Amber Rose McConnell in Paris
Added 2017-12-22 22:32:04 +0000 UTCThe first time I set foot in Paris I fell in love. We boarded the train in London and set off arriving in France the fall of 2011. The cool air fell around us, and I stared at every place the language was written with stupor. I didn't grow up expecting life to take me to the places I had read about. My family didn't travel, didn't see the world that was for other people, not me.
I try to treat every trip like I will never be back. Like I could wake up tomorrow and find that its all gone, so that I savor every moment, and chase each photo or experience, but some times I do return, and its like seeing a friend I forgot I had.
The first time I set foot in Paris I fell in love. Then that love lingered, faded, became a memory of a place I had been with great food, tiny hotels, kind bus drivers, a tower that I was unexpectedly moved by. The second time I set foot in Paris I fell in love...again. I didn't expect it. I thought seeing so much more of the world would diminish my first trip out of the country, maybe I didn't remember it correctly, but I did.
We flew into France from Iceland, and for the first time I saw the Eiffel Tower from the sky, and I was back in love again, before I had read my first word. After Iceland we needed a break from killing ourselves in nature to create, and in Paris we found it. Shooting in out hotel rooms, drinking cheap french wine and whiskey, eating more cheese than any reasonable person should consume, I so rarely find myself feeling at peace in a city, but in Paris I just did. I saw the Louvre, the Mona Lisa, walked the Seine, saw the rats at play below the Eiffel Tower, and I created with my people.
I know now I'll be back. I can't treat every trip like the last because I have more time than I thought before.
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