For some weird reasons, when I came to Europe for the first time, I wasn’t very interested to visit Paris. No matter how many times I heard people were saying how beautiful this city was and no matter how many people were dying to visit this city, somehow Paris couldn’t make it into the top of my to-do-vacation list. It was not until last year (summer 2009) that I had the chance to explore this city — alone and unplanned.

To cut the story short — the trip was sort of in a hurry. I only had 3 days to wonder around and Paris was really HUGE! Not only was it so massive, but it also had TOO MANY THINGS TO SEE! I was AMAAAAZED! It was indeed a pretty and beautiful city. I don’t think I’d mind to go there for million times because this city was just tooo beautiful! What I loved about Paris was the number of gardens and parks it had arround the city! WOW! I always told the Parisians that they were too lucky to have so many parks they could choose from to do picnic or just relax whenever they wanted. I envied them. I wish we had this in Jakarta .

Anyhow, Parisians loved to do picnic. When I was there, I tried the French way of picnic — I bought some breads and cheese (not cheddar cheese! real cheese ). That was how they did it and sometimes I saw people eating bread using their right hand and holding their cheese on the other hand! It was the most economical way to eat in Paris, knowing that everything was so damn expensive *sigh*. Anyway, one more thing I really loved about this city was that there were many beautiful and cozy spots to enjoy your day and relax. You could do it by the river Seine, in the park, on the boat, or any spots overlooking the Eiffel Tower. When I was too tired to walk, I usually sat in the nearby park or somewhere near the river and I felt so relax and peaceful! I wished I could share my happiness with somebody . Hmm, this reminded me of a quote from Into the Wild movie: Happiness is real when shared. Loved it!

The whole trip was memorable and unforgettable. Although I traveled alone, I met a few nice people on the way who had been my life saver during my 3-day stay in Paris. I felt blessed to meet them . The moment I went back to the Netherlands, I was surprised to see the balance figure on my bank account: 50 euros! :-S Paris, I blamed you for this!

… but I’ll never regret to do this trip. I’ll come back. I promise.