Et le temps passe...

As the rain pelts down outside yet the air is still hot and sweaty I came to a brutal and frightening realization.

I have under two weeks left in Paris.

I've spent the last couple of hours clearing up a lot of my stuff, arranging what to throw out and what is light enough to join me on my voyage home, booking flights and accommodation of my upcoming travels and writing (yet another) list of what I really have to do before I leave. Some of the things are almost comical to still have to do after being here so long and it's weird to be stepping back into my tourist shoes. I feel like a fraud. Climb the Tour Eiffel? Yet to tick off. Louvre? Done, but painfully.

I feel like the time left is speeding by way too quickly and the harder I try to slow it down the faster it speeds off.

I've become protective of this city I love to mock and find flaws in. I've come to scoff at tourists who get lost, imitating the classic Parisian 'pff' at people who don't walk through red lights when there's no cars coming. I'm used to lining up at a supermarket counter with 20 other people when one cashier is open and the person working is on their cellphone. I bike like I'm a car yet scoff when people look twice as I ride on the footpath. I always carry an umbrella. I never plan on things being open during lunch time. And, ashamedly, I don't smile at strangers on the street.

I don't want to walk further than 200m from my apartment for my morning croissant or my lunch time baguette. I don't want the street to myself at 3am when I'm on my way home from a night out. I don't want the night to get 'dark', I prefer the fake, light tinged hue of too much electricity and pollution.

I love the sound of angry cars honking incessantly at each other. I want to hear the monthly nuclear war testing sirens. I want to hear, read and see French everywhere. I want to slip on wet cobblestones. I want to wait in huge queues for the cabines. I want to smell cheese the minute I walk into a supermarket.

I want to stay.