Pourquoi la France?

When I was little, I would ask my Dad to tell me the story of our family.  I didn't have much "old"  family left (only one living grandparent) and so I liked to hear about my history.

My family came from Dieppe, a northern town in France. They then immigrated to Montreal, then Wisconsin, and finally, my grandfather (my dad's dad, the family rebel) moved to California.  My parents grew up there and I was born there.  But I always wanted to visit France. My Dad threw in a lot of bows and arrows, Native American attacks and missionaries to the story, but that may have been more of an audience pleaser. 

I was 15 when I visited Paris for the first time - it was everything I had hoped for and I came back to the states with hundreds of black and white postcards that I had purchased from the vendors on the banks of the rive gauche. I was so proud of myself for being able to order an omelette from a stinky waitress in a dive restaurant by our miniature hotel room. I knew I had to get back there somehow.

A poster of the Eiffel Tower hung in my room through high school and it moved to my apartment living room in college. 

It was then that I decided I would study abroad,  and that is where this story begins...

I spent a year studying in Toulouse and much to my parents' dismay, I didn't move back home at the end of the second semester.  I found legal ways to stay for three years - then Copain and I became domestic partners (recognized only in France) and we moved to the glitzy (tiny) town of Cannes.  Cannes was our home for two years - and also where I started this blog, French Cannes Cannes. Now finally, I have made it to Paris, the place I always knew I needed to be - at some point - for some amount of time.  I'm still figuring out the details, some of them here on this blog.

My family has come back to France, through me. I'm French now too and somehow I guess this was how it was always meant to be.

My view of Paris as I stepped out of my naturalization ceremony