A Sweet Escape

The first few days in Paris I felt a little overwhelmed. Tiny apartment, people everywhere, nasty cigarette smoke being inhaled far too often.  It wasn't so much that I was experiencing culture shock as it was my romantic vision of a European paradise was being revised.  But my negative outlook lifted when on a cool evening  after class we decided to visit the Luxembourg Gardens just three stops on the metro up from our apartment.

This former palace is now the meeting chambers for the Senate of France and security guards in sharp blue uniforms patrol the green grounds.  There are flowers, walkways and sculptures that surround the small palace and create a relaxing atmosphere.  On that particular night the grounds were thinly populated due to the slight chill and we felt joyously secluded from the bustle of the city.  It was the first time I had seen Burke completely relaxed since we had arrived and we both agreed that this would be a place we would escape to frequently.

Since then we have returned a handful of times and with the increasingly good weather it has turned into an area just as packed as the rest of the city.  However, now that we are adjusted to life amongst millions, it is no longer a frustration to me, rather a simple fact of how life is for Parisians.  We love to sit on the benches and people watch, read or visit.  On Sunday afternoon a 30 person brass band played from one of the gazebos amidst the trees.  It is a lovely are and always rejuvenates me when I enter the grounds.   

One of my favorite things to watch is the fountain area where children can rent sailboats from a vendor and push them out into the water with a long stick.  They race to and fro around the fountain, trying to guess where the wind will land their little boat.  It's very picturesque and sitting there in the sunshine with the babble of voices all around, watching one little boy's face grin as his boat nears the point of his outstretched stick, I realize my European vision wasn't quite a thing of fiction and fairytales after all.