I’ve had an infatuation with all things French and Parisian for quite some time now. I have no idea what first piqued my interest, but something did and it’s only increased since. Granted, my infatuation seems to decrease, or rather, I get busy and forget how much I love it from time to time. Then, I see a movie or hear a song and I remember how much I love all things French.
A couple of weeks ago, I was lying in bed watching “Sabrina” thinking about how much I love Julia Ormond as an actress. I did a quick IMDB (I love that site/app) search and realized that while I do in fact love Julia Ormond as an actress, I was thinking of Paris born, Juliette Binoche. An IMDB search on Juliette Binoche showed me that I’ve seen quite a few of her movies, but there were many more of her French language or Parisian based films that I still needed to see (based on their reviews). So I did what anyone would do: ordered them on Amazon. Of course I couldn’t stop there though, I ordered a few other “we recommend” French or Paris based films. And oh, I had to buy the highly rated “French in 10 Minutes a Day” book too. Darn you, Amazon. (And thank you.) But I digress.
I was online for hours going back and forth between IMDB, Google, and inevitably Amazon looking up and purchasing the best French/Parisian films. Lucky for me, I’d already seen several of the films on many lists I came across:
- Midnight in Paris
- Caché
- Paris, Je T'aime
- Chocolat
- Before Sunset
- 2 Days in Paris
- La Vie En Rose
- Amelie
- Paris
My freshman year of high school, when I had to take a language, I registered for French. Unfortunately for me, my mom found out and switched me to Spanish because it was “more practical” and, all things considered, she was right. Unfortunately for both of us, my school’s Spanish teacher’s first language was French; he spoke English 99.97% of the time he taught my class; and most assignments were to be written in English. Needless to say, in two and a half years I learned absolutely no Spanish and no French.
Some years later, I went to Paris for about a week and officially fell in love. The people, the culture, the language, the accent, I loved it all. I was only there for a brief period of time, but after day one, I could see myself living there. One day, perhaps.
Every time I start thinking about the next place I want to visit, I keep circling back around to Paris and other parts of France, but mainly Paris. Yes, I’ve been there. Yes, there are numerous other places I’d love to visit. Yet and still, my heart lies in Paris.
