Paris: My former hometown, nemesis, and cosplay inspiration. It’s been four years since I boarded a plane and landed in France for the first time. “What could possibly go wrong?” I thought when I signed papers to work in a country I had never even visited with a family I had never even met. SPOILER: Everything went wrong.
Well, I guess not everything went wrong. Paris was the city that first got me in to cosplaying, and it was the first city where I started going to conventions, so I guess I do have to attribute those aspects of my life to my time here.
But overall, Paris and I have a love-hate relationship. It was really difficult living in this city and trying to learn a new language and culture…while taking care of four boys. To be perfectly honest I didn’t think I would come back. There was just so much pain tied to this city that I kind of kicked the dust off my feet when I left back in 2015.
But, here I am. 2018 and I’m once again in the city of love. I wish that I could say that this trip has changed my mind about Paris but there have been so many problems during my time here (48 hours) that I’m seriously starting to wonder if there’s some kind of curse on me, associated with Paris. To start things off, the Airbnb that I booked was NOTHING like the listing which resulted in me actually filing a complaint with Airbnb and getting a stipend from them to find a new place to stay. I’m also filing for a refund, but that can’t be processed until Tuesday.
To add insult to injury my computer died right after I got to the city because I brilliantly forgot to bring a converter for France, just England. And yeah yeah this is my fault, not the cities, but it still was added stress.
THEN my Airbnb experience “Yoga under the Eiffel Tower” got cancelled due to the weather, and while I was invited to a yoga studio instead it still just wasn’t the same…and I didn’t get a picture which was part of the package. Boo.
THEN it started raining today while I was heading out to my photoshoot, and I just about cried. If you are someone with curly hair, or know someone with curly hair you’ll know why. It’s not even a matter of getting my hair wet, once it’s raining the humidity is enough to frizz my hair into space. It still was raining just a little bit when I started my photoshoot, but I was absolutely convinced to do the damn thing and so I’m a bit amused/curious how those photos will turn out. Sorry, no blue dress for these ones. I just wanted some pretty pictures of me around the city I used to live in.
After the shoot I got a chance to go over to Shakespeare and Co. which is a really beautiful bookshop in Paris that you all should go to. Mainly because they have a cat that lives in the shop. But also because it has a really cool history of inspiring writers throughout the decades. I also was really excited to find a bubble tea place in Paris that I’d never seen before. I think it’s new, and it was definitely filled with Americans, but I was so happy to have my favorite drink. Oh, and then I ate a crepe. Which is pretty much what I’ve been doing the whole time I’ve been here: eating.
Someone asked me today what I’d been doing with my time in Paris and I literally had nothing to say other than eating crepes. How many have I had? You’ll never know, and I’m never going to tell you.
Darkk Horse Travel 