One moment I’m eating overpriced Thai in the 8th, slightly tipsy, slightly bored. The next I’m in Vanves, just outside of Paris, speaking with a wise bearded man, inquiring about a girl named Lucy.

Then I’m in Versailles, skateboarding and drinking beer, watching the castle facade melt and the stars fall. Blink and I’m caught in torrential downpour near St Michel. The clouds part— they don’t want to kill my vibe, and I’m on a sun-drenched ferris wheel in the Tuileries with a bottle of Veuve Clicquot, a strawberry ice cream cone and a Marlboro light.

Fast forward, I’m rushing to catch a train to the French Riviera. Miss the train, and then I’m on a boat near Gare D’Austerlitz, Mojitos abound, the mix is soca, reggae, calypso. Girls dancing with their eyes closed, arms up, bangles and earring glittering under red lights.

I stumble back onto solid ground, an idea comes to me through my alcohol-induced haze: we missed the train, why not rent a car?

I’m in a tiny European car, fumbling with the gps. I’m fleeing Paris’s ever-present storm, heading away from rain and clouds, making my way down south, where, for once, the DJ’s outnumber the groupies. The Overdrive Infinity Summer house. I step over an inflatable dolphin, peep a cutie with bright yellow booty shorts, take a plate of barbecued fish from a british guy with a megaphone. Pause to look up and around, no city, no cars, no roads. Just night sky, amazing music, and of course the liquor flows.

But time to move on. To after parties, hotels. Conference rooms with crates of wine and beer. To early mornings and hangovers. Back in the car, we could go home…or we could go to Cannes. Cannes, Frejus, St Raphael. Frozen blue drinks, hot pink shorts, way too many Instagram opportunities.

Skipping rocks from clay-red cliffs, climbing the mountain, chasing the perfect vantage point. It’s vast. It’s expansive. A churning blue that stretches in each direction. It’s overwhelming, but I’m in love.

And yet. It’s starting to get late. Very little gas money, no place to sleep, no plans, no obligations. On to marseilles? Check. On to Lyon? That too. Find a room on airbnb just after midnight. A lot of wine, too much wine. Lyon has no beaches and no palm trees but it has castles and I love castles.

Casual walks, less casual searches for a western union. Money had, McDonald’s purchased, time for the ride back. Make it to Paris, but not quite ready to go home.

Several phone calls and incoherent texts later, it’s 1am and I’m holding a boy’s hand and stumbling through a dark forest, sloshing through mud, clothes catching on twigs. In the distance, a bass line summons. We’re running through a wheat field, boots sinking into the soil, our way lit by a full moon. Other creatures of the night stagger out of the woods, raising their beer cans as we pass them to an old abandoned war bunker. We drink more, dance more.

I finally grow tired—no, exhausted—just as the sun begins to rise. We make our way out through a cornfield, fall back into the car, streaking the floors with mud and littering the seats with wheat barley. An hour later I’m in shoeless and filthy in front of my apartment building, staring up. I sigh. And then I sigh again.