Paris, my perfect girl

Looking back, I realize how much luck and circumstance the universe threw my way when I moved to Paris five years ago. Only two months earlier, I had taken my first solo trip, leaving my hometown with no plan of coming back. Suddenly, I was starting over in a new city. If that’s not risk, I don’t know what is.

I remember it as if it was yesterday. Only two months before, I had gotten the necessary vaccinations for COVID to travel, and as soon as the two week waiting period ended, I was on a plane to Romania. Weeks went by of exploring Bucharest, followed by Florence, and then Paris.

Walking into Paris was love at first sight. Like seeing the girl of your dreams in highschool walking past you in the hallway, knowing that you had found the perfect girl. Paris was my perfect girl. It was a feeling I can’t quite put to words. I just knew in my core that this city was a city I would fall in love with. The buildings that had stood the test of time towered over me as I walked through the broad streets. People from every corner of the world walked past and beside me, and it somehow felt like I was part of it. I couldn’t tell you my favorite part of the city, there are simply too many things to choose from.

The boulangeries that lined their windows with amber-gold croissants and pain au chocolats, with butter glistening through the cracks. Baguettes standing tall in woven baskets, crusts split open like they were daring you to bite in. Pastries in every flavor imaginable, each one sculpted like a piece from the Louvre.

Or the French women, who single-handedly perfected the art of seductively smoking a cigarette, in outfits that put my jeans and shirts to shame. Long velvet coats kept them warm, Bordeaux-red lips kissed every French word between ribbons of smoke

Perhaps it was the culture. The elegance with which everyone seemed to be living their lives. Big apartments with old wooden floors and big windows to let the light in. Ceilings that tell stories and chandeliers to keep it alight. Long cobbled streets with mysterious shops on every corner. Bistros that look like they came out of a Casablanca film, and waitors in white shirts and pantaloons serving you a perfect espresso. Everything felt right in Paris, for all her cracks and flaws, to me, she was perfect.

Paris taught me that the world was far bigger, richer, and stranger than anything I had imagined at home. Even now, when I return, she still finds a way to catch me off guard.

By sheer luck, I was presented with the opportunity to get a job in the center of Paris by the receptionist of the hostel I was staying in. Having almost run out of money, and being strongly determined not to go back home already, I knew that this was my chance. Fast forward six months, I became a bartender, a job I never thought I’d be cut out for. I made friends, got out of the introvert shell I had done so well to build at home, and found a confidence I didn’t know I had.

Paris was the first place that felt like home, not because it was perfect, but because it made me risk, fail, and grow. It still does.