“London is a riddle. Paris is an explanation.”*

I'm off to Paris tomorrow! La belle ville!

My French is terribly rusty. When Lauren came to visit, I found that I can understand it much better than I can speak it. She only spoke in French at one point and while I didn't catch all the vocab, I remembered the basics and understood what she was saying.

I'm very excited. I leave early tomorrow morning to hop on the Eurostar train (that goes through the Chunnel!) and I arrive at Gare du Nord around lunchtime. I return early Friday morning, but until that time, I am staying with Lauren and filling myself with crepes (Nutella and banana crepes! oh heaven!) and croissants and coffee (or real chocolat chaud; it's basically a melted chocolate bar in a cup) and filling my time with Montmartre (the artist's area) and Notre Dame and Oscar Wilde's grave in Pere Lachaise and wherever else Lauren decides to take me. I am so ready for Paris in the springtime.

After I handed my paper in this morning, it's been a fairly lazy day, but I'm ready to go again. Jules said something that's stuck with me and has been in my head all day today: since arriving for our semesters, she's slowed down and I've sped up, to match where we live. It's completely true. (Very on-the-nose for an early-ish-morning comment.) I wrote a few pages worth on this topic in my journal, but I think the most important part is that, while I need to chill out and recharge my batteries, living a life of not going places and of having a set routine and of living in a place where people don't have a sense of the desperate need to move or impatience--it would be relaxing, but I would go stir-crazy inside of a week. **

I like slow, I like calm, I like peace, but I've been thriving on gogogo and then a quick rest for a couple days and then doing it all over again. Even doing not-terribly-exciting/new things like sitting in Trafalgar Square and writing or in Hyde Park and reading or just wandering places I've already been, once I settled into the stride, I've been thriving on the energy of the city. Chill in a pub for an hour, sure, but you can bet that as soon as I step into the noise and the crowd again, I'm swerving and swimming through people, pacing, fasterfastermoremore. 

Basically, I'm very excited for Paris and I'm not sure how I'm going to adjust to being home in a few weeks' time.

* G. K. Chesterton. Today has been a day of discovering new quotes that define me.

** Darling Julianna, if you are reading this, you know I don't mean it as an insult to Lampy. I mean you're right, my personality would not fit in Lampeter after having this semester as an experience. And you would absolutely hate London after another week of tourist clumps and snotty locals. We are where we were meant to be.