Au Lecteur (To The Reader)

It seemed only fitting to commence blogging about a study abroad in Paris with a post entitled Au Lecteur, which is intended neither as plagiarism nor ignorance, but rather a tribute to Baudelaire and his opening poem of Les Fleurs du Mal. Having studied French culture and French literature for a term apiece at Dartmouth, and French as a subject for seven years before that, French, as a grammatical pursuit, a set of cultural norms, and a literary genre, has the feeling of an old familiar friend, a little worn around the edges and ready for adventure. This adventure of sorts commences tomorrow night when I set off on a red eye from San Francisco (weather gods permitting) bound for Boston, where I'll take a bus to Dartmouth, spend ~27 hours in the company of some of my favorite people in the world, and then depart again at 2145 (suppose I ought to switch to 24 hour time) on a flight bound for Zurich, then Paris.

I confess that I have never been a journal writer - never been the type to ritualistically sit down and detail my day, or feelings, or those thoughts and dreams that come to us in the dark of night when there is no distraction, no escape. A journal is a soul laid bare and defenseless, a hidden treasure for all the world to see. My journals have always been poems and my treasures have always been photographs, and between the two I have never been wont for expression. And yet I feel a stirring to share my time abroad with more than my camera and my pen and my paper, perhaps if only to leave a record somewhere of what transpires, and perhaps to nuture a growing passion for journalistic expression. So I write this first post entitled Au Lecteur, because I'm hoping that perhaps you might like to read it and I write this blog Flânerie à Paris (Wanderings in Paris) because I will be wandering, away from two homes, and I'd like something of me to wander back and say hello, on occasion.

Home in Parisian form will be not 500 yards from La Place de la République, on the border of the 3rd and 11th arrondissements (Right Bank of the Seine). Home will be a little school where I'll take 3 classes in the 6th arrondissement, home will be the museums I visit for my art history course, the cafes I sit in for lunch, the little streets I get lost on only to open my eyes in wonder at what is around me. With no delusions of romantic grandeur or poetic greatness or stereotypical quaintness, but every hope for an experience with all three woven into it, je pars, mon lecteur. Bienvenue à ma flânerie à Paris.*

* I leave, my reader. Welcome to my wanderings in Paris.

~Maggie