Ces derniers jours...

I am becoming awful at efficiently updating my family and friends on what I'm up to. When I finally catch up, I regurgitate something not even remotely relevant to what my life has actually been like, or I simply can't be arsed saying the same thing to every single person that sends me a "HEY! UPDATE ME ON LIFE PLZ" message so I try to ignore the actual recent life events in favour for "so what's up with you?" or alternatively linking Vine/Tumblr gifs that are moment-appropriate (I really have become an internet junky).

Living in France is a double paradox. I have left Australia to see more of the world, though I am so consumed by this world that I have no idea of what's going on in the world itself, especially back in Australia. I mean - who is our Prime Minister? Why did my mum find a carpet python under her study desk? Why is Europe still stuck in the late 2000s when it comes to music? I miss vegemite.

I kinda like it. I am in the middle of Europe (not literally) where so much is happening like the crisis and intense law reforms - and I just don't identify with it yet I don't identify with whatever is going on back home either. It's like one 10-month-long holiday (except I have to write a 1000 word masters-level french sociology essay every week but the upside is that my professor is a French Tina Fey so who's winning now?) where you don't have a television and ninemsn.com.au is by proxy not accessible, and you just switch off completely and enjoy the immediacy of what's around you. From the chatter between two neighbours outside your apartment door, to the African women beside the metro selling corn on the cob (it is the staple Parisian food truck), to the Eastern-European gentlemen at Concorde metro station religiously playing the songs of their people on the walk between lines 1 and 12.

Yes these are the experiences of my Paris. I live in a working-class neighbourhood where the more people of North African heritage you see, the closer you are to your house. And it doesn't phase me one bit. It is strikingly real. I don't feel like I'm drifting in the fantasy of Paris, and I do not take for granted my opportunities (or the fact that prices for every day living are more affordable and the people down to earth and not snobbish). Just a walk away and I am standing on top of a hill gazing over the gorgeous puzzle of 7 storey buildings throughout the city, listening to the clinking of silverware on plates in the corner cafés and restaurants of Montmartre and following cobbled roads into new corners of the city. I feel at home, at ease, and at one with myself. Whilst I know this is not my home forever, it feels like it has been my home forever and it's comforting and rewarding.

So. I will be, when I can, writing little snippets of "this is what I did since I last told you what I did" and try to stay faithful to reminding myself of this glorious adventure I just happened upon so wilfully when I left Australia with a backpack and some form of hope for the future.