Paris week 1: Settling into our New Normal

Personal

Well, we’ve landed in Paris, and in the 4 short days we’ve successfully un-successfully followed a sleeping routine. Haha!

We left Utah Wednesday at 2pm, and landing in Paris Thursday… thrown straight into 8am!

Since then, we’ve had a pretty impressive record of waking up each day around 1/2pm… we wake up late, stay up late, and the cycle continues. Last night (Saturday) I was wide awake at 2am, still not feeling sleepy. So today our goal was to walk around Paris, until our feet hurt, so that we’ll feel sleepy by 9pm, and hopefully wake up around 8/9am in turn.

The Journey Here

Back to the beginning–our flight was as good as can be! We watched King Richard and attempted to sleep, but overall the flight went by quicker than expected. Landing in Charles De Gaulle was easy, but getting our Navigo afterwards was complete insanity. We finally got our passes and hopped on the RER (like a mix between a super fast metro and a train) towards Alfortville, a small suburb in Paris, where Céline picked us up at the station and showed us our apartment!

After a 3 hour nap, we freshened up a bit and hit the city!! I was anxious to show Alex everywhere I’d been to on my mission, and he was equally as excited.

So the Fun Begins!

Starting Monday, I’ll be working with Céline for my photography internship! It was amazing to meet with her (finally in person!!), see Alfortville, and make plans for some really beautiful shoots she has coming up, and discuss ideas for the internship!

If I could describe Céline in an emoji, it would be the happy smiley face with the the calm eyes (hopefully you can picture this). When she talks about balancing photography work with living a real and meaningful life, everything in my heart JUST EXPLODES.

I want to further develop an acute awareness of balance and priorities in my life–knowing when to push harder, and when to ease up. I feel like I’ve already recognized this change beginning in myself, but it’s exciting to be in an environment that will only help cultivate this desire. Anywho! Can you tell I’m excited about working with her?

Galettes, Chèvre, Baguettes and Pain au Chocolat

Oh the food! How I’ve missed it!!! I’ve been dreaming especially of chèvre, a goat cheese that has a soft brie-like outer shell and the tart center! The first thing we did was walk to St. Merri, a center of town near Centre Pompidou (a modern museum). There we purchased two large savory crêpes filled with ham, tomato and chèvre.

Another favorite this week was picking up fresh chocolate-filled croissants for breakfast, and a baguette to go with our dinner. Alex thinks it’s now the daily routine, which I’m totally okay with!

Sunday Church and Wandering

This Sunday was absolutely heavenly. We finally woke up during the morning hours as we had to catch the RER into Paris for our church meeting! The message was amazing and we met some familiar faces that I knew while I was a missionary in Paris.

After church, we wandered over to the Jardin de Luxembourg to eat our packed lunch and enjoy the sunshine! Alex beat me in chess, which was super intimidating because onlookers would stand by and watch you play… and I’d never played before. We wandered and for the first time I was able to have my camera out, which was amazing! I loved enjoying the scenery on this calm Sunday afternoon.

We just finished dinner, are listening to some good Paul Cardall, and are probably going to finish the evening with a movie – comme d’habitude. All in all, a wonderful start to this journey. I would be lying if I said it’s all sunshine and croissants. The first night I think both Alex and I had this realization that it’s just us. It’s a big move, it’s short-term, but I’m grateful that he’s my home wherever we are.

Cheers to fun adventures and happy Sundays!

Bisous, Alexa Ditto