Paris Week 8: Slipped Away to Luxembourg

“Paris? All this time I’ve been underneath Paris?” – Remy, Ratatouille. Beautiful and nostalgic words from a rat.

So many beautiful moments happened this week. I felt organized, strong, happy, and grateful. We started the week off Sunday with a relaxing day, and moved straight into Monday! I met with Céline and we planned a lot of fun shoots for my last few weeks in Paris!

Procrastination and Production

I spent the last 2 months soaking in all this French inspiration, and have just now decided to do a bunch of photoshoots… all at once. I don’t know what it is about me, but somewhere in the coding of my brain must be this line “If you wait ’till the last minute, it only takes a minute.” There, the best one sentence summary of my Being. It’s both frustrating yet liberating!

I spent a good portion of this week reaching out to people for photo shoots, creating mood boards, wardrobe hunting for said shoots, and finalizing plans! This is the less glamorous part of photography, but it’s exciting to see the budding idea of a shoot progress to final images!

Luxembourg

To explain Luxembourg in a few quick words would be difficult. But I would say that Luxembourg is innovative, fluid, and extremely clean. Alex would say Luxembourg is hip, well-thought-out, and a commuter’s dream. (All public transportation is free and super easy to use!)

On a quick whim, Alex and I decided to take a brief trip up to Luxembourg–another country I lived in while here as a missionary! We spent Wednesday exploring the city center, going to my favorite cake and hot chocolate café, and weaving in and out through the streets in the rain. I was so excited to show him the culture, buildings, foods and most importantly… my favorite family!!

We took the train to a smaller part of Luxembourg to visit the Wies family. They are my great friends. We chatted for hours, reminiscing and catching up on what everyone is doing with their life! Saying goodbye was hard. It always is. However, I’m determined that the people we love are inevitably tied to us, that paths are bound to cross.

That night Alex and I went out for the best Indian food I’ve ever had, hidden in a street in Luxembourg. It was heaven!

Vianden

Thursday we took another train to a nearby Castle in Vianden! Vianden is a medieval village in the northern part of Luxembourg. The entire city is built on a climbing hill up towards the castle. It’s so photogenic!

I’d been there as a missionary, but Alex brings so much excitement and joy with him, it felt like a completely new experience. We explored the small town and walked up through the streets all the way to the Castle. It was stunning of course, my favorite part was seeing Alex so happy and amazed!

I love the way Alex and I travel together. I feel like this entire experience of living abroad has shown us how to best work as a team. It was cute to see Alex go run up a really forested path and meet me at the bottom, because he’s much faster than I, and a lot less terrified of mosquitos and allergies haha. Both of us happy seeing the city in our way!

Saturday

Saturday, back in Paris, was the busiest day of the week for me! I scheduled two shoots, both of which turned out great! My favorite was the evening shoot, it was a little Gucci inspired. At the end of the night we made our way to the Eiffel Tower for some flash images as it sparkled. Pure magic.

Almost time to Leave

It’s so crazy to think about how quickly these weeks have gone by! Next week is the final week of my internship here. It has been absolutely amazing in every way to be here creating with Céline, learning from her, soaking up all the inspiration that Paris has to offer, while sharing new memories with Alex.

I do miss my family! And friends! Isn’t it funny how we always long for the future? For summer, for that vacation, (and somewhat surprisingly) to return home from that vacation, etc. My goal this week is to continue enjoying each day and moment with a full heart, relishing in the memories being created, and accept upcoming changes.

So here I remain, hugging all these memories tightly, thanking them for their presence in my life, and relearning each day how to live!

Until next week!