pause in reality

hi. it's friday finally, of a slightly gloomy week. cold and wet and gray outside, i'm trying to ignore the uber-blegh atmosphere and instead focus on the memories of my stupendously wonderful vacation in paris last week.

i visited paris 5 years ago, as a rising senior in high school. after 4.5 weeks in rouen, our "summer study abroad" group celebrated the end of the trip by spending a few last days in the city of lights. it was a hectic, whirlwind tour of the french capital with timed stops at all the renowned tourist sights and a bit of "legal" drinking.. haha. but it was fun... and since then, i've always wanted to go back to visit.

maybe it's 'cause paris is the only european city i've really been to. who knows..

so i went back last week. with my man. hehe. :)

and it was soooooooo good. in all honesty, i can't come up with a better word than "good" -- it was solidly good. magical and relaxing and wondrous and lovely and funny and good. go find a thesaurus. we arrived, via london heathrow (more on this later) on british airways, on monday afternoon.. and left (sniffle) paris the following sunday morning.

we visited most of the typical touristy places -- le tour eiffel, arc de triomphe, la place de la concorde, l'hotel des invalides, musee d'orsay, louvre, notre dame, sacre coeur, le champs-elysses, etc.. (apologies, but i think in french not english names). but we also spent so much time just wandering around the non-touristy neighborhoods... and those were the bestest.

bookstores and little toy shops and open, fresh food markets (oh yummmmm). lots of boulangeries and patisseries (bread shops and pastry places, more yummm).. wine and cafes and doing the french thing by watching people pass by. benches in church plazas, cobblestone streets next to middle schools, kids chasing pigeons, hilarious chinese and thai restaurants, taking naps on the grass in front of the eiffel tower... mmm, it makes me smile. :)

i didn't fail miserably at communicating either. in fact, and boy would my french teachers be proud, i did pretty damn well at listening and responding and asking and requesting. all in relatively-non-garbled french. go me! go me! haha, i guess i still remember my 5 years of french.. yay. and i brought both cameras, so good photos.

just yay.




my mom (and apparently, my brother too) reacted with a "WHAAAAAAT?! " when i told her (on the day before i left, hehe) that i'd be spending a week in paris with willie. so now la familia is probably speculating and giggling and assuming and imagining the most interesting scenarios ever. great, i'll get to deal with 20-questions at christmastime...

by the way, heathrow sucks ass. who wants to shop while at an airport? and not only shop but also spend POUNDS. ugh, my luck with delayed/missed/canceled flights is amazing...

ahh.. back to reality. but man, i really liked that pause. pauses are nice, aren't they?

happy friday, peeps.