In the early months of 2020, I lived and studied in Paris. When I left for Paris, I was looking for something of an escape. I was looking for loneliness. Loneliness is to college what de ja vu is to the matrix—a glitch. At my own university, 16,000 people, all around the same age, all with a certain likemindedness, exist within a one mile radius And it is these people and the experiences we share that constitute the notion that college will be the “best four years of one’s life”. This is not to say that bouts of loneliness do not lurk on college campuses. My own experience proves otherwise. However, where the loneliness that I experience in college warrants overthinking, the loneliness I was after in Paris was the type to provide the space simply to think. I probably got this vision of loneliness somewhere in the pages of “A Moveable Feast” or maybe from the Joan Didion quote, “Do not whine… Do not complain. Work harder. Spend more time alone.” I had the idea that when I got to Paris, I would have the space to read and write. I would visit museums and eat at cafes, and I would do these things alone.

However, what I have ultimately discovered is that it is never the thing I am looking for that makes itself easily found. I feel very lucky that the few weeks I spent in Paris, I spent in the company of strangers, who became my closest friends as we shared stories and experiences over good food and cheap wine and the occasional cigarette. What I found in Paris was not loneliness. Rather I found a group of people, all on some sort of escapade of their own, each of whom came to Paris in search of something different and who all spoke a similar language: one of food and literature and music and adventure. The following are some of my favorite places in Paris which we went and felt not only immediately welcomed, but also immediately understood.

Paris

Food