A Tourist in Paris

Despite not being the most patient person in the world, I do enjoy playing tour guide for friends and family. The whole time that I lived in New York, I welcomed people into my studio apartments to sleep on the floor in awkward arrangements, try to explain to their faces full of wide-eyed jaw-drops that it's totally worth it to be spending $xxxx on rent every month, and then I'd drag them all over town to see the sights and sample some of the sweet life that can be had there.

I was pretty sure that at the end of the trip, I had convinced said hayseed guests that the rent was indeed worth it, and I lived in the most amazing place on earth.

I'm starting to get to know Paris a little bit better. I haven't gotten lost in a couple months now (which is really easy to do since you don't have the Empire State Building to help you out) and I have a few choice places that I know won't disappoint when we sit down to eat.

I feel like I purposely saved doing a ton of things in Paris because I knew I'd have a lot of visitors while I lived here. There's only so many times I can crowd-surf to the Mona Lisa before I've run out of awe over the dingy bit of canvas.

So finally, my first visitor arrived. It was fantastic to catch up and see a familiar face that I didn't have to butcher their native language in my coarse and vulgar fashion.

And I discovered something that I seemed to be totally ignorant of.

It's really fantastic to be a tourist in Paris.

The whole week, it only rained once, and it was only for 10 minutes.

It was sunny and warm, but not too warm.

I had forgotten what had planted the seed to motivate me to move here in the first place, all those years ago.

It's a beautiful place.

If I've had a glass of wine and a pastry to keep me in a good mood, I actually don't mind the crowds. After all, they are in Paris for probably the same reason why I first came to Paris.

It's an amazing place (well, at least when you aren't standing in line at the embassy or the prefecture with stacks of paperwork), and you will see things here that you will see no where else in the world. When the light is right in the late afternoon, it's completely magic.