Nostalgia

Can you be homesick for a place that's not your home? I got on the bus this morning, and it was a weird bus. The seats were laid out in a strange arrangement. I sat down in a backwards seat, facing a forwards seat to make a cozy little four-person seat. This made me miss Paris! It reminded me of how the seats on the Paris metro are. And I started thinking about how you have to use those little handles to open the metro doors (or buttons, but I like the handles better) which I love. And how when I was in college in Paris, I would take the metro across the Bir Hakim bridge and see the Eiffel Tower every morning. Well, every morning the metro wasn't on strike, that is.

I loved being an American in Paris. You're suddenly unique! Fascinating! On good days, I flitted back and forth between French and English effortlessly. (on bad days, not so effortlessly) You have English-speaking friends who are drawn to you because of your similarities, even if they are Australian or English, not American, and French people who want to talk to you to either practice their English or for the novelty of an English-speaker who speaks French. You can eat delicious croissants every morning! And walk them off by lunchtime!

Of course there were bad things too, like being far away from my family and friends, and despite having lots of people wanting to talk to me, not having a lot of actual friends, and the metro going on strike... but the bus today didn't make me think of those things. Just the good ones. And now I want to be in Paris again. Or anywhere other than Washington, really. It's not so unique to be an American who lives in America.