My Second Trip to Paris

After completing my junior year of college, I headed to Paris in June of 2003. Exhausted after my flight, once aboard the airport bus from Charles de Gaulle to the Arc de Triomphe, I fell asleep, foolishly leaving the Louis Vuitton wallet I had purchased that spring on the seat next to me. When I got off the bus, I got that sinking feeling that came with the realization that someone had stolen it.

Despite the rough start (a stranger kindly gave me a Metro ticket, without which I wouldn't have made it to my destination since all my cash and cards were in that wallet) and the several sketchy men I managed to encounter during my stay in Paris (French men can be very aggressive in a creepy way), the city did not fail to charm me.

My foyer (pictured below) was located on the beautiful Ile Saint Louis (basically, the other island in the middle of the Seine, at the city center, which connects to Ile de la Cite, where the Notre Dame cathedral is situated).
Walking across the Seine every day was surreal. I didn't get my first iPod until after college, and at the time I was still using my MiniDisc player. My soundtrack for that summer was Jimmy Eat World's "Clarity" album, and hearing songs from that album still reminds me of that summer in Paris.