Well, I am back from Paris… it was simply the best trip possible. I rented an apartment from www.feelparis.com in the heart of the city. I met up with people from all over the world. I danced, I ate, I drank, I saw… I even kicked a hotel where my friend’s husband brought his mistress. Yes, the trip had a little bit of everything.
As a bit of an unusual twist on the blog, I am adding a little short essay I wrote about the trip. It isn’t 100% true – ie. people knew I was away, he didn’t cheat on me, he just broke up with me and there was no hat. Enjoy.

“Yes, and that is why people from all over the world come to see her,” I overheard, a black-haired guide speaking in French. “People want to know that true beauty in a woman is not about having everything put together perfectly. Beauty is spontaneous… a kind of imperfect perfection.”
I looked at the statue of Venus de Milo – she is imperfect by today’s standards, that is for sure. She looks like the way my body looks like after the winter, when I have been eating a lot of chocolate and drive-thru, working too much, sitting at my desk too much and going to the gym not enough… and my stomach sticks out over the top of my jeans. “Muffin top” is what my friend Tori calls that little piece of fat which Venus would have if she wore jeans. The statue’s hair is not too stylish either in its stringy pony-tail. Yet people from around the world come and see her – because she is beautiful.
I walk alone through the hallways of Paris’s the Louvre, wearing a sweatshirt, a too-big coat and baggy jeans. No, I didn’t want to stand out here. I could not let anyone know that I was thousands of miles away from anyone that loved me… and that no one knew that I was there. That I ran away from my life. A friend of mine from highschool once ran away from home, and she said that the first rule of running away is that you cannot share that fact with anyone – people are more likely to take advantage of you when you have no one nearby that cares for you.
“Well, maybe in the place where she is from, that hairstyle is cool?” said a woman in Japanese. I turned around to see her – she was wearing tight jeans, pointy boots and a shiny purse that likely cost thousands of dollars. She and her friend burst out in laughter. I realized that they were looking at me and talking about my messy chignon. I touched my hair self-consciously.
“Excuse me…” said a young Japanese man with thick black glasses and a scrappy little beard in faltering, hesitant English. “Could you take a photo?” After saying “sure, no problem,” I noticed that he was posing with those two cats who were making fun of me!!!
“Yes,” I responded in Japanese – with all the confidence I could muster. “I want to see all of your beautiful smiles – say cheese!” The girls looked surprised and very ashamed. How could they have guessed that I was an exchange student for two years in Tokyo? “Now…” I said gesturing at my head, “maybe you guys can give me some hairstyling advice – I know – it is so terrible!” They all laughed loudly – and complimented me on my Japanese language skills.
The four of us ended up going for dinner than to drinks together. On the way, the girls suggested that maybe the best solution for my hair troubles was to buy a hat – so I got a big white floppy one. “You look so pretty in your hat. You are a beautiful woman!” said one of them. “Why are you here in Paris by yourself – you should have a boyfriend!”
I told them that I had a boyfriend until few weeks ago. I caught him cheating on me with his ex-wife. The trip was my way of escaping my life. I felt like my life was becoming a monument to my sadness and to what had been lost. I wanted to see other monuments instead – to beauty, to freedom, to happiness. I didn’t say that last part in Japanese though, since I don’t know how to say monument, and I think these guys were too young and sweet to get it.
“Alone in the city of love – it is so sad,” said one of the girls.
“But, no – somehow right now, I feel not sad for the first time in months.” I switched to English “I feel better now – just hanging out with you guys – practicing French and Japanese and being interested in my own life. It is not quite the life I dreamed of – but it is imperfect and beautiful – like the statue where we met…” They smiled.