Paris is an incredibly romanticized city for how much it smells like urine.
Being able to spend all day absorbing incredible works of art and then buying a corn on the cob roasted on a shopping cart outside of your metro stop is something I will always love. But having the exquisite pleasure of cheap, fantastic cheese on every corner to pair with a fresh baguette and some sidewalk wine while walking the streets is what freedom feels like.
From the 1st to the 20th arrondissement there is a sense of history and modernity intertwined. Crowded, narrow cobble stone streets empty out to large shopping and transportation complexes, hundreds year old cathedrals over look squares filled with e-cigarettes and day drinking, and never fails to exist a busker playing ‘La Vie En Rose’ who promptly checks their phone afterward.
