Paris Part 1

Where to start... I have no idea how this post will turn out. Usually, I have a plan in my head when I sit down and pull up my site, but this time, I have no idea. The problem is that I've usually got only one or two things to write about, but this time, so much has happened: my mom and sister coming to France, our vacation in Paris, our day trips in the south, a Rotary meeting in Chamonix, my move to my third host family, and plenty of little details in between. Even if I sat down to write about last monday morning, I'm sure I could go on and on and on. With that being said, I don't really want to spend all afternoon at the computer, so I think I will turn this big vacation into a series of tiny posts from my April vacation.

To start this little series off, I'll go all the way back to last Friday when my vacation began. I had to get up pretty early to take the TGV (high speed train) from Valence to Paris. To give you all an idea of how fast the TGV is, a usual 6 hour car ride from Privas to Paris took me about 2 hours in train. When I got to Paris by 10 a.m., I still had 5 hours before I was supposed to meet my family at the hotel. I was nervous all morning because I hadn't seen them in over 7 months and since waiting at the train station for another 5 hours wasn't going to help anything, I decided to get out and explore the city myself. Within the next hour, I found myself wandering around the Marais quarter which just so happens to be the homosexual and Jewish quarter. Seems like a strange mix. If you looked at the people walking by you, you would find two guys holding hands wearing leather chaps and conservatively dressed men with their kippahs and long beards. It was practically real-life Will & Grace!

Since I didn't really have much of a game plan, I randomly walked around a lot. This was my first time to Paris, and I was just so excited to actually be there. I bought myself falafel for lunch and found a nice park to eat it in. Everything was laid back and relaxed and I honestly had a really nice time getting lost. By 3 o'clock, I made my way over to our hotel in the Latin Quarter where I saw my family! Every worry I had about things being different melted away, and I was back to my old normal self. Most people who know me well know that around my family, I'm kind of crazy. I turn into a goofy, unpredictable, shameless joker. And I play that role quite well.

The whole afternoon passed by in a blur. It felt so weird to have them there, but at the same time, it felt like no time had passed at all. After all our hugs and greetings, we hit the streets and explored the Latin Quarter. We walked through markets with every type of cheese imaginable. We saw the Pantheon and walked through the Luxembourg Gardens, we ate at a Moroccan Restaurant for dinner, and we took a Seine River cruise that night. Everything felt perfect and weird and good. My two lives were combining for the first time and I was genuinely happy.