Thoughts on Paris after the attacks

Honestly, in the past, I’ve said many negative things about Paris. The pretentious, arrogant, judgemental people that would rather look at their feet than the sky and complain a lot. But seeing Paris attacked for what it stands for makes me realize how beautiful Paris really is. We may be stubborn but we stand united. Even after the attacks at Charlie Hebdo, we all gathered at République to prove that we weren’t afraid to keep speaking our minds. After this Friday night, we stand even more united. We still keep our smiles to ourselves the morning in the metro but it’s Paris. We have apéros on the docks of the Seine with beers and wine and cherry tomatoes. We drink pints of beer and mojitos in bars every weekend. We shout drunkenly and happily in the streets, we sing, laugh, throw up, kiss and have sex with strangers. It’s in Paris that I realized I am an independent woman. It’s in Paris that I walked it’s streets bared ass without being mortified because Paris isn’t scared of nudity. We can drink and kiss without judgement, everyone does it. I still dream of San Francisco for its exhuberance and uniqueness… but once there, it’s the classiness, the elegance often pretentious and the joy of Paris that I will miss. In Paris, we are free.