Pařiž

I have now known Paris in April, if only for a couple of days. This weekend I took the short plane ride to visit some friends from Tufts who are studying in Paris for the semester. And it was a beautiful weekend to visit a beautiful city -- arguably the best weather I've seen all semester.

It's funny that Paris is actually geographically smaller than Prague because it felt so much bigger. Perhaps it is because there is more to see in Paris. Perhaps it's because all of Prague's sights are rather concentrated. Perhaps it's a matter of my familiarity with the cities. Whatever the size, I was lucky to see a lot. I was sure to visit the Louvre, and perhaps before going had had more ambitious museum plans (being myself), but easily, gladly abandoned them. Instead I walked around with my friends lots. Growing blisters walking the dusty garden paths in good company was a much happier way to spend my couple of days than shuffling quiet marble floors from one Impressionist painting to another.

A weekend of sunny conversation in the Luxembourg garden, being surrounded by French (a language much prettier than Czech, and a touch easier to latch on to), sitting in the grass by the Eiffel Tower, being treated to a canal-side bottle of Bordeaux, and eating Parisian crepes was exactly what I needed. I got to see Paris and people I know and the streets and park chairs in which my friends spend their days. I was sad to go after such a short time but glad I'd had what I did.

Luckily Prague welcomed me back with a couple of seventy-degree (I still refuse to use or understand Celsius, I guess) days that coat the cobblestones in sun. I'd been doubting its reputation of beauty of late, but it's probably been the months of sour weather. With some sun in the sky and some buds on the trees things are looking brighter. I'll be able to stray from my more well-traveled paths and enjoy the City of a Thousand Spires. But I am glad to have kicked off my spring in Paris.