It's been said that Paris is at it's loveliest in April. Images of budding flowers with a blurry Eiffel tower in the background come to mind. Though it is true that Paris is beautiful in every season, from my experience, April in Paris better relates to the phrase: April showers bring May flowers.

   I arrived in a rainy Paris by the TGV, the high speed train that can bring you from a Mediterranean city like Montpellier to Paris Gare de Lyon within a few hours. This being my third time in Paris, I am embarrassingly proud of my ability to navigate the city's metro system. Without my backpacker's backpack and blond hair that screams "tourist", I like to believe I would have blended in.

  The more I visit Paris, the more I fall in love. Walking the street's of France's capitol, you get the "anything's possible" feelings of New York with the beauty of Old Europe. You can find every kind of person imaginable, whether you're promenading the Seine or between the streets of the lower 15th arrondissement or on the metro.

  My friends and I stayed at an apartment rented through Airbnb. I've never had a bad experience through the website. The couple (who have been together eight years and are the cutest imaginable) who rented us their apartment for Easter weekend, Clementine and Romain, went above and beyond to make sure we had a pleasant stay. They bought us a bottle of wine and placed little bowls of candy around the place for us to eat. It was a small apartment, but with character. They had polaroids of themselves on the doors, on bookshelves, on their desks, as well as positive affirmations hanging on the wall. They are the epitome of relationship goals.
Taco dinner at the apartment

    Saturday, another rainy day, was filled with pictures at the Eiffel Tower and waiting two and half hours in line to climb to the top of Notre Dame. It's something I've never done before, and around the time my toes were about to fall off from the cold I wondered if it was worth it. But, of course, it was. I should never doubt a good view of Paris.


Notre Dame de Paris


   
Crêpes avec Nutella while waiting in line

View from Notre Dame

    The gargoyles brought me back to my childhood, watching the Hunchback of Notre Dame. I saw the bells, and stood on top of one of the towers. Paris seemed to extend forever. Paris is it's own world.

   After the Notre Dame, I tracked down the bakery that made the best thing I ever tasted, the raspberry and pistachio eclair I mentioned in my last entry. I was giddy in my search, in the most embarrassing way. I knew I could find it at a bakery to the left of Notre Dame and I remembered how it was set up, the display case on the left and the eclairs prominently in the front. I found them with no problem. There they were, as if nothing had changed and I was eighteen again on my first trip to Paris, about to eat the most amazing thing in the world.


    I would like to tell you that it was everything I remembered. I would like to tell you that my taste buds were just as in awe as they were almost three years ago. But that was not the case. On my phone, there's a video of me trying it again and the hope that drains from my face is so sad that no one is ever going to see the video
  Maybe the recipe had changed. I like to imagine an elderly French baker, beloved by all, had made it a few years ago, and even though his legacy was still being carried on after he passed or retired, the pastries were never the same. Whatever the reason, the pastry part of the eclair was somewhat tasteless, and the pistachio was neither sweet nor tasted like pistachio.

   Sunday was the third Easter I've spent in another country. In Sweden, I went to a Catholic service in Gothenburg. In Italy, I was lucky enough to get a glance of the pope in St. Peter's Square. But this Easter was definitely the most interesting way I've spent the holiday, at the Catacombs of Paris.

  The Catacombs are a series of tunnels under the city filled with thousands of bones neatly stacked along the walls. Back in the 1800's, when the city's cemeteries were getting overcrowded, many of the bones of the dead were moved to the catacombs, which had been old quarry tunnels. In between the bones were plaques with morbid phrases, such as "Death is a gain" and the ones below.

Entrance to the Catacombs, says "Stop! This is the empire of the dead"


"Believe that each day is, for you, the last"

"For me, death is a gain"

"God is not the author of death"
   While my friends went to Versailles, I fulfilled a lifelong dream by visiting the Shakespeare and Company Bookstore, the most famous English language bookstore in Paris. On my half an hour walk to the store, I walked the cobblestone sidewalks along the Seine, following the leisurely pace of tourists and locals alike. It was finally sunny. Along the sidewalks on the side of the river are rows and rows of green stands, where you are less likely to find cheap tourist trinkets and more likely to see books, paintings, or copies of old newspapers. I struck up a conversation with an elderly Parisian vendor after he saw that I was looking at a French copy of Renée Descartes' Méditations métaphysique. I know absolutely nothing about philosophy and I am far from understanding the entire book, but I bought it in hopes of one day reading it.

Green stands along the Seine

   I arrived finally at the Shakespeare and Co. Bookstore. Although every bookstore is different, entering into each new one is like coming home. In this one, I was transported into a time of artistic importance in Paris, where authors of the "Lost Generation" such as Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald thrived.
   


   Everything in the store encouraged literary expression, from sections entirely devoted to French life, authors, fiction and culture to printed out advice from writer's taped to in random nooks and crannies.
  

Writing Advice (found under the staircase) from Raymond Chandler, American author
   Waiting in line to enter the store, I struck up conversation with the young woman my age who was letting people in person by person so it didn't fill up. She was from Philadelphia and was telling me about how the owner of the store encourages young writers or even avid readers to stay in the apartment above the store for free in return for volunteering a few hours in the store during the day. "If you go upstairs to the rare book section, you'll see my bed." Sure enough, I came across a blue cot that looked completely out of place in the corner of the room filled with books.

   Afterwards, I felt as inspired and passionate about the literary culture and history of Paris as Owen Wilson in Midnight in Paris (great movie if you haven't seen it). I walked the Seine to the Musée d'Orsay, and visited my favorite place in the city. Waiting in the half hour line, I read the Hemingway novel I bought at Shakespeare and Co, one of his many that I was never required to read in school, the Sun Also Rises. The impressionist and post impressionist paintings found in the Orsay are impressive as ever. One can find Monet, Manet, Van Gogh and more in the rooms of the former train station turned museum.
Inside the Musée

Monet
   Paris always makes me question the fact if I could ever live in a city, and it makes me want to try.