Gene Kelly

Today I'm back in Madrid after Semana Santa! It's great to be "home" after 11 days of constant planning and street navigation. I have also apparently come back to Spain with some color! (red.)

Montmartre

Paris was beautiful! I could see myself coming back over and over again. It might be a combination of things. Great museums. Fashion everywhere. It's like a switch went off in my brain the moment Jwow and I stepped off the bus. Oddly enough, I feel comfortable and welcome in Paris, despite what everyone's told me of French people. One girl saw that I didn't understand her directions to the Catacombes and went out of her way to walk us over and point to the right building! The people I met were very smiley and helpful and not snobbish at all when I revealed my nonexistent French skills. Every moment of every day was just right in Paris, from wandering up and down the labyrinthine streets to window shopping to eating Vietnamese food (!). Paris and I said our bittersweet au revoirs with a surprise upgrade on my Easyjet flight out. A very smooth trip indeed.

There's also the question of race. In Paris I didn't expect to feel so normal, but this became my break from the perpetual stares I get everywhere in Spain. I was one in a million wonky Asians walking around and nobody interrogated me about where I come from for once! It felt like New York. A real city. Paris is another New York City. It just feels like home.

The Pantheon

But of course I wouldn't know Paris as a home, seeing as I was only there for four days. Jaliz and I plowed RIGHT through my babycity. We were supertourists. And good girls (Laduree only once; favorites are vanilla, caramel, and pistachio). More updates on Semana Santa later, I am le tired.