Take Me To Paris

Here we are again in France, inspired by a shirt I purchased Monday night. I live out of a suitcase so was quite dismayed to realize that my winter clothes were still predominant in the suitcase but the weather had crept around to summer where I was going to be the whole week and I needed some clothes. This meant a trip to the mall.

My daughter is now with me in this crazy transient work life and we were excited to find an actual mall. One with stores….indoors…. She went off to Claire’s to find some earrings and I went to Christopher & Banks with very good intentions of perusing the bargain rack. Really, they were good intentions. All was going well until I got a phone call for work that caused me to stray to another part of the store for privacy and next to the $40 not really t-shirts but sort of…..

There is was……
Bright colors, French scenes and the words “Take me to Paris” on the front. My need for clothes quickly dropped to one shirt. THAT ONE.

Anyone who has been to Paris knows what I mean. Forget what you have heard about rude people etc. For the most part the only rude people I met were other foreigners. Not Parisians. As long as I tried to speak French and was polite happy people treated me well. It was everything the movies and Disneyland made it out to be and the dogs were delightful and everywhere, funny enough, not many French poodles. I saw quite a few beagles, and larger hunting dogs. All pampered and well loved.

Every once in a while my daughter calls me when she and her friends are picnicking at the Eiffel Tower. It is so fun. You sit on this big lawn behind it and drink wine out of a bottle (or pudding cups but that’s another story), call you friends and tell passing bums “No I don’t have any cigarettes”. Then you wait for the tower to light up and sparkle, which it does on the hour for 5 minutes. Everyone says “OHHHHHHHH”. If it starts to rain it will probably stop and you won’t melt. Drink more wine.

I like Paris best right after it rains. The streets are wet and it looks like all the paintings. The rain glimmering off of trees, cobblestones, decorative iron railings and street lamps, truly magical.

I would love to spend part of today sitting on the steps of Sacre Coeur listening to random people play music and looking over the pastel city. Spend some time wandering through Montmartre looking at all the artwork of the locals, have an espresso or two and make some art of my own with some snaps of my shutter.

I would get to Notre Dame just at twilight. Take some pictures of the river and then get some of the rarified air and sense of peace in the cathedral before heading off for a little bit of dinner and shopping in the Latin Quarter.

Time to hop the metro to get back to my little place, grab a nutella banana crepe from the cart warm in my hands and think about tomorrow….cafe (coffee) at the Café and lunch at Pere Lachaise

Please. Take me to Paris.