Rediscovering Paris

So I suddenly found myself with a lot more time this week and this weekend than I was planning on having…mostly because I was not running around Paris with my family and doing all of the things we had planned to do together. How somehow, as it always is in this city, I am never ever at a loss of things to do, and the free time actually found me slowing down a bit, and as one can when they open their eyes and take a bit of a slower pace, I found myself seeing Paris with slightly different eyes.
Or perhaps it is not my eyes that have changed, but the city itself. Paris has quite literally transformed itself into a new place I think. It is not cold and dreary and rainy (although I loved it just as much then) but warm and the sunlight seems endless and the trees and flowers are blooming and turning green everywhere. People are outside and tourists are around, and this city that I fell in love with in the months of February and March, when I couldn’t stand to go outside without eight layers and a POS umbrella, has asked me to fall in love with it again, this time in a whole new way. I can appreciate it for its wonderfulness now, for its parks and greenspaces so carefully planned by Haussman in the late 19th century. I can appreciate walks along the Seine, and picnics by the water and afternoons exploring new quartiers that I have not had the time or the will to explore in the depths of winter. I feel like I really got to experience Paris in the Spring this weekend, which is not the experience I was hoping to have this weekend (since I really wanted my mom and grandma to be here) but I will cherish this weekend for a long time to come I think.

Friday afternoon for my lunch break I sat on the grass on the bank of the Seine and had a picnic and read my book for a while and wrote postcards to people at home. You can see here my views of the Seine and the Institute and me looking insanely happy to be right where I was, in the sun by the water and enjoying every minute of it!

Saturday afternoon Matt and I set out to picnic and read and work on our memoires in the park at the end of the Promenade plantee that we discovered last weekend with Annie, and we spent the afternoon doing work, and reading (ok Matt did a lot more work that I did) enjoying the sun because it was 75 degrees outside for the first time this year, and people watching. I love people watching. It seemed like people from all woks of life were out in the park for the afternoon. Families with small children (who I am completely obsessed with watching and ooohing and awwwing over, and lovers with bottles of wine (we might have been those people too!) and girls in bathing suits trying to look less pasty, and old couples sitting in the shade, watching the young people.
Everyone was there, but not really tourists which was nice. Real genuine Parisians spending the first genuinely warm day outside, doing exactly what we were doing. We had a picnic of sandwhiches and cheese and oranges and chips, with a bottle of wine (and some water to keep hydrated) and we literally basked in the sun, and in our afternoon. It was really really wonderful. I could have been more productive, but it was a wonderful afternoon. We then went to find an afternoon treat (gelato from our favorite place at Bastille!) and explore an art market that is out at Bastille every weekend.

We continued our romantic evening and went to a really cool wine store that we found, where you can go down into the huge wine store, pick your bottle of wine, ranging in price from 9euro to 665 euro in price, and then you can take the bottle to the café upstairs and for only the price of the bottle they will open it and serve it to you, and you can be as fancy or not as you like. Needless to say we chose one of the less expensive bottles, but sitting in the café it is easy to pretend you are high French society drinking fancy French wine… even if the bottle only cost 10euro. It was really fun! We then ventured over to a place near the IMA in the quartier latin and had a cheap Panini for dinner (so yummy!) and went to one of our favorite hangout spots to watch a soccer game. It was a lovely day, and I really felt like Paris was new, the same but new, fresher and prettier, and more exciting than ever.

Sunday was just another day of exploring. Matt and I made our way to the Musee D’Orsay to see the paintings I studied in my modern art and modernity class freshman year. From there we walked all the way down along the Seine, admiring the wears the bouquinistes have to sell in their little carts and breathing in the warm Spring air. It was lovely!
We sat outside and ate dinner at our favorite Breton Crepe restaurant near Centre Pompidou, and talked about how Paris has become home, how it has really become our city, and how much fun it is to rediscover it in this way as the seasons have changed and I find myself changing with it, and turning my eyes to the future, knowing that I will be back, I will have to be back in this country and in this city again, and nothing could stand in my way.