Malawi Bound.

Children in Malawi

Over the last two years I've gone back and forth a few dozen (or hundred dozen) times about going on a volunteer trip to Africa. I was definitely going last summer, until I wasn't. Classes, money, scheduling-it all got in the way. And then I was definitely going this summer. Until I wasn't. 

And now, improbably, wonderfully, I am going. I've confirmed my place on a Habitat for Humanity trip to Malawi. I've sent in my deposit. I am booked and set for May 25. 

In my latest and last fit of "should I, shouldn't I", I googled my favorite Tennyson poem (excuse me while I go gag at how pretentious that sounds, I swear I'm not even a poetry person, but this poem speaks to the depths of my soul, Mr. Tennyson and I, we are sympatico, soul twins, at least in regards to the meaning of these words). This is what it says, and this is not the first time I've posted it on my blog. 

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vexed the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honoured of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life. Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this grey spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

I am a part of all that I have met. As though to breathe were life. Life piled on life were all too little.

I kept reading those words, and suddenly the million reasons I had not go go (money, the need to get a job in May, money, money) meant nothing to me. Travel, without question, has been the great, enduring, freaking love of my life. If you come to my apartment, you will see that my walls are covered with travel pictures. And I want to emphasize that this isn't to show off. This isn't because they're pretty.

It's because my soul aches for these experiences. My soul is at peace when I'm surrounded by the memories of these places. I love that phrase in the Ulysses poem, that "I am a part of all that I have met." You would think it's the other way around. That the places you go become a part of you. But it's not like that. I feel like I've left little pieces of myself all over the globe. And that sounds sad and like it would make you feel less whole. But it's just the opposite. Every where I go, every new country I visit, every time I leave a part of my heart behind, I feel more grounded, more connected to this whole, big, crazy, beautiful world. My heart beats and I can hear it echo in Thailand, in Italy, in India, in France, Ireland, in Haiti. 

And it's been almost two years since I've traveled, and I miss it ferociously. Because I adore every aspect of traveling, good and bad, exhausting and smelly. The other big reason I finally just say yes to this trip happened when I was looking up flights to Malawi. I saw that the trip itself would take over a day, that there would be layovers in strange countries like Ethiopia, that individual flights would stretch over 13 hours.

And I couldn't think of anything I wanted more. To be completely honest I can't think of times I've felt more acutely, to the edge of my skin alive than when I'm red eyed and greasy haired in some Godforsaken airport bathroom, on an endless layover in the middle of the night, between two endless flights, when I don't know what time zone I'm in or barely what country I'm in, when I'm sleep deprived and smell like some particularly pungent mix of airport fast food and airplane coffee. That's just it for me. Bottle that and I will buy it for all the money I have. Not everyone would think so highly of those experiences. For some people that might be the definition of hell. But for me, for me it's just everything.

And there was one more big, possibly the biggest, reason why I finally said yes. I mentioned on my last blog that a girl I knew from my Haiti trip, went missing on Mt. Rainier more than a month ago. I've thought a lot about Haiti these last few weeks, because whenever I think about Michelle I think of Haiti. I've thought about how profoundly important Haiti was for me. It was my first volunteer trip, the first time I traveled that wasn't just for me. I made a promise to myself after Thailand that from that point when I traveled I would try to do it in a volunteer capacity. Because I had been so stinking lucky. It was ridiculous really, how lucky I had been to go to the places I had been to. It was time to give back, time to use traveling to help people, because traveling had given me so much already. 

And Haiti was the first extension of that promise. It's such a cliche to say that a trip to disaster rocked, poverty stricken nation changes your life, but it just did. For a solid week I lived every second with purpose, every second feeling like I was doing my best (not always succeeding) to help people. I had purpose. And when I went home, I didn't want to go back to not feeling that way. I didn't want to go back to floating, to applying for writing and editing jobs and feeling sorry for myself when I didn't get them. So I decided to go into nursing, because I knew that nursing would give me that purpose for the rest of my life, the sense that what I was doing meant something, could help people. 

And so the more I've thought about Michelle, and Haiti, the harder it was to say no to Africa. It's hardly a selfless trip. It's been a dream for a long time to go to Africa. But the reason I'm going this way is because it also won't be an entirely selfish trip. It exists somewhere in the middle, between personal interests and a genuine desire to help people. 

And finally, thinking about Michelle made me realize something else as well. When I first heard what happened to her, I found myself thinking how senseless, how senseless to lose your life on some camping expedition on a mountain, what a waste. But very quickly I realized how wrong that thought is, how that thought is borne of fear, not of truth. 

What happened to Michelle was a waste only in the sense that she's gone. But she didn't waste her life. She did the opposite. She was living her life. Whenever you go on a trip like the one we did to Haiti, you tend to bond with people no matter how different they are from you, because anyone who will get on a plane and fly to a foreign country where they don't know anyone, shares your particular brand of crazy. It's this great little club we have, all of us who feel more at home in ourselves when we're a million miles away from home, who can understand ourselves better outside of our comfort zone, whose lives just make a little more sense when traveling. 

I didn't know Michelle well, but I'm guessing that personality took her to Mt. Rainier, to a snowy mountain in a far away state. No, it wasn't senseless what happened to her. A senseless death is having an anvil fall on top of you while you're on your couch watching TV. A senseless death would be getting hit by a car in your driveway. What happened to Michelle had nothing to do with death in fact and so much more to do with life, with living it the way you want, with making what you dream become a reality. 

That's how I want to live my life. Because it's just too short to do otherwise. Because I know for a fact when I'm old and gray, I won't say, "Gosh, I wish I hadn't gone to Africa so I'd have a couple thousand more dollars to give away in my will." 

But I would have regretted it immensely if I hadn't gone. That's where regret comes from, the things we don't do or say.

So I have two requests now, at the end of this very long-whinded blog.

First of all, whatever you have in your back pocket, that trip to take or choice to make or question to ask or whatever you've been debating about, please just do it. I can tell you without even knowing what it is (unless of course you've been debating about going off the deep end and running through town naked, that maybe don't do), to just do it. 

Second, I've started a page through Habitat for Humanity to fundraise for my trip. If I raise $0 I will still go. But a little will definitely help this poor, crazy student whose mother would rather her put this money to more practical uses like rent or food. I can tell you after what I saw in Haiti, that sometimes the best way to donate money is to do it like this, where your money helps put people on the ground. Because it's not anonymous that way. Any money I earn will directly help me build a house for someone who desperately needs it. And so any donation I get I will take as not for me so much as for the person who will be living in that house, that person in Africa who seems far away, but who really is much closer than you think.

Because the world, in the end, is pretty small. You just don't realize it if you never try to see it. 

http://www.habitat.org/cd/gv/participant/participant.aspx?pid=93627348 (my partipant page with a donation button-completely tax deductible since Habitat is a certified non-profit)

The last few weeks.

I've been MIA from this blog for one big reason-my spring semester started and proceeded to kick and scream at me drill sergeant style until I was curled up into a ball, clutching my Drug Book and muttering/weeping about cholinergic agonists.

And the truth; I miss it terribly. This blog means a great deal to me. Writing this blog is important, both on a personal and creative level. I feel like writing to me is what water is to a shark. I stop doing it, and I suffocate.

So I'm going to do my best to not stay away so long. No matter how busy and crazy life is, I need to return here, often. There's no way I can touch on everything that has happened the last few weeks, but here are the high/low points.

-Nursing school this semester, like I said before, has just completely kicked my butt. I still honestly love what I'm learning and find things like fluid and electrolyte balance more fascinating than I probably should (the only thing not fascinating this semester-INFORMATICS-a completely BS class that I could rant about forever, but I'll restrain myself). I love interacting with my patients, especially when they're a little sassy. I got to see a cardiac catheterization which blew my mind. There hasn't been a moment this semester that has made me feel uncertain about this career path. But wow, is it hard. It's unyielding, just this monster in constant need of being fed with exams and projects and reflections (oh the dreaded reflection, my school's BFF), and it has worn me out to within an inch of my life. And it's only week 5. But there is a light at the end of the tunnel and it is called SUMMER BREAK.

-I am in love with my new apartment. Well let me preface that. I have major issues with the interior of my apartment building (which hasn't been maintained since 1954) and most of my weird, smelly (dirty, stinkin' smokers don't realize that their dirty, stinkin' smoke stinks up not just their individual apartments, but EVERYTHING within a 5 mile radius), LOUD (right now the people downstairs are either playing rock band or just singing at the top of their lungs for no reason on a Tuesday evening). But those things aside, I love my apartment. I love my big windows and my wood floors, and just having my own space. I will post pictures soon, but I have spent far too much time and money getting it exactly how I want it. The best way I can describe it that I've made it my mission to fill it with things that are bright and cozy and that make my heart full (this includes but is not limited to my blanket and pashmina from India, a billion travel pictures, some awesome consignment and antique finds, furniture provided by mom and dad, a billion pictures of friends and family, brightly colored rugs,little happy Buddhas, reminders of Charleston, and just all things happy and lovely and that make me feel like I'm living in a cocoon of delightfulness). It might all clash. It might make no sense to anyone else. But to me it's perfect. I open the door and I smile.

-On a related note, I have a problem. You know how some people are stress eaters? Okay that's a bad example because I'm kind of that too. Although to be fair I'm also a stress exerciser-so it sort of balances out. But I digress. How I've been dealing with stress this semester is by stress shopping, specifically for my aforementioned apartment. It's not great for my bank account. But it's just so fun. I have lost myself again and again on Etsy and more often in Lakeside consignment stores or at the West Broad antiques mall, where I can spend literally hours browsing through all of that wonderfully old stuff. I realize that I'm turning more and more into my mother as I get older. And one of the ways this is manifesting lately is my love of consignment and antiques. And it's just so much more fun to shop at one of those places that at say, Pottery Barn. Because Potter Barn has nice stuff but it's just stuff, you know? At antique or consignment stores, you're not looking at just stuff, you're looking at things that were a part of people's lives, that meant something, that witnessed who knows what kinds of things-new babies brought home, people moving in together, a first apartment. For a sentimental schmuck like me, a Southern one at that who has an almost Pavlovian weepy response to any mention of the past, there's nothing more rewarding than spending a lazy afternoon consignment/antique hunting and/or bringing those items home, giving them a new reincarnation in a new story. I need to stop. I cannot use this as my stress relief for the next two years, because I will become a hoarder. But at least lately it's kept me sane. And I do have my eye out for some fruit crates to use as magazine holders. And an old fashioned wastebasket. And....

-Richmond theater is nuts right now in terms of new shows opening left and right. If you don't know, it's the start of the Acts of Faith festival, and last year, the festival was responsible for some of the year's most challenging, unique, just all around great theater. Two I've seen so far-Lord of the Flies and Always...Patsy Cline. I loved them both. I thought Debra Wagoner in Patsy Cline was just beautiful. Her voice didn't fill the room, it infused it. It connected every single person in that theater to not just Patsy and her songs, but to everything that's beautiful about music. Lord of the Flies was decidedly darker, with sadly no musical numbers (minus "Kill the pig, spill his blood" chanting), but I still thought it was great. I reviewed it and am too lazy to link, but if you're so inclined look it up on Richmond.com!

-Lastly, and on a far different note, I found out a couple of weeks ago that Michelle Trojanowski, a girl I went to Haiti was missing on Mt. Rainier. At the time it seemed like the story could end on a happy note. There were rescue missions going on. There was hope. She and three other hikers have been missing now for almost a month. I haven't talked to Michelle since the first couple of weeks back from Haiti when we all exchanged emails a few times to talk about how strange it was to come home. I've kept up with her somewhat on Facebook, seen her statuses, followed updates from her life, updates that I always paid attention to because they reminded me of how I always want to approach life-with joy and passion for both the big and little details. I probably would never have seen Michelle again in person. But still I feel connected to her, like I do with everyone who was on that trip with me, like I always will. It was one week, such a short amount of time, but it was without question one of the most important weeks of my life. When I'm old and gray I know it will still be one of the most important weeks of my life. It changed me. It changed the course of my life. And because of that everyone who was there is important to me, will continue to be important to me. We went through it together. We saw shattering poverty and despair and hunger and senseless destruction together. We saw hope and kindness together. We tried to make sense of it, tried to help in some small way, together.

Right now it seems impossible that Michelle's story will have a happy ending, no matter how much people hope (and I've been small witness to just how many people have hoped desperately and with their whole hearts for Michelle over the last few weeks, which I'm sure is only the tip of the iceberg to the amount of love there is for this girl out there, who I remember as unflinchingly generous and abundantly kind, even in the hardest of situations). I cannot fathom what her family and friends are going through, what they have gone through. It's just a terrible, sad, ridiculously unfair situation. And I've tried to hold on to hope, to send all of my good thoughts and support the way of her family and friends, and to pray that no matter what, no matter where she is, Michelle is okay.

So that's been my life the last few weeks, alternately full and silly and stressful and achingly sad. I know I ended on a downer note, but the whole situation has reinforced for me what I have always known but have a hard time remembering-life is short and fragile and unpredictable. We have so little control over it. And it can be stressful and tiring.

But God aren't we lucky to have it. My life is full. My life is crazy. My life is good.

And I promise I will do my best spending a little more of it here.

Ch ch changes.

I am officially "moved-in" to my new apartment. Which makes it strange that I'm writing this from the comfort of my parent's bed (don't worry, they're not in it, or here for that matter since they're both out of town, I'm not that regressed).

There were a lot of reasons why I wasn't ready to spend the night in my apartment. Valid ones too. My linens weren't washed, and I don't like sleeping on barren mattresses. I had no clothes packed, or toiletries. My kitchen was empty. There were still things to be unpacked and organized, routers to be bought and connected, and who can sleep in a messy, half-finished apartment without internet?

But my super not-so-secret, top priority reason is that I needed one more night, one more night in my parent's house before I ventured out into the great wide world of apartment living, which I think makes me officially the lamest 26 year old alive. I expect a commemorative plaque with that title to arrive any moment.

Here's the thing. I am thrilled about my new apartment. It's in an old pre-war brick building on a gorgeous block of Monument. The building is ramshackle and slightly falling apart, but my apartment, well I just love it. Not because it's fancy-the kitchen is so small that if I gain any weight I may have to stop using it. The closet is so small that I can fit three dresses and one pair of shoes in it, if I squeeze them. But there are wood floors and these enormous windows that look out onto Monument and fill the place with light. The living room is big and spacious and the bedroom is small and cozy. When I visited it way back in September there were dirty hippies living there (or so I guessed judging by the state it was in), but I instantly knew it was the right place, because it spoke to me. I saw through the grime and Bob Marley posters and knew that with a little paint, a lot of cleaning fluid, and some creative decorating it would be perfect. And it would be mine. And a 26 year old woman needs that, somewhere that is hers, somewhere to live out all of those That Girl and more recently, Friends, fantasies-a place to be young and independent and footloose and fancy-free.

I can't have that at my parent's house. And I knew it was time to move on. But still, tonight, unmistakably, alongside my considerable excitement, there's this tinge of sadness. I looked in on my old room, with its bare floors and big empty space, and I couldn't help but feel, well, sad.

Change is sad. And that's just the truth. And it should be. There's not a lot I know with any kind of authority. But I feel confident saying that change has to be sad, for it to matter in any real way in the context of a life. We feel change deep in our metaphorical hearts, and even metaphorically, that heart works the same as its literal counterpart. It's a muscle. And in order for any kind of change or growth to happen, for it to get stronger, there has to be pain. You've got to feel it down to your bones, and it's got to ache.

You know how you can convince yourself that you can get fit with exercise that's "easy"? Honestly I spent years thinking that. I would do any kind of exercise except the kind that hurt. And I never got fitter or stronger. I never physically changed.

And it's just the exact same way with change. If it's change that matters, if it's a change that will make you better, will make you stronger or newer or different, then it's going to hurt. Tonight I'm a little sad about this new step in my life. And thank God for that, because it means I'm doing the right thing.

Because when it comes down to it, we have two choices in life. We can always do what's safe and easy, and stagnate. Or we can take a deep breath, and walk straight into change, and the sadness that precedes it, with our eyes wide open.

Paris.

I watched Midnight in Paris last night, and I think Woody Allen snuck into my brain, stole my identity, and then rewrote me as Owen Wilson's character. It was just such a beautiful love letter of a movie, sweet and charming, and just full to the brim with the feeling of not simply Paris, but what Paris can do to a person, particularly if that person is overly romantic and nostalgic and sentimental about such things.  I feel exactly the same way about Paris that Owen Wilson does in the movie, that it's more or less perfect, and that the only thing really up for debate is not whether or not it's beautiful, but about when it's  most beautiful, during the day or at night, in the sun or rain. And like his character I would give my left foot to go back to Paris in the 20s, to meet the Fitzgeralds and Hemingway, T.S. Eliot and Picasso, Dali and Gertrude Stein. When I studied abroad in Paris, my school was right in the heart of Montparnasse, and every day I would walk past all of the old cafes, Le Dome, La Coupole, and just think about what it must have been like, to be in a city so bursting with genius and passion and everyone so consumed with art and creative expression, but still full of life, ready at a moment to go out drinking and to parties or to the South of France.

I could write about Paris today, six (SIX!) years after I left it, but Paris shouldn't exist in faded memory. It should be vibrant and colorful, right at the surface of things. So I turned to my old mass emails I saved from my time there, and I found one that sums up that lovely city and all the love I had at 20, still have at 26, and will always have, until I'm old and gray

The Things I Will Miss About Paris:

-the Luxembourg Gardens by school, going there for a literature class with Philippe (aka my most favoritest professor), or taking a sandwich and sitting in the shade underneath a tree, watching groups of old men take their games of Bocci ball incredibly seriously conferring amongst themselves and walking around in slow circles like professional golfers calculating the distance of a crucial put.

 -The museums, whether it's the airy train station of the Musee d'Orsay with its endless spacious rooms of Monets and Van Goghs and Renoirs; the luxurious, dauntingly massive Louvre with its giant glass pyramids giving way to corridors and galleries of classical French decadence and classical art brilliance; the Picasso museum housed in a mansion in the Marais with painting after painting of Picasso's beautifully bizarre style especially my favorite, the achingly distorted image titled simply, "the woman who cries"; the Rodin museum, with one delicate, perfectly fluid statue after another and views out to one of the most amazing private garden's in Paris where Rodin himself spent his days and months; the Marmottan museum which starts off modestly but then suddenly after a flight of staircases, leads to the largest collection of Monets in France, including the painting that was the starting point for the entire Impressionist movement; the Centre Pompidou, or the inside out museum, with its crazy tubing and colors standing defiantly in contrast with the old Paris of the Marais surrounding it; and all of the tiny, hidden museums like the Gustave Moreau museum or the Delacroix Museum which are so easily passed by without a single notice yet which hold undeniable masterpieces in their small frames. And I'll miss being able to go to each of these places for free, thanks to my "Art History Major" student ID which Hollins managed to get us all despite well, none of us being art history majors. 

 -The Metro, being able to get anywhere in Paris in a fairly easy manner, and more importantly being able to get to these places while simultaneously reading a book and listening to music. I'm going to miss the way the metro holds the diversity you sometimes don't see in the streets above, the way Paris is suddenly stripped of its chic-ness and beauty and made to be flawed and human. I'll miss the fact that not only do the different lines in Paris have their own distinct character but even the different stations do, the way line 6 is my personal favorite because it goes above ground for a while and offers one of the best view in Paris, the Eiffel Tower looming big and majestic over the Seine with the miniature Statue of Liberty replica in the foreground on a small island and the Sacre Coeur perched on the top of Montmartre visible in the distance; Line 1 which comes in a close second because it's air conditioned and has automatic doors and takes me straight to the Marais. I'm going to miss stations like Concorde with its maze of blue letters printed on white tiles that if you look closely enough at you can start to make out words and phrases, or the Louvre Rivoli stop which might as well be part of the museum, or the Bastille stop with its mural of historical paintings. I'm going to miss the Metro entrances. I'm going to miss drunken rides on the metro late at night with my friends, and being able to drink straight from wine bottles and not have to worry about being immediately arrested. 

 -The Boulangeries. There is no such thing as a bad bakery in Paris. The bread is always fresh and always 80 centimes. The pastries are always sugary heaven, and the baguette sandwiches are always dependably delicious. I'm going to miss my neighborhood boulangerie with its lunchtime line stretching half a block but soo worth it. I'm going to miss the way each boulangerie puts its unique stamp on the art of a pain au chocolate, with varying degrees of sweetness in the chocolate, but never too sweet. 

 - Crepes Nutella. Somehow the cheapest thing you can get in France is one of the most unbelievable, especially when it's done right, with the crepe cooked just enough but still warm and soft, and the Nutella melted slightly so that its perfectly oozy. If you haven't had one of these, quite simply my friends, you haven't lived.

 -The Seine, while not as mighty as the James or nearly as large, the Seine has an appeal that does not diminish no matter how many times you've walked across it (which was a lot, there's a lot of bridges in Paris). It's a much a part of the city as Notre Dame or the Louvre, just as integral and just as beautiful. I will never get tired of walking alongside its banks and looking at the different vendors selling antique post cards or used books, and I will never get tired of the way it shines at night. 

 -English language bookstores and American diners. One thing that being abroad offers that you can't get at home is the feeling of being a foreigner, and more importantly the feeling you get when you're around other foreigners, the bond that forms instantly and permanently between fellow Americans abroad, whether its in an American grocery store where my friend and I spent half an hour talking to an American family from New Jersey about the tragedy of no to-go coffee, or in the awesome American diner we found one weekend where there is a silent mutual love of pancakes and all you can drink coffee in the air, or in an English language bookstore, where the simple act of browsing makes you feel instantly safe and at home. I have no guilt in all of these things because they were few and far between during the semester, but there is something very special about brief moments of Americanness in Paris, and the way you can feel a sense of belonging in the random jumble of fellow Americans who are also missing home and all of the things that go with it (especially peanut butter). 

 -The smells of Paris,the way you can in a matter of blocks be greeted by dozens of contradictory but somehow harmonious smells, the saltiness of oysters on beds of ice, or a blast of roses and earth from a florist, the rich, subtle aromas of a chocolate store, and of course, the smell that permeates the city, the sweet doughy scent of fresh bread wafting from a bakery. 

 -Walks in the city. Paris was a city designed to be walked. Every inch of it calls for strolling. I will miss being able to walk out my door and within an hour or so pass several of the most famous landmarks in the world. I will miss the way Paris, while always beautiful, has become something indescribable these last few weeks. I will miss the way a walk in Paris feels like walking submerged in history, both the very far away history of the Bourbons and revolutions and the closer history of Hemingway and Picasso, a history full of foreigners who have come here and fallen in love. 

 -All day picnics in the park. there is nothing better than spending hours surrounded by friends, with a good bottle of wine, a yummy sandwich and nothing at all planned for the near future.

-The Paris Opera Garnier: one of the most amazing buildings I have ever set foot inside of, not to be confused with the new horrendous opera built in the 80s. The old opera is something insanely unique, and every single detail of the place was obviously painstakingly planned and crafted. I sadly didnt go here for a show (poor college student = me) but I went with my architecture class and just walking around the place it's so easy to imagine what it must look like with all the fancy French people in ball gowns and tuxes gliding along on the polished marble floors, with the enormous chandelier and candelabras glowing from the ceiling. There's a staircase to end all staircases, purely designed for the drama it creates. And inside the theater it's very cool. Marc Chagall painted the ceiling and at the time everyone hated it because well that happens every time something new is added to Paris but now its become one of the things that makes the opera so special, a mystical, soulful swirling ceiling of blue overlooking the Roccoco decadence below. and yes there is an underground lake, so make what you want out of that. And just try not to get the song stuck in your head now. 

 -Montmartre: the one area in Paris that manages to simultaneously and convincingly pull off chic and Bohemian. It's a little village on a hill that feels very different from the rest of Paris at times, one because the streets are steep and curvy and two because its cheap (er). And it's the home to the famous and now kinda kitschy but not so much in a good way Moulin Rouge which is in the heart of the red light district. I'll miss the fun restaurants we found here, a fondue place with baby bottles of wine, a traditional French food place decorated entirely in a tribute to American movies, and various cafes and brasseries and creperies. And I'll miss one of the other great views in Paris, from the top of Montmartre at Sacre Coeur, where on a clear day you can see the entire city spread out beneath. 

 -The 17th. aka my arondissement or district. Yes it was almost painfully upper middle class, and bursting with rich old people and their teensy tiny dogs, but I'll miss the quiet evenings here, when the restaurants and bars are full and couples stroll hand in hand down the wide boulevards. I'll miss my neighborhood places, my bakery, my pharmacy, my brasserie, my sushi restaurant (the equivalent in popularity of chinese take out in the U.S.) I'll miss the way the people in these places were finally starting to know me. I'll miss stepping out of the Pereire metro stop and feeling unmistakably at home. 

 -Cafes, sitting for hours ordering cafe au lait after cafe au lait and never once feeling any kind of pressure to leave. that goes the same for... 

 -The restaurants, or more generally the food. It is not an exaggeration to say that it is IMPOSSIBLE to have a bad meal in paris. It just doesnt happen. The cheapest, most student-y, fastests meals are still wonderful. You can spend 3 euros in france for a panini from a vendor, and it's better than half of the food that is served in much higher priced american restaurants. If paris really is the city of romance its because everyone is so full and happy all the time from eating. Because the food there, I simply can't do it justice. If you havent yet, go there and eat and you will understand. 

 -Paris nights. I will miss all of those endless nights out when going home doesn't even seem like an option until past 4am. I will miss how after a bar closes, it's just understood that another one will be open, waiting just down the street. There is no one definitive last call. I will miss the hour long walks from one bar to another when we're too cheap to pay for a taxi, the way Paris looks insanely different at night and so empty but in a reassuring kind of way as opposed to a creepy kind of way. Because its the only time when you don't really have to share Paris, at least not in the massive kind of way you have to share it during the day when the tourists are out in full force. I will miss waiting till the metro opens to go home and walking bleary eyed down the street to my apartment while the rest of the world is getting ready to start the day. 

 -This is the part where I realize I could write for the next 500 years and still not list all of the things I will miss about my experience. Basically I will miss this city with my whole heart, with every part of my silly self. And I always will. Because in the simplest terms, Paris is lovely through and through.

New Year's Head Exploding Adorableness.

May I remind you that half of this duo was in Richmond for THREE MONTHS this past fall. Was it really too much to ask to stumble across JGL strumming a guitar and singing a charming ditty in say, my backyard, or at the very least a public park?

I guess it was.