home (kind of)
Paris is not home, nor is it anywhere close to Toronto.1 I am still in Paris, for the third time in as many weeks, but now my parents2 are here with me! 3
Our journey began as I scarfed down the Timbits I requested — which they dutifully brought with them on the eight hour flight over —as slightly confused professional chauffeurs looked on. From there, we’ve been wandering around Paris; the highlight of which has been commuting a half hour to visit an “off the beaten trail” attraction that we, in fact, visited together four years ago on a trip that very much stuck to the beaten trail. Each event — ranging from the Chinese restaurant that somehow offered every possible dish to the Vietnamese pho that was also, in fact, made by a Chinese family — has offered more of a feeling of home than I’ve felt so far on this year abroad.
I don’t want to make like a throw pillow or a cheap Etsy mural: I am not writing a post about how home is a feeling or how the people inside a house make a home, etc, etc. I miss a lot of things about Toronto: local restaurants, little cafes that dot the city, Planta, friends, and the TTC (hot take). Yet it has been nice, I must say, to spend time with my parents and the pieces of home they bring with them — Timbits and otherwise.
Footnotes
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The people who say “a short hop across the pond” must be colourblind to the brilliant blue that indicates “the pond” of the Atlantic as something much larger than your local reservoir. ↩
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Any flaws in my character are attributable to me; any possible fortes are completely their doing. ↩
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Those ill-fated enough to be at CDG airport at 11:30am CEST on Sunday would have been treated to the sight of a possible modern-day Andre the Giant wannabe nearly tackling two unlucky middle-aged Chinese people. I also happened to be there, picking up my parents. ↩