[Written on September 11th]
I had one full day in Paris. It started with breakfast at a café, café au lait, orange juice and pain au chocolat, while studying the map of Paris. It felt so French.
I walked around in the latin quarters, looking at the small shops, cute houses, soaking up the friendly feeling. Listening to Liv Strömqvist’s and Caroline Ringskog Ferrada-Noli’s podcast “En varg söker sin pod” in the botanic garden. Reading their book “Kära Liv och Caroline”. Loving the way their openness about feelings and feminist analysis made me feel sane.
Eating crepes and drinking a whole bottle of artisanal dry cider from Bretagne, getting a bit tipsy. It started raining and I remembered that day in Montpellier when I sat at the crêperie and the sky completely opened, thunder roaring. So many tourists outside Notre Dame. Accidentally finding the famous bookstore Shakespeare and company. It was lovely, someone reading poetry upstairs in a room, someone else playing the piano in another – but also so many people, everywhere, full, too full, I had to get out of there, the magic of the books and constantly having to get out of the way became too much.
The next morning, I ate breakfast in a quaint but touristy square, and then got on the train to Belgium.
Katja Malmborg 