Last weekend, Paul and I went to Paris. We went to attend the wedding of some friends who had very graciously provided us with a lovely excuse to absent ourselves from London (though to be fair, we are never hard to persuade away). 72 hours of loveliness and one departure-lounge breakdown later, I'm back in London and feeling a bit deflated.
It's sunny here, which is nothing to quibble with, especially as it lasts so long (which is something I personally quibble with, though it seems churlish to do so – one should never insult the sun in a country which sees it as infrequently as the UK), but the sun has got me missing Prague. Paris, with its carriage doors, squares and hilliness, reminds me of Prague, which gets me thinking about lovely summer days sitting on the balcony terrace at Grand Café Orient, drinking Gambrinus at the river bar and white wine in Letna park, and sunbathing at various lakes …
My thoughts have been running in this direction all day, making it slightly challenging to focus on anything I should be doing, such as working, studying Czech, unpacking from Paris or preparing to go to Copenhagen on Thursday. I can come to no other conclusion but that I am suffering from Eurostar-lag, a psycho-physical manifestation designed to impress upon the UK-based sufferer the superiority of life on the continental landmass. In my case, such preaching is hardly necessary – count me in as a card-carrying member of the choir, such a zealot, in fact that, as with my last four trips to the UK, I couldn't keep myself from tearing up in the Gare du Nord departures lounge. I'm starting to think that the extreme counterintuitiveness (counterintuitivity?) of repeated trips "home" to London has induced in me a sort of breath-restricting, back-pain-inducing case of PTSD. No surprises there, really. After all, repeating an action but hoping for different results is a tried and true litmus test for madness. If anything, it's worse in Paris, where you go through UK customs while you're still in France!
But enough malaise! Here, a list of things to celebrate about Continental Europe:
- Café culture: an affordably priced pitcher of wine or a latte, the day's papers, a comrade with whom one is equally happy to chat to or to sit with in mutual contemplation; also my personal antidote to shopping and rampant consumerism
- The architecture: 17th and 18th century buildings look so good in the sun
- The absence/diminished presence of English: a chance to practice one's language skills or just ignore anything that you don't feel like dealing with
- Human-sized cities: places it's possible to travel to all four corners in the daily living of one's life
- Music and dancing: somehow more accessible
- Rivers: the kind you actually see every day, without having to make a special trip
- Intellectualism: hand-in-hand with café culture, the idea that it's cool to be smart and thinking is for everyone
- Antique book stores: they sell post-cards too – in Prague, I found one of PA Amish country once
- Expat communities: so what if it's a bit like never-ending university? I'm through caring. And I loved university!
- Train stations: Belgrade, Sofia, Bucharest, Budapest, Ljubljana, Trieste, Milan, Krakow, Moscow: oh, the possibilities, and not an airplane (or UK border control officer) in sight.
