Celebrity Spotting in Paris

I don't know what it is about the combination of Gina, me and the Marais that draws out the celebs, but today we had our second (major) celebrity sighting. Such a beautiful day as it was, the two of us went for tea in a little Asian-style tea room and for a walk afterwards. As we were strolling past a park, Gina suddenly piped up with: "That's Bob Geldof...and Pixie!" This time we didn't speak to them but I took some sneaky snaps.

When I sent a text to my dad to tell him, he responded: "Scruffy looking, I'll bet." Right on the mark, dad. He looked as homeless as ever, despite having an obscene amount of money and berating us mere mortals for not donating our every last penny to this charity or that. As my flatmate replied when I told him I had been celebrity spotting: "You mean uglyspotting."

A Moveable Feast

Everywhere I turn I seem to be hearing about people who come to Paris and never leave. In fact, it's happening in front of my very eyes. Somehow, I came across the blog of an American woman who came to Paris for a couple of years and ended up staying an extra year, and through her blog I came across the blogs of many more expat Anglophones living here. Even an author who has been here for 20 years.

So when I say that this is happening in front of my very eyes, I'm referring to my flatmate and friends. Kate came here with limited French on a six month internship for an international newspaper. A month after the end of her internship, she is writing reviews for other English language publications and teaching English to children in an attempt to earn some money and improve her French, because she simply does not want to leave. I have two friends who were supposed to come here for their Erasmus year and one has decided to stay indefinitely, while the other has decided to defer her place at her English uni for an extra year.

I have also got the I-want-to-stay-forever bug. I've already decided to look for a job for the summer so that I can extend my stay for another three months, but after that I am condemned to moving home. While it helps that I'm living with two of my best friends next year, I am still going to be disappointed to leave. Throughout my time here I have met people who just get the staying fever or they don't. There are those who come here and while they have fun, they look forward to going home because they want to carry on with things they have going on there. And then there are those who come and just can't bear to tear themselves away.

I think I fall into the latter category, and by this point would probably be thinking about staying for a lot longer if I didn't have my final year of uni to complete. In the mean time, I have to decide what kind of work I want to do, if I'm going to stay for the summer...