Wanderlust.

“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.”

 - Ernest Hemingway

For as long as I can remember I have wanted to live in Paris. It seemed so exotic to me, someone who has been on Staten Island for her whole entire life with the occasional trips to Disney World. I longed for an apartment with a view of the Eiffel Tower, a symbol of my independence and freedom from my not so extraordinary life. I could smell the butter on the croissants and taste their flakiness as I imagined walking next to the Seine. In my head Paris was less crowded than Manhattan and no one pushed you out of their way in a rush to go someplace unimportant. I can be an anonymous person in a street café just reading until dusk without all of the honking taxis. This is the Paris of my imagination.

Around two years ago I went to France to study film with St. John's.  The Paris that I experienced was exactly what I had imagined and more.  The beautiful, cobblestone streets and old world architecture combined with so much history that America doesn’t have really struck me.  I know that we are a relatively young country with history of our own but there is absolutely no comparison.  Every building is beautifully designed, with curved angles, balconies, and shuttered windows.  Every street has a history and a story that the oldest buildings in New York could not compare to.  I can just imagine the people who have walked the streets that I now have, Marie Antoinette, Benjamin Franklin, Jacqueline Kennedy and countless others who have enjoyed and loved this city as much as I have.

Our class was studying film and food and we went to Antony to spend a day with a chef.  I was a little apprehensive to spend all day cooking with him.  I am quite a picky eater and a terrible cook, but once we stepped into the French market and I saw all of the meats and brightly colored vegetables I started to become excited about the day ahead of me.  We cooked Onion Tart, Potatoes Gratin, Lamb, Ratatouille, Apple Tart, Chocolate Cake and Flan from scratch.  Chef Phillipe, a stranger to all of us in the beginning of the day, opened his home to us to share his passion for cooking and by the end of the night a great meal and its preparation had brought everyone together as friends.

I found myself reading this passage from Sarah Vowell’s novel The Partly Cloudy Patriot; "An astrologer once told me, 'You suffer from what's called a geographic.' A geographic is when a person walks around thinking that where he lives will make his life better. The astrologer said, 'Let me tell you, life is about an emotional connection to people and things and it doesn't matter where you are on the globe.'" That paragraph really struck a chord with me. Every meal, and experience, that I had in Paris was delicious.  To be able to go to the Eiffel Tower and then sit down and have an amazing cup of hot chocolate was truly a treasure.  Finding cafes that are hidden, but turn out to have the freshest whipped cream and pasta that you have ever tasted is an experience that really brought the group and the trip together.  
          My bedroom is a dedication to Paris. There are Moulin Rouge posters along with at least three sculptures of the Eiffel Tower and numerous other French artifacts cluttering up space that could be put to a better use. I am not going to take them down because I have finally achieved my dream.  Instead of being a reminder of where I want to go, they remind me of where I have been, the movies I have seen, the friends I have made and the food that changed my life.