My Two Weeks In Paris
Read this article in Vietnamese here
My two weeks spent in Paris were both weird and funny.
I used to dream of me being in Paris, with a bottle of red wine in hand, lying lazily at the foot of the Eiffel Tower. But finally I gave it up.
I had dreamed of driving through Southern France, in the middle of purple lavender fields.
I also had planned to meet some people and do some stuffs. Then everything changed, for no reason. Just because life has its own plan.
There are 9 billions people in this world. No one knows who would come into your life — someone who would hurt you or make you happy.
I notice that now I use this expression “At this age of my life …” quite a lot when saying something, although I’m only 22. Not I feel myself old enough, but because younger guys around me are doing much better than me at their age.
What was I doing when I was 19?
It is a chance to meet each other in a crowded city like Paris. It is a luck if we get along with each other.
However, I was not really into the beauty of this city. This is just my personal point of view.
In my humble opinion, Paris is a bit muddled.
I sat with my friend Ca Rot on the Seine riverbank an evening, drinking some bottles of beer and chitchatting. She has lived in Belgium for nearly 10 years and just moved to Paris to study. But she is always ready to return to Vietnam.
We really do think the same. So, please don’t think she’s weird! Living abroad doesn’t mean you have a better life, as her mother said to me.
I told her that I would shrink Paris to a rectangle as large as my two hands.
An old Paris. A Paris at night in sparkling lights in the drizzle. Parisian women wearing charming dresses and feathered hats, accompanied by gentlemen smoking pipes, walk on Pont Neuf bridge.
Or a Paris in a cold morning with the smell of fresh baked bread and the sound “ting-ting” from the bike of a boy wearing brown plaid pants.
I am a dreamer with lots of expectations, even when things are beyond my abilities. I read “The Miserable” to look at another facet of Paris.
I watched “The Package” movie in a morning and then followed them to see Vincent Van Gogh’s tomb, looking for his paintings and places where he has painted. I even wrote my wishes at the church that appeared in his paintings.
There is a place called Mont Saint Michel, the closest place to Heaven, where I will stand at the foot of an angel. It is is said that if you say “I love you” to someone there, God will hear you.
Forget about some incidents, like I was fined for a subway ticket, a fight I saw at a train station, or the madness in the World Cup finale night in Paris, and when my fingers stuck in the bus door on the French National Day. I will remember about Paris with my working days, exhausting but full of joy.
I will remember the moment I screamed when the Eiffel Tower changed color. The memory of the unfortunate painter van Gogh. The splendid fireworks night at the foot of the Eiffel Tower in the French National Day.
Or a BBQ at a friend’s home. We watched the World Cup final match and then went out to celebrate France’s victory as if we were French people.
By the time I realized I loved Paris a bit and felt affection for it, then I had to leave.
Morning of July 16th — a special day. Every month during my trip, on this day, I was in a different country. I wrote the letters I didn’t know when they would be sent.
Anyway, it is easy to understand if sometimes you feel lonely or lost in Paris. However, just dream of Paris like you imagine. Keep it beautiful forever in mind.
I’m going to the Netherlands now.
And these are not my last pictures of France yet.
Nguyễn Ánh Ngọc
Nguyen Anh Ngoc, 22, student at Hanoi University of Technology, Vietnam.
She spent a gap year in Spain and had a 77-days trip in Europe before coming back to Vietnam in early September, 2018.
Anh Ngoc is currently writing a blog about her “77-days journey alone to explore Europe.”
Contact Anh Ngoc on Instagram at @ _esme_73 and her blog Esmeaway.
