upon reading the quote a friend of mine posted on instagram, i grabbed myself the book online and finished it in no time. it doesn't really describe paris the way i expected, but hemingway does mention specifically names of streets and places which almost all of them still ring to my ear bringing me that familiar feeling.
after a short visit four years ago, during my last two years of nomadic life in europe, i went and stayed in paris for like five or six times. the longest for about two months. stayed in at least three different studio apartments. for about two years i associated the city with a person. someone i knew from my first visit. practically the only person i knew in the city almost the whole time i was in paris. (i got to know more people from the period where i stayed in a town outside paris, but it's another story).
as we now have become good friends, i no longer associated paris with this person. although he was a part of most of my memories about paris, i have moved pass through associating the city with a particular person. what's left was a set of memory about a city i once get the privilege to live in. what was left were the memories of routines i used to do. of waking up to breakfast with quatre-quarts. of choosing whether i should go to metró saint-jacques or to denfert-rochereau. of having the best and freshest croissant at the boulangerie. of walking rue d'alésia. of the kids getting out of school in the evening from l'école maternelle across the street. of evening walk on rue de la rouqette. of opting out to walk all the way home across le marais instead of taking the much faster metró ride. of queing for the longest time for the crêpe at the greek place at rue mouffetard. of having the delightful 3 euro student meal at the cité universitaire. of going to some asian diner along rue de tolbiac. or the wonderful japanese along rue saint-anne. of just walking along canal saint-martin and entering cute design shops. of rolling cigarettes at parc de la villette. of walking from the tour eiffel all the way to 14arr the night of bastille day. of having beers on the street around belleville. of the always exhausting hustle on châtelet. of the retro cinemas around pantheon. of that moment when i cried in front of a monoprix after a fight. of sitting on a deck around the bibliothèque nationale. i could go on and on. somehow paris has this something which makes me remember all these names and senses. something that doesn't really happen with other cities i lived in, at least they aren't as strong.
paris will always be a cliché to talk about. some people love it. over-romanticise it. others loathe it. i still think the way as i first visited, people can say whatever but it all ends up being very personal. to me what hemingway said rings true, i'll always carry through with me the tiny little pieces of memories of the city.
