Paris: Deuxième Partie

On my way up to the main tour stop on this dream trip, I got momentarily caught under a light, mid-winter rain. It didn't dampen the whole experience, though. In fact, it enhanced the mood of my tour: "a rainy Monday afternoon in Paris" sounds like an idyllic and romantic turn of phrase that you might read in a Nicholas Sparks book; the experience of it, however, is something not even my four-decade worth of vocabulary can succinctly describe.

So, as I stood under the canopy of the bus stop on the corner of Avenue Raymond Poincaré and Avenue Poch, waiting for the drizzle to die down, I took a moment to absorb the reality of me finally being in Paris: walking its streets, seeing its sights, and showered by its rains. I felt a mixture of incredulity and gratitude flooding my senses.

I remember a bus stopping to pick up a local girl. I remember looking up at the sky to see patches of grey clouds floating against the blue Parisian sky. I remember  thankfully and excitedly thinking to myself, "I'm here!"

As the rain subsided, I proceeded uphill, still on Avenue Poincaré, observing the architecture of the buildings around this neighborhood. The façades were distinctly European (I've seen similar flourishes in Germany, Italy and Switzerland) but I couldn't say for sure if they were exclusively French. One thing was definite, though: I was loving every detail of these artistic residential and business establishments.

Further down the road, I caught a glimpse of what seemed to be a convenience store and went ahead across the street to where it was. And it turned out to be exactly what I thought it was. I decided to get some snacks and drinks for my journey, and found out that the convenience store was managed by a person of Middle-Eastern descent. "How many more persons of different nationalities am I going to meet?' was the running thought in my mind, eager to encounter more than just the French.

... to be continued ...