ONE WEEK IN

I am in Paris, really in Paris. The smell of bread baking and expensive perfume wafts through the air… I kid, the overwhelming aroma is urine, rubbish and that sweet pollution but that doesn’t mean I love it any less, nothing’s perfect right? I arrived over a week ago and it is strangely like I’ve never been away. It was five years ago when I last lived in Paris - as a closeted, anxiety ridden, homesick graduate, may I add - oh how life changes and here I am, onward to another big change. 

A train, taxi ride, many cups of tea, a car ride and five flights of stairs later I found myself in a fifteen meter square studio amid the rooftops of the premier arrondissement of Paris, my fifteen meter square for the next year, of this forever bewildering life. Streets below are all hustle; queues forming round the corners every lunch for the ample options of Japanese and Korean eateries, tourists dawdling their way to the Louvre while those work bound are all elbows and clip clapping the tarmac. 

One week in and my feet are still aching as I discover my cartier, run around the Tuileries and take every opportunity to soak in Paris under blue skies. I am feeling thankful for the people I work for, the familiar faces I have in this stimulating city, the proximity of home and the escapism amid the countryside that comes with it. So far, I’ve been overwhelmed beyond words as I stumble through the nerves and anxiety to communicate in this damn language that I, for some reason, adore. 

I would like to document some grand plans I have for my time in Paris right now, but honestly there aren’t any except for finally getting to grips with the language then from then on, I’ll see what happens. There are no career goals, no relationship goals, no fitness goals. I want to carry on being, I worked hard on being, appreciating my body and mind and the way they work and I am not going to allow the pressure to keep up with the city life ruin hard work, it’s not worth it. 

This is a somewhat rambling mere introduction… there’ll be tales of drunken evenings by the canal (because, that happens); visits to galleries and museums; discovering hidden corners of Paris; and meeting many a new and interesting people to come. My hopes with this corner of the world wide web is to document my time in Paris, for future me wherever she is and for those who I love and want to share this crazy story with. 

(Photos are my own, taken during a left bank stroll)