Half a year gone by

I’ve spent around 6 months in Paris by now. Actually, tomorrow it’s 7 months since I arrived. I’ve spent almost 3 weeks in Iceland too, so I guess the total comes to 6 months approximately. 

It already feels like a long time since I arrived. Like Paris swallowed me whole and I haven’t been spat out on the other side yet. When I was back home in Iceland in July it almost felt like Paris was a dream. The people were my imagination and I had not really lived here at all. My home hadn’t changed much, I knew where everything was and my people were there. 

I find it strange still to call this bustling city my home. I do love Paris but the most important elements of my home are not here. You all know, the beings that make a home, a home. 

However, I do admit that I thoroughly enjoy it here. There is always something happening. My street is extremely noisy all the time. Except, during the night, usually. It almost feels louder than where I’m used to living in Cairo. And I used to feel like that was noisy. There is no honking, but there’s a constant buzz of people. That’s one thing I realised when I was back in Iceland, the value of silence. Of sleeping in silence. Of waking up in silence. Of not hearing the regular noise of the metro. 

But the noise has ceased to bother me. Or most of the time anyway. Sometimes I simply miss home and everything that comes with it. Understandably. Now the noise has just become embedded in what Paris is for me. 

And on top of that, Paris is not a clean city. It’s not really modern either - in a lot of senses anyway. It very often smells of piss. No kidding, I wish I was. Mould is quite normal here, which has been hard for my Icelandic mind to grasp. 

Paris is grungy, it’s cool, it’s eccentric. It’s arty and adventurous, poise and all over the place. It tastes great and you can find almost anything and anyone here. 

Before moving here I never imagined that I would love Paris. Svavar told me at some point before I left, don’t be stressed, you are going to your dream city! My dream city? Never in a million years was Paris in my dreams. Yes I learned French but the few times I was here it was an in-and-out tourist experience that left me with a “meh, I get why people come here, but wouldn’t want to live here”, feeling. And until I moved here I didn’t think that feeling would change. 

Now I sit in my small apartment. Not the tiny one I started out in. I look out the window, I see the rooftops and the sky. I see open doors on balconies and I imagine life behind them. I smell the flavours offered on the street below. I sit in the dark, with some candles and my strings of fairy lights on, and I’m really actually here. Living in Paris. It’s not a dream. 

In some years it might feel like it. Just a warm feeling in my heart of a challenge, of a city that took me in and forced me to learn about it’s ways, about my ways and what I am in this whole context. 

All the photos on here today were taken in Montmartre. I’m still staying loyal to the 18ème arrondissement. That’s where the part of my heart that belongs to Paris, is.