Day Dreaming: What I Look Forward To

Things That I Am Looking Forward To

Less than one hundred days left and I am getting excited. I daydream at work, I research at home. It seems like most of my days are spent thinking about Paris. While I am scared about living on my own, speaking a child’s version of the language, and being away from my parents, I am trying to focus on the exciting things. The things that I am looking forward to. Is it July yet?

L'Ecole Militaire, Paris

• Boudin noire: most people are probably disgusted by the idea of eating blood sausage, but I am excited. I can’t wait to have a nice boudin noire cooked with some apples. My favorite. I don’t care what season it is, it is always a good time for boudin noire!
• Merguez: another sausage that I like. Nice and spicy and goes great with some fries. I could probably survive the whole year on these two sausages.
• Bread: I think everyone can agree that French bread is amazing! None of this stuff that we have in the US. It’s just not the same. I’m pretty sure I will be able to find an excuse to eat bread with everything. A baguette a day keeps the doctor away, right? Maybe not.
• Food: ok all these foods on my list, I should probably categorize all under food. I don’t know how French people are so skinny; do they just eat one bite? Is that how it works? But how they have self-control, because one bite is not enough! Maybe I will need to not take the metro and just walk everywhere to keep up with the food!
• La Tour Eiffel: now you won’t see me climbing to the top, but I will spend some time admiring it. I think it is so beautiful, and it has become one of the identifying features of Paris. 365 days of the Eiffel Tower? I hope so!
• Notre Dame: my favorite church in France, so far. I love the gothic architecture and that it just celebrated 800 years. 800 years! That’s a really long time to still be standing. I just love this church and hope that I can discover more like it.
• L’Ecole Militaire: sorry mom but I didn’t spend enough time in here. I think we only made it through half of it in almost four hours. I have to come back, and come back again. It’s a beautiful building and full of history! It’s like Disneyland for history nerds!
• The history: Paris has been around forever and it still has some of that history left intact, which of course I need to see! I’m pretty sure my “lazy Sundays” will be spent exploring the streets for hidden treasures of history. Staying home on pinterest will not be in my vocabulary!
• La Seine: now I am not going to go swimming in it, because yuck! But I have always liked cities with a river running through it. I think the bridges are beautiful and the bateaux mouches were always fun as a kid!
• Walking distances: everything will be within a walking distance! History? No problem! Food? You got it! Shopping? Sure! Everything is there. No more driving to get somewhere across town. No more driving to work every day. While I love my car, I’m excited to be somewhere where I don’t have to worry about parking or paying for gas. Maybe it might take 40 minutes to walk there, but I have to work off all that bread somehow, right?
• Travel: The train system in Europe is amazing. I can take a nice weekend getaway to Venice, Prague, Vienna, Barcelona, London, and just about anywhere I can afford! This isn’t possible in the US, especially since I am more interested in seeing Europe than my own country. I am going to have to really take advantage of my year there to get everything checked off of my long, always growing list.

Notre Dame, Paris