Nostalgia

As I popped up out of the metro this evening I had a brief sense of nostalgia.  That grand nostalgia being from last year of course.  Today was the first really "fall" day that we have had here in Paris with a crisp wind and leaves scattered about the ground.  The smell of roasted chestnuts filled the streets as the men lit up their homemade supermarket buggy grills and swirled the chestnuts around the top with their sticks as to evenly roast each and every one.  

People were wrapped up in scarves and heavier coats, many already wearing heavy boots and gloves as if 60 degrees were terrifyingly cold.  It was dark and gray, and of course raining, which is always a sure sign winter is coming.  Everywhere I went sweaters and fall clothes were flying off the shelves.  A brown leaf fell onto my shoulder as I was walking down Boulevard Haussmann.  No, it was not a pretty orange, yellow, or red leaf that I would find back home...but yet it being the first sign of fall, it made me smile.  

The next song on my iPod was a Christmas tune, Baby It's Cold Outside, by James Taylor and I just couldn't bring myself to change the song.  

I wait for the day that the Christmas markets are building on the sidewalks between the Grand Palais and the Champs Elysées.  When the Champs Élysées is filled with twinkle lights and the grand tree in Galaries Lafayette is sparkling with glitz and glam.  You can smell vin chaud from a mile away and chocolat chaud pours from every corner of Paris like water.  The Christmas lights in Courcelles shine brightly over the street.  Shoppers are busy buying gifts for one another and every where you turn Père Noël is watching.  When the one, lonely -yet sizable- christmas tree is decorated in front of Notre-Dame with the traditional blue and silver lights and inside you can hear the beautiful notes of the choir's carols that resonate throughout the city.  

Yes, its soon Christmas in Paris and I never dreamed I would be spending not one, but two Christmases in such a beautiful city.  A city that seems to change during the winter season, but changes for the better, despite the freezing cold walks to and from the metro.  I do wish I could spend Christmas with my family, and would give anything, absolutely anything for an extra $1500 to make that happen, but if I had to choose a second location...Paris would have to be it.  

For now I will enjoy fall, adjust to the dark mornings and early evenings, eat cones and cones of roasted chestnuts, listen to the leaves shuffle under my feet, and celebrate with a new scarf or two.  Looks like its settling in to be an excellent l'automne.