Things I Will Miss About Paris

(Besides the obvious pleasure of doing nothing but write for a whole entire month in one of the most culturally and historically rich cities on the planet.)

• The cheese. One Euro ($1.50 CDN) gets you brie so mind-blowingly creamy and buttery that you are transported to heaven. Then you get angry that you spend $15 for it at home.
• The bread. I have not had one bad baguette. Not one.
• The Métro. Like a time warp that arrives every three minutes. And a ticket costs less than it does at home.
• Markets. Rainbows of fruits and vegetables. Strawberries so sweet they make me want to cry.
• Full-frontal in-your-face gorgeousness. Everywhere you look, there is something breathtakingly beautiful.
• Dana the Wyse. And not just for the dinners she makes me. I swear.
  
• The value of art and culture. Creative expression is important, nay...essential here. What a concept.
• Mixed-use urban planning. I'm dreading the mile-long gauntlet of cookie-cutter suburbia between me and the grocery store at home. Here, you walk out your door, it's there. Whatever it is you wanted. Unless what you wanted was a gas station, in which case, you are S.O.L. Sorry.
• The attention to detail. The architecture here is so stunningly ornate it makes me think that modernism is just a euphemism for laziness.
• Grocery store desserts. These ain't no Jell-O Puddin' Pops here people. We're talking chocolate mousse, almond creamy-something, creme brulee...all for a Euro.
  

Things I Will Not Miss About Paris

• The smell. There have been days that can only be described as pissy. I think you know what I'm talking about.
• The noise/traffic. It's a constant audio-visual assault.
• Les pharmacies. While the notion of getting bread at the bread store, meat at the meat store, etc. is charming, the guy at the pharmacy wanted to charge me 20 Euro ($30) for contact solution and tampons. I stared at him for a long, long time. Which brings me to...
• Parisian men. I know. I know. I'm sorry. But. It's not the women who cut in front of you in lines, give you the wrong change, run you over with scooters, overcharge you and leer at you on the subway. Just sayin'.
• The sidewalks. Or rather the mass of humanity on the sidewalks. They don't walk, they ooze. They drift. They inexplicably stop. They somehow manage to take up the entire expanse of the sidewalk moving not forward but sideways like some sort of human crab. Marchez! Allez! Mon dieu!
• My teeny-tiny shower and the scummy clingy shower curtain. That thing sticks to my legs and it pisses me off. The shower is so small, I've burned my elbow 20 times on the molten hot water tap.
• The reek of my refrigerator. Senor Producer, the flat's owner, keeps some manner of fermented something in there. Olives maybe. The smell of them, wafting out and filling the whole apartment, makes me homicidal.
• Climbing six flights to my place. 104 stairs x at least once a day = 3100 - 4000 stairs. My ass, though...is fantastic.