My mind raced as I thought of a dozen different ways to respond to the children's literature professor who had snored at my side for the duration of the flight. How could I not be nervous? In a matter of just a few minutes I would finally be stepping onto French soil, resurrecting my rusty French, and--minor detail--meeting my boyfriend's French father for the first time. The command to relax just wasn't going to register in my vocabulary anytime soon.
Butterflies swarming from my core to my esophagus, I followed my professor friend through winding passages filled with intimidating French teenagers and stern mothers. "Well, welcome to France!" He said before a final goodbye and good luck. I watched his bald head and glasses disappear into the crowd, leaving me to fend for myself like the adult he assumed me to be.
Before allowing myself too much time to think about what awaited on the other side, I made my way for the exit. Just as Roland had promised, his reliable father was already there waiting for me. I did my best to smile through making my awkward, jet-lagged, to-bise-or-not-to-bise first impression, exchanging very few words before following behind him to the car. I calmed myself with the immediate, surprising recognition of shared traits between father and son.
Paris welcomed me with gray skies and damp air. We chatted casually as we drove through the unfamiliar landscape, telling each other details about our lives that we both probably already knew. Trying to categorize the layout of a brand new country in my mind, I decided it reminded me of Quebec, which gave me some comfort in the turmoil of brand-new stimuli.
Roland's adorable 10-year-old brother rushed to the car and gave me a shy hug before lugging one of my suitcases up to my room. The house looked just as Roland had described. Immediately I found myself wishing he could be there with me, walking me through all of these nervous encounters. Granted two hours of solitude, I immediately crawled into bed and shut my eyes to the outside world, relishing in the tranquility of sleep.
I soon awoke to Roland's father, brother, and step-mother Lawrence coming into the room to wake me. Somehow in my sleepy stupor I managed to forget all nine years of French that I had taken, greeting Roland's step-mother Lawrence with a simple "bonjour," hand gestures to fill in for lost words, and deer-in-the-headlights eyes. They left the poor, flustered American girl to get ready and collect her thoughts before leaving for lunch with the rest of the family. I stood at the window in solitude for a moment, trying to remind myself that I was in France, still not believing that I was actually there.
It was a day of failed first impressions, to say the least. Roland's uncles Philippe and Reinaldo smiled and teased me through a jet-lagged lunch, kindly taunting me for not being allowed to drink their wine, champagne, ice tea, coffee, smoke their weed, etc., etc. (kidding about the weed). Still, I had already won them over for posting that I was pregnant on Facebook for April Fool's Day, so my strange Mormon ways thankfully didn't damage my reputation too severely.
I had my first French meal on Philippe and Reinaldo's beautiful balcony. Between the entrée of heavenly mozzarella and tomatoes and flavors I had never been privileged enough to experience before in my life, rays of sunlight began to threaten the gray Parisian clouds looming over the city. It was in that moment as I looked over old stone buildings covered in ivy and elegant cracks that I suddenly realized where I was. I was in Paris, speaking French with strangers that would one day be family, nervously declining French wine yet enjoying being alive more than I have in the longest time.
The butterflies that had traffic-jammed in my throat by this point in the day completely subsided when I was finally able to meet up with Daniel. Stepping into the metros again was like walking back in time. I felt the familiar rush of anxiety wash over me that I would feel on my mission when walking into the metro, yet this time I felt liberated that I didn't have to go talk to ten different strangers in the span of a two-minute ride about the Book of Mormon and how I wasn't a polygamist.
Our first order of business was obviously to go to the Eiffel Tower. We descended at Trocadéro, Daniel making sure that I kept my eyes shut until he had led me to the perfect spot. When he finally told me to open my eyes, I just stood there in shock. I had dreamed of the Eiffel Tower a thousand times, looked at it longingly in watercolored pages of Madeleine storybooks, seen it in a million advertisements, movies, and TV commercials, and yet no matter how many times I blinked my eyes, I could not quite comprehend how giant it was. And magnificent. And so iconic I thought I would cry. Okay, I did cry. A tear, anyway. That structure is just so damn beautiful, no matter which angle you look at it from.
Jet-lagged as I was, I gladly let Daniel walk me all over the city. The gray clouds had faded, and all that was left was a perfect evening of brilliant skies and peaceful shadows. We walked along the Seine, taking in buildings that still didn't seem real, loveliness that could only be imagined. I lost my Parisian crêpe virginity at the most delightful little crêperie at St. Michel. I sat in a peaceful enclosure behind Notre Dame Cathedral laughing and chatting with my favorite brother just like any other day. Except it wasn't just like any other day. I was in Paris! The place I had wept over and dreamed about since I could register that such a magnificent place existed. The place I had studied my heart out to visit because I wanted to order a crêpe in French all by myself and impress a French waiter. The place that would, as cliché as this sounds, steal my heart forever.
When people ask me if Paris is as wonderful as I imagined, I tell them no. No, Paris is not as wonderful as I imagined. It's better.
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