“We need the tonic of wildness...At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature.”

Unexplorable

Exploring | Wandering | Collecting

A new friend atop Notre Dame [journal]

By 04:11 , ,


A few days ago, I spent a long day in Paris where I walked the stairs of the Notre Dame and ate far too much food.
When I woke up, I immediately made my way down to the Notre Dame, a thirty minute walk from the AirBnB I was staying in.  The apartment itself was quite cute - it belonged to a woman who had lived there for 55 years.  It was so large that it had three separate internet routers.  I digress.

On my way up the Notre Dame I was behind a man who was huffing and puffing and holding the rail and saying things like "this is going to hurt tomorrow!"  A started laughing with the girl behind me, and we got chatting once we reached the top.  She was studying in Montpellier at the Conservatoire (originally from Birmingham).  We were chatting about languages and having useless degrees (mine being art, hers being music) and, eventually, we went out for lunch.


After lunch, it felt liberating to just wave and say goodbye and head back to my apartment while she went on her way.  One thing that really irks me is having a genuine moment with somebody, then feeling the pressure to add them on Facebook, and then they just sit there and stop being somebody you connected with, and become the person who posts too many cat pictures (okay, that's probably me).

I wandered for hours, stopped at home for a nap, then made my way up to Montmartre to have dinner with a friend from high school.  She'd also moved to Paris to study, but claimed that she was either eating or wearing all her money; she says she buys too many clothes and too many macarons. 

Going from a chance encounter at Notre Dame to reminiscing about my high school romances in a cosy restaurant in Paris felt worlds away from each other.  It reminded me to consider something I had largely underestimated in my travels - that it's about accepting what comes your way.  





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About the Author

A lover of things whimsical and mysterious, I've packed my belongings and set out in search of monsters and magic. I love sea monsters on maps, climbing mountains and the bump when the plane lands.

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