Amazing: Reflections on a Trip to Paris

Paris is just amazing. Head swiveling amazing. You walk down her streets, mouth agape, because every building is ancient and ornate and gorgeous. It’s not enough to have fancy curlicue balconies, with the most stately enormous doors and crazy knockers, but just for kicks, we’ll throw in a round turret with whipped cream decorations on top. And that’s just on the façade, have you peeked into the inner courtyard yet?

Then there is the fact that every few feet there is a palace that has been converted into a museum. These palaces are mind-bogglingly big. Fit for kings. And apparently the French had a lot of kings and they all built mega-mansions. One on every corner. Now the kings would be shaking their heads – or possibly ordering us commoner’s heads to come off – as we all swarm through their gardens and into their former living rooms and ogle at the size and beauty of their homes and back yards. To top it off, their homes are now filled with the most extravagant art – the pieces that you studied and could never keep straight in your Art classes in college. Amazing.

If decadent palaces aren’t your bag, you could go spiritual. But the churches, no cathedrals, are going to drown your puny pea sized brain as well. Some of them took centuries to build. Imagine. You start building Notre Dame and your great-great-great-great-grandkids will not even see the results. But the results are stunning. Stained glass and light and height and art and sculptures and chandeliers. Awe-inspiring amazingness going on here too. Quite frankly all the French architecture and monuments and government buildings make our Washington DC or New York City look like kids play – made of Play-Do with Crayola drawings scribbled on the walls as an afterthought.

If the architecture isn’t enough, there are the French people, who are dressed so chic. They are dressed up fancy, morning, noon, and night, while still managing to pull off a studied casualness. Their clothes fit. They have style. And bows and silk and scarves. The men even match – and have nice shoes and jackets to boot. I wonder how many French people would love to just walk out the door in their sweatpants instead of putting effort (without it looking like effort, whew, getting tired just contemplating how to pull this off) into their outfits. But perhaps the French don’t even wear sweatpants at home. Amazingly, they don’t even wear sweatpants on bikes. The women wear short, flouncy skirts with nary a flash of panty. Amazing.

And then there is the food. Many friends recommended this place or that before our trip. But it really didn’t matter if we made it to this place or that because any café or restaurant that we ate at was, well, amazing. (I could come up with an adjective for amazing, like incredible or magnificent or… but it all comes back to amazing.)  At least 10x better than any food I have ever had in the States. Even going to a grocery store, Bon Marche (Good Market) was like going to an art show. Everything on display looked and tasted – yes, amazing. It was a good 10x more spectacular than a Whole Foods. In fact, Bon Marche made Whole Foods look like 7-11. Just saying.

The 7-11s there, were corner stores with an eye-popping array of fruit and veggies artfully arranged out front. They had fruit and veggies that tasted like, well, nothing that I’ve ever eaten before. I’d buy a peach, and think, how is this possible? It’s like I’ve never eaten a peach before. Or cherries. Or strawberries. Or you name it. And none of it was organic (at least it wasn’t advertised as such) or super special. This was a French 7-11 after all.

Paris was amazing. So amazing that it’s left me panting. My senses have been completely highjacked and overloaded. Tongue fried from too much salt and sweet. Ears accosted by all the motorcycles zipping down the streets and buses and cars and people. My brain fuzzy from jet-lag and having dinner at 10:30pm, then not going to sleep until the middle of the night, only to want to dive in all over again. My eyes are twitchy from all the beauty and art. I have a French hang over – and I hardly partook in the – yep, amazing – French wine.

I am happy to be home, where life is not so overwhelmingly amazing. Just your average everyday amazing. Like the fact that I can wear yoga pants to Whole Foods and feel just fine about myself and my life. I am grateful to have gone and grateful to be home sweet home.

If you don’t hear from me soon, it’s because I am now in French recovery from so much amazing. I’m thinking a few months of early to bed, raw foods and applesauce, and regularly crawling into under covers should do it.

As for the French, I bow to thee. I don’t know how you keep up all that amazing 24-7-365. Incroyable!

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