Imagine

One of the best things about this experience is I get to engage with people who love Paris as passionately as I do.  Sometimes when I talk about Paris at home, I feel like I am describing a place that only exists in my imagination. 

This afternoon I attended the University of London Institute in Paris' (ULIP) Open Day at their campus near Invalides.  ULIP offers a 1-year Masters program in Paris Studies: History and Culture.  If I ever do my Masters, this is where I want to study.  Most of the classrooms have views of the Eiffel Tower and dissertation topics range from "Football Identity and Paris" to "Violence, Death and Women: Hemingway's Paris". 

ULIP swag. And yes that is a madeleine!

Today was an opportunity to learn more about the Masters program, hear a lecture and meet prospective students, staff and alumni.  Like me, everyone who attended was there because they want to find new, meaningful ways to communicate about Paris.  Like me, they are always searching for a way to have more Paris in their lives.

I met a woman who told me that the opening montage to Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris always makes her homesick for Paris.  I confessed the exact same thing.  Then I told her that Chris and I often get emotional watching any footage of Paris, even a repeat episode of House Hunters International.  I met someone else who couldn't explain the unexplainable: "Paris has always felt like home."  Me too.

In his opening remarks Professor Andrew Hussey and Dean of ULIP said, "Paris is bigger than France."    

Paris is bigger than everything. 

Friday French girl...

A woman rode down the centre of rue Cler this morning on her old-fashioned, no gear bicycle.  She was wearing a sheer, white mini skirt (slip?), short nude coloured beige cowboy boots, tight navy blue tank top, giant tortoiseshell sunglasses and a grey scarf triple-wrapped around her long neck.  That's casual Friday in Paris.

What country am I in....

Some very confused tourists addressed my Le Petit Cler waitress this morning  with, "Madame! Monsieur! Por Favor!"  You know what she gave them?  Frenchy Bitchface!

Strangest breakfast order...

Diet coke, hot chocolate and tiramisu.   I used to think it was strange that there is always an old guy at the bar nursing his 9 am Kronenbourg but now I think beer makes more sense than tiramisu.