Un dimanche à Paris - 'Il ya quatre ans...'

Written on the Eurostar, London to Paris, October 13,  2009

Am I crazy?

Yes. Yes, I am.

Also anxious and frightened and a little excited.

Some say brave, but I believe that, really, it's naivety feigning courageousness.

I never thought I'd be one of those people that pack up their lives and run away overseas. I guess it's because I never had anything to run from. My job was excellent, my apartment lovely, my friends gorgeous and my family bearable. And yet, threaten to take just one of these away, albeit a pretty necessary one, I find myself self a half-citizen of a country whose language I can't speak, moving to another country whose language I speak poorly, in the exact same predicament I was back home, less somewhere to live, any close friends and my family. And, so, this is why I think I'm absolutely mad.

Four years ago to the day today, shortly after typing the above out whilst somewhere under water in the English channel, I arrived with two enormous suitcases, a laptop bag, camera bag, stomach full of butterflies and one of my best friends.

The days following were filled with wonderful vacation-worthy trips to Ladurée, Printemps and Versailles (two, actually, we went on a Monday, silly us, when the Chateau is closed, so spent the next day there, also), and I didn't yet feel like I was living here. That was until I went with my friend to CDG, drank a flavourless orange juice in complete misery while we waited for her flight, and completely drained my eyeballs on the trip back to city. I, then, promptly went to the supermarket to buy myself tetrapacks of soup and got a job. 

Today is, therefore, not yet my "Paree-versary" - this I will celebrate in two weeks time, which is how long it was until my very good friend left me to head home, ending her vacation, thereby ending mine also, and as such I commenced "living here".

**Amazing fig, chevre, thyme and honey tartine, which finished a splendid puppy run in the sun at Vincennes today, from here; leblasonhotel.com

xx