Paris: a movable feast

A boeing 777 landed on the Charles de Gaulle Airport in France. After more than ten hours flight, I finally arrived at Paris. Even though I had tried my best to imagine what Paris looked like before I headed off to Paris, but the real Paris was still greatly beyond my imagination.

My strong longing for Paris is from Ernest Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast, ‘If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris when you are a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a movable feast.’ When I hanged about in the streets of Paris, I kept my eyes open widely to catch every moment and thought that maybe I was experienced the same scenery with Hemingway did more than eighty years ago.

After being arranged in a hotel in down town, I couldn’t wait to look for the historic heritages in Paris. Notre Dame de Paris was my first destination. Since my first time to read the novel Notre Dame de Paris wrote by Victor Hugo fifteen years ago, the dream to visit the world-famous cathedral has deeply kept in my mind. Notre Dame, located in the city center of Paris and adjacent to the Seine, is widely considered one of the finest examples of French Gothic architecture. The sculptures and stained glass show the heavy influence of naturalism. Viewed from the summit of the towers of Notre-Dame, the whole Paris looks like a romantic and historic picture.

The Champs Elysees is one of most famous streets in the world, lined with cinemas, café and luxury specialty shops. Walking around the crowed and vibrant street at the agreeable night, I couldn’t believe that I was still in the chilly winter in Edmonton the last night.

Time seems to stagnate when I walked around the streets in Paris. I forgot every agonizing thing in Edmonton. I just used my heart to taste the movable feast. I am not the same lucky as Hemingway, who took several years of his young time in Paris, but I am still lucky, for I have the chance to experience the transitory excitement and rejoicing in Paris.