Paris, France

Paris, one of the world’s eternal cities. I came there for two months during Mumbai’s monsoon season, and was blown away by the peerless architecture, and the neverending options for the artistic mind. This largely ranged from free art museums, to a lot of outside performances, to libraries and cemeteries which helped spark the creativity of some of literature’s greatest minds. I think Paris is a city for anyone who is an apprentice to their writing. I found myself waking up every morning inspired and creative, just because of the residue of the artists who had once lived there filling my own lungs.

I will say there were a lot of things I didn’t like about Paris. Unless I wanted to live in the most cramped of conditions, an extremely far-off suburb, or spend a lot of money, I was practically destined to live poorly. I ended up renting out a maid’s chambre, which was about one-sixth the size of my Mumbai apartment, and was just about a hundred euros cheaper. I found it hard to penetrate the city because I did not speak French at first. Once I started being able to speak the language, I did find people a little bit more talkative, but generally, French people are polite, quick to say “Bonjour” or act in formal accord, but aren’t the easiest to befriend. This is a generalization, and one can meet any one of any type in any place, but I found Paris a socially hard place. I think it’s a wonderful place to spend some time for those low on inspiration, but I wouldn’t want to spend longer than a month there.