so inspired the likes of Van Gogh! It was the night before our 4am flight, and I was finally allowing myself to get keyed up for our 3rd Anniversary weekend away.
But look up "excited" in a thesaurus, and you will simultaneously find "upset". Because as we know, there's good stress and bad stress, but it's all stress. I knew we were in for a memory of a lifetime, but I was getting nervous about the small stuff. Will the metros be as scary as the ones in New York? Can we get by on 6 phrases of French? Will everyone recognize us as Americans, and immediately pull out their angry eyes? Happily, 99% of the French stereotypes we found to be unjustified. People were very polite when we were polite to them, we spoke some French and they spoke some English, and we didn't feel unsafe anywhere. The 1% truth, that may as well be the 200% truth, was that the food was awesome!
After living in California, the fruit basket of America, living in Ireland has been something of an adjustment when it comes to buying fresh produce. It's just not readily available like we're used to. You have to trek out to random streets on the weekends to find good cheese, or a bag of tender baby greens. Pineapples and artichokes are a rare sight. People tell me that you have to know where to go. Well it's a sad world to me, in which grocery stores don't sell avocados year-round. BUT in France, I found figs forever, gallons of grapes, and lovely lettuces, on all the streets of Montmartre. And I fell in totally in love with that enchanting village-city. Montmartre was the dreamy older sister slowly morphing into a relic of existence, locked in a time capsule of yellow tree-lined streets and sleepy corner bistros glowing from within; not quite the sinful lady she started life as, mellowed with age. In contrast, Paris was the spicy hip sibling gushing with energy and zest, ready to swallow up her eager, camera-strapped visitors; boasting her venerable beauty like a child.
Far from my initial fears about this wonderful place, France was incredible. It turned out to be a place that we now hope to re-visit someday. It was the perfect date: extravagantly alluring, shining vistas galore, and everything bewitchingly candle-lit. Definitely an experience we'll remember for the rest of our lives.
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