From Paris With Love.

So. Hi.

Finally started school this week!

First of all, honestly haven't been able to supress the longing of seeing everybody again, standing underneath the large chestnut tree in the school yard, and get started with all the new first-years at Aurehøj! And I must say, after having met a couple of them, I feel even more giddy and second-year'ishly smug.

Second of all, it's so amazing to hear about all the vacation-adventures of my friends and classmates. Going to Greece with their families, to Berlin with their boyfriends, or interrailing with friends; whatever people have done this summer, it sounds great to me. For one thing I love about getting back from vacation is hearing about everyone else's.

So, in a manner of welcoming each other back, I thought I'd share a little vacation-adventure of my own with you guys.

This summer, I went to Paris for two weeks, to study at a language school in the heart of the city. I stayed at a youth college with a bunch of other kids my age, and have explored the city from head to foot, and from the first crooked vowel to the last. I went, I saw, I conquered several maccarons.... and I completely fell in love with Paris, of course. And the people I met in it.

Two weeks in the pulsating, nostalgicly lit heart of France, learning French and getting to know the lovely city of Paris... Not that shabby, in my opinion. Though this wasn't your typical beach vacation, nor a stay at some luxury hotel, and though it involved a bit of hard work (communicating in French with a slightly larger vocab than just "baguette" and "moustache" for instance, even at the crack of dawn and way into the night), I think this qualifies as one of my most memorable trips to date. It's not like it was one big adventure. It was thousands of vibratingly wonderful little moments.

Soaking up art at the Louvre and Le Musée d'Orsay (walking as slow as possible to see the expressions and light of old portraits; occasionally recognizing the famous works of Monet, Manet, Van Gogh and Da Vinci), walking down the street in flocks of red ACCORD-backpacks, eating baguettes and maccarons, seeing the actual Notre Dame, The Eiffel Tower, L'Arc de Triomphe and Champs Elysées, shopping for crappy souveniers, little Parisian memorabelia and quaint pictures and postcards of the Eiffel Tower and the Mona Lisa, popping into French perfume and soap stores, Parisians walking around everywhere on the little winding streets, cafés on every corner, little shops full of antiques and strange old French books and CD's, making memorable friends from everywhere in the world (Malaysia, Canada, Britain, Portugal, New York City, Columbia, Spain, Washington and the Netherlands), singing "Starships" with my friends in the hot, loud bustle of the metro and laughing our butts off, sunlight shattering off beautiful old statues and fountains, thinking about Marie Antoinette and her maccarons, her dresses and her saying "Let them eat cake!", the nostalgia of seeing Disneyland and all my childhood memories of watching "Pinocchio", "The Little Mermaid" and the "Jungle Book" resurfacing, finding out that there is not a single ugly building in the city of Paris, dancing tango along La Seine with all my new friends, speaking French to old ladies, learning French bit by bit every day, and just soaking up Paris and the atmosphere and the people and their French conversations, jokes and expressions, even though it's all foreign, and I don't quite understand everything; oh, it was all wonderful. To me, Paris will always be, not only "the city of love", but the city of golden light, of pretty buildings, and of baguettes and maccarons.

I wish, somehow, that I could always pop back to Paris if I wanted to; just to eat croissants and drink café au lait in the school's crappy cantine (the only tolerable food at the college by human standards), giggle and laugh with my friends from all over the world, about everything from our French skills to boys to art to plain old across-continent silliness. Or merely knowing that the city of Paris is just waiting to be explored right after our French classes.

This might have been my first memories from Paris with love. But they're certainly not the last.

Je t'aime Paris. Je suis sûre que je vais te voir encore une fois. Bisous.

F R O M    P A R I S    W I T H

L O V E

Woooooow. So that was all. I guarantee it! I know there's a shitload of pictures there. But I love them all. Every single last one of them. They make me think of Paris, and long to go back.

That was my little vacation-adventure for this time, kiddos. Well, one of them, at least. But now, a new chapter in Denmark, at Aurehøj, in second year awaits. Perhaps not en francais, but hopefully with the same shimmer of elegance and warmth, that I have taken back with me in my memories of Paris.

Thanks for listening,

I Am Roseberry.