September Excursion (A day in Paris!)

For the month of September, my excursion was into Paris! Me and Lauren have gotten into the habit of going into Paris whenever we possibly can. We have explored coffee shops and streets that are classic Paris, without a tourist in sight. One of my favorite of these instances was when we literally stumbled into a street market.

We were a little bit lost and looking for a metro station after a morning of croissants and cafe cremes and homework. Suddenly, we walked around the corner and walked into the midst of over 100 little tents with antiques and thrifted clothes laying everywhere and musicians playing guitars and accordions in a far corner. A woman to my left went through an old suitcase full of mens shirts and two Syrians on my right called out that they had “cheapest shoes.”

It was something straight out of a movie.

We walked and laughed over the dreaminess that we were in Paris at a market that we hadn't even planned on and that God had blessed us with breath and life and the gift of traveling thousands of miles away from our comfort-zones.

I found an old blazer missing a button and Lauren haggled it down from 8 Euros to 5 in her nearly perfect French accent and then we found a cafe and sat and ate lasagne and tried to speak French to the lady sitting next to us. It didn’t really work but she was nice for trying to understand us.

Then I drank a straight expresso because I was feeling brave but not brave enough to learn French. I told Lauren about how I’ve wondered if I should give up French and go back to what I’m good at- making words paint pictures and making a big book of memories out of the pieces of peoples university years (thats what I think the yearbook is, really), and she said

not to give up that maybe language is just harder for some people. I agreed but secretly wondered if I will ever speak French as good as her.

And that’s okay, because I’m in Paris and history is real and rich and my heart is happy just to be here and at least there’s always google translate, right?

So then we came back and I took pictures at a baptism and we cooked lots of food and everyone ate together and it was a good day.