As much so that I never forget as to help you understand:

Paris sounds like a million voices washing over you in words you will never fully comprehend; accordions in Metro cars playing Edith Piaf songs; church bells in the middle of the day; and unsolicited compliments from strangers when you least expect them.

Paris looks like a sky that is never completely dark because of the sweeping beam of the Eiffel Tower at night; sandstone-colored apartments built a century before I was born; women so beautiful they can’t be real and men so handsome they can’t be pretend.

Paris smells like roses from the florists at every street corner; fresh bread from the boulangeries I pass every day on my way to school; frying lardons in my kitchen; and cigarettes.

Paris tastes like a million things impossible to explain– bitter red wine, buttery flaky croissants, smooth rich Kinder chocolate, warm chewy nutella crepes, tangy strong brie, Pol Remy pink framboise-flavored champagne, NOT Dr. Pepper, tiny sweet clementines, melons that unfailingly surprise me when I cut them open because we don’t have the same ones in the US, café cremes with warm milk foam on top, muesli with the milk I’ve made do with for a year now, and crispy tomato-filled paninis from the best Lebanese bakery I’ve ever been to.

Paris feels like smooth cashmere pashminas in the winter; breezy fluffy cotton skirts in the summer, copper 1centime pieces that make their way into all my pockets and seem like plastic, and sore heels from a full day in stiletto boots.

And Paris IS the place I have felt most at home in a long time; the most adventurous, the most myself... I’ll miss this place so much I can’t explain it in words, because even if/when I am back here to live, it will never be the same as it is now.

And it’s no wonder, really, I mean, to put it in the words of my favorite candlestick,
"After all, Miss, this is France..."

Gros Bisous,
Blair, like Tony.