somewhere in-between.

Last night, I found one of my favorite places in Paris.

I met up with Amanda, a girl from my program, after a failed attempt at doing some final assignments before exams. She had been out with a classmate and her classmate's very affectionate French boyfriend (see: previous entry); I offered her some relief from the public making out, and we headed down to the quay along the Seine.
The weather during the past fifteen days has been absolutely sublime. It took a turn for the worse, however, as the week came to a close, and the thunderstorms and grey clouds rolled in during the day yesterday. By 10pm, the rain had ceased, the ground had dried a bit, and the crowds returned to their perches in parks, on bridges, and along the river, cheap bottles of wine in hand.

A man with a guitar, who I had seen last week when Wil visited, was singing "Dust in the Wind", and a crowd had started to gather up and down the steps. As the audience became more numerous, the man got more excited, and soon, he had everyone-- tourists, locals, old, young, musical, tone-deaf-- clapping and singing along to Oasis, The Beatles, and a whole laundry list of crowd-pleasers that I have since written down, for future reference.

As I sat there with Amanda, a bottle of red wine nestled between us on the concrete steps, I looked up to my left, and there was Notre Dame, illuminated in the inky blue sky. To my right, just over the bank and behind the large leafy tree, Shakespeare & Company had just closed its shutters (to the public, at least) for the night. And all around me, the spirit of Paris burst out.

A massive monument recognizable the world over, a dynamic and personal space I've come to know and love even more than before, and the people who can't help falling in love with Paris-- all of it was just too well-planned.