Urban (1)

In class we had to march down to the Place de Republique. A place I have never seen… I believe, but I have been hearing a lot about, because of the recent attacks. We walked from school, in a semi group of people.

The walk was impacted by the troubles of, one, the weather and, two, the route. (We got mildly confused with the location and had troubles getting there)

Something I will say I detest about Paris is the location of there street signs. Trying to find them at first did not bother me, but when it starts to pour and I would like to remain hidden under my hood, protected. It becomes quiet bothersome, because I have to look up and search, and I hate the rain.

Something that always crossed my mind about rain and Paris, is that there always put together as this great couple…

Every movie that takes place in Paris, that I have seen always comments about how beautiful it is to stroll through Paris in the rain.

Something about me… I detest the rain.

I tried to enjoy it with Paris, because it is something so wildly known and popular, but to me, I apologize if this sounds ungrateful, hated it.

The rain, as mentioned before, lead me to look down instead of up. It bothered me, trying move around the rain. I tried to look up multiple times and ignore the rain, but I am sorry it was just in the way for me.

I apologize that was a moment of frustration.

When we started route to get the Place de Republique, as mentioned before, I was in the back of the group. I was not speaking to anyone and I was hidden. However, as we marched further along, I found myself moving further along, as well, in the group. I was more in the middle. I was looking at my surroundings more.

It even came to a point where arrived at an area, where our group got a little lost and I pulled out my handy dandy iPhone and we started to follow the guide of my Google maps, but I did not even really need it, because I realized I was near my apartment and my arrondissment. We walked near this church and the Nelson Mandela playground that I went to with my mother.

It is kind of her favorite thing to do, when she visits a new location. She likes to explore all the different churches, and admire the work that people have done.

Anywho! As we continued our stroll, I noticed that our group got a lot smaller we lost some people and we did not know if we should have chased after them, looking for them, or if we should just continue our walk and hopefully just re-meet them there. We went with the second option, because to look around in the rain seems like just trouble. We knew the destination and where everybody was heading so we just went along.

From my iPhone it says that we were five minutes away, but with the rain it felt like hours.

However, when we did finally get there, it was so fascinating to see. I missed the attacks and the march by a week. However, seeing the graffiti and the dedication around the sculpture made it seem more real.

There is something that is surreal about seeing the news and actually SEEING the news.

While waiting for the rest of the group I went in a circle looking at the statue filled with flowers, roses, letters, candles, and etc…

It was very bittersweet to look at. It was sweet to see how a country can unify for a cause, but it was sad because of the reason why they were brought together. It was also sad to see all these men with guns walking all around the city.

After this excursion, I returned home and since it stopped raining I decided to walk since it was not far. I was not alone on my walk home, I was joined by another student and we talked about how we decided not to dorm and etc… and when we separated, I continued my walk home and decided to make it a productive one. I stopped by, I believe, forty monoprix’s.

I, overall, really enjoyed this walk in the end. I learned a new route to walk home from school. Instead of crossing Pont Neuf as I usually do, I crossed another bridge and alongside it were buildings resembling castles, and with my music blasting in my ears it made it all the more tranquil.