Arriving in Paris

There is a time in every girl’s life where she desperately hopes that she will one day go to Paris. Some will tell you that Paris is a cliché and that it is completely over rated. Some will tell you that it is filled with stuck up rude Frenchmen who hate the English. But after taking all of that into account, I still desperately wanted to see Paris!

And now, finally, it was the day. I was on my way to Paris.

I knew that I would be staying with my mom’s childhood friend, who I had never met, and I had rough directions of where to go once my train got to Paris. And without causing too much chaos I managed to get from one train station to another, where there was a bus that would take me to the stop where this complete stranger would meet me, assuming of course that we found one another.

As I sat on the bus heading toward Le Kremlin Bicetre my head swiveled in awe trying to take in as much of Paris I could manage and when the bus went past Notre Dame I nearly squealed with excitement. I was in Paris!

And all I could think of was how jealous my mom was at that very moment.

As we got closer to my stop I got a little nervous. The woman I was meeting was Isabelle, and her family had lived in Pretoria for a while which was how she knew my mom, but as far as I could tell my mom had not seen her since then and had only recently reconnected via Facebook. All I could do was Facebook stalk her and hope like hell she wasn’t scary.

I don’t know why I worried.

I was greeted by a raging ball of energy, with big hair and a loud voice, who proceeded to kiss each of my cheeks and give me a great big hug, before whisking me off to her lovely flat where she made me a much needed cup of tea and started babbling away. I could instantly see why this woman and my mom had been friends and before long the two of us were fighting to get a word in edge ways.

It was only that evening when I had climbed into her son’s mezzanine bed which he had kindly offered up for the duration of my visit did I realise just how lucky I was to be in the hands of a brilliant tour guide, mother, host and friend. Both Isabelle and her son Clement went out of their way to make me feel at home and tell me about all the wonderful things I should do whilst in Paris. It was lovely.

And there is nothing better when exploring a new city than having a warm comfortable home to come home to every night, with people who you can tell about your daily adventures while they make sure that you’ve had enough to eat.

I was already in love with Paris.