paris

i was really happy to leave paris in 2005. if you go back to those blog entries, you see i was at the end of my patience with the city and myself in it. i had a rubbish job i hated and was going down a dead end road. i wasnt making enough money to live normally, i was sharing a too small flat out in notorious department 93, more than one hour from my job. a month after i left, my old neighbourhood erupted in flames: two boys died running away from the cops. it was he end of Ramadan and apparently they were afraid of being late getting home. after their death, people went a bit crazy and thousands of cars in my old neighbourhood were burned down in the weeks of riioting that followed. watching everything from london, i was glad i had left.
yet there are things about paris i like and i am glad to come back here to visit my friends and family here. i especially love paris at easter and in the summer, the two seasons i know paris best in. i have spent parts of 3 of the past 4 summers here and i love seeing my "summer friends" every time i come. some of these "summer friends" have become good friends i now see out of the context of either summer or paris. for example, i associate summer in paris with hanging out with aude, who is seemingly always here at that time visiting her huge family. over the years we have spent i dont know how many hours hanging out in cafes around the city (as well as on the couches of her aunt/grandparents house). she has tried to teach how to play settlers of catan, and introduced me to some cool people.
i also love hanging out with adam and audrey, catching up on the gossip of my former work place, and being filled in on the latest on the political and social scene in department 93, which is so far away in many aspects from the rest of paris.
i love heading to the different musuems, in particular the musee european de la photographie. i love going to the opera with my parents to see the ballet, and taking a walk along the promenade during intermission. i love having huge and ridiculous fights with tony and cam about world history and the future of technology. i like walking on the ile saint louis and eating berthillion ice cream with my mother and spending hours in gibert jeune hunting for books. i like having my hair cut by christophe and going to la ferme saint simon for lunch with my father. i miss these little traditions when i am not here...i just wish there were a way to combine them with decent employment and a better living condition than the one i had when i lived here. but no place can be perfect....