The Glacial Pace of a Stroll By The Seine

Is it just me or is the bread fresher and the cheese stinkier--in a good way--in Paris.

And the water. It's just water, right? Except when it the green water of the Seine and you're strolling along side it, moving at the glacial pace that Miranda Priestly hates. You've a café cremè in your hand and that one bird keeps tweeting the same song over and over and it floats on the breeze even as you move further away from it. 

I watched a pair of lovers engage in a kiss on the opposite bank of the Seine. Before them I watched a couple pose for wedding photographs. Virginia may be for lovers but Paris is for LOVERS.

Patches of blue peaked through above me in the patchwork of blue, gray, and white. Eventually the blue disappeared but the sky never dropped its moisture on my head. The breeze blew and the sounds of Paris--sirens, motorcycles, the language--filled my ears. I walked and I walked. And I walked some more.

All the anxiety I had for the nights leading up to getting here have evaporated into thin air now that I'm actually here. As I said in my previous post: "I enjoy being where I'm going. It's the getting there..."

My cousin, Whit, asked me what was on my agenda for this trip. My response: "To breathe the air." I want to drink it all in with my eyes, my nose, my ears. I want to capture it all to memory and translate it all into words and images. I want to taste different wines and eat cheeses that I've never heard of. All of these things are possible. This is my life. I'm living my dream. Nightmares are not an option!

Mon voyage se poursuit. Au revoir.