What I will miss about Paris

Monday May 16th

Well we have reached the final week of our stay in Paris. We hit the road on Thursday to stay with friends in Germany for a long weekend, then we move on to Switzerland, Florence (where Paul will rejoin us) and Rome before coming home.  It has been a really great opportunity to live for almost two months in Paris and there are some things that I will really miss, and some things that I won’t.

I am really going to miss the convenience of the Metro and all the walking that we are doing.  The metro is such a great way to get around that we have not missed having a car at all.  We have been all over Paris, and even all over France from the southern coast (Nice) to the Northern Coast (Normandy) and not once have we needed a car.  Within Paris, the metro comes every 3-4 minutes and goes everywhere you need to go.  We have three stops with five different lines within a few blocks of the apartment (there are about 15 lines total). Hand in hand with the metro, we love the walking.  We walk about 4 mile daily without even trying, compared to about a mile or two each day at home.  Some days we have walked as much as  9-10 miles, but that is pretty unusual and leaves us with sore feet!  Walking is such a great way to get around, and such great exercise for us.

I will miss the beautiful weather.  We brought rain jackets and have used them once. The weather has been sunny virtually every day with temperatures from 60-70. It has been a beautiful spring here in Paris.

I will miss our unhurried mornings.  We sleep late, do some daily stretches together and eat a relaxed breakfast every morning. Our day starts when we want it to, not on some predetermined schedule. This has been very delightful.  I will miss all the time that Katie and I spent together.  We have not been apart from each other for even a few minutes since the end of March.  It has been a great time to really get to know her, outside of our normal hectic lives.  I will always treasure this time together.

I will miss the street performers and the musicians in the metro.  Some people probably find them annoying, but I have enjoyed listening to the music and watching their performances.  Some are definitely better than others. The best were the mime outside the Pompidou center and the 18 piece strong ensemble near the Palais Royal, and the worst was the puppet show on one of the metro cars.  Very often we are treated to performances on the metro cars themselves, not just in the station.  We have seen all kinds of singers, accordion players, violinists, guitarists, an acrobat, some roman gladiators and a terrible puppet show.  The performers even drag on stereo systems for accompaniment.  In the stations we have seen entire bands, string ensembles and harpists.

I will miss the daily challenges inherent in living in a new country.  Everything that is easy to do at home becomes just a little more complex here, from grocery shopping to doing the laundry to taking out the garbage.  It adds a little excitement to the mundane activities.  As a part of this I have really improved my patience in dealing with the little things. No need to get upset or become inpatient. Things take a little longer here and that’s OK.  I hope that I can take this improved patience back with me and continue to apply it in my hectic life at home. 

I will miss the less structured mealtimes that we have observed here.  We eat when we get hungry and don’t if we are not.  We don’t plan our meals by the clock or try to squeeze eating in between activities.  I think that we have been eating less and eating healthier.  I also hope to take this back with me.

I will miss trying to speak French. My ear has become gradually accustomed to hearing French and my listening comprehension is much higher than before. I hate for this to go to waste.  But conversely I won’t miss being so weary at night from the strain of communicating in other language that I just want to collapse (maybe some of that is all the walking too).

I won’t miss French food.  Maybe in the top-notch restaurants French food is something special, but in the supermarkets and the run of the mill cafes and take-out places, the selection is limited and repetitive. We have many more selections of types of food in the US, and I will be happy to get some good Mexican food, and go out for a nice pancake breakfast. I am pretty tired of baguette sandwiches, croque monsieur and even crepes.  I won’t miss having cool, not cold water, with my meals, and I look forward to free refills and the availability of water fountains.  Here you carry your water bottle with you and constantly refill it from taps in the parks, no water fountains anywhere.

I won’t miss the late sunsets.  It’s only mid-may and the sun doesn’t set until almost 9:30.  This means that it is bright outside and it is hard to think about going to bed even when you are tired.  We rarely eat dinner before 7:45 and rarely get to bed before 11, which is late for us! I prefer the sunsets that I am used to – around 8:30/9pm at the latest.

I won’t miss the small shower, the toilet in the closet, or sharing a bed with Katie.  She doesn’t kick, but I am used to a much bigger bed and would love the ability to roll over without banging into her!  I’d like to spread out in my nice king-size bed at home!

But overall, the pluses have well outweighed the minuses and this time in Paris has been time very well spent. I think the experience will stay with both of us forever. And although we leave Paris in a few days, we still have four more weeks of travel and new experiences to enjoy.