Day 22- An American living in Barcelona in Paris Part Duex

Paris is a beautiful city, there is no other way to say it. Strolling down the Champs-Elysees, the street decorated for the holidays, Christmas music playing in the background (by the way Christmas music seems to be the same everywhere), sipping on some hot wine you get a very nostalgic feeling. Especially when you are sitting at a semi-outdoor restaurant looking up at the Eiffel Tower, it is so prefect I almost wish it would snow. But you seem to get that feeling everywhere you go, like one of my favorite places Shakespeare and Company bookstore. The original store was originally opened in 1919 and during the 1920's was a gathering place for writers like Ernest Hemingway and James Joyce, this store closed in 1940 when the Germans occupied Paris but in 1951 George Whitman opened a new store at a different location. Paris is known as "one of the world's most important hotbeds of experimentation in art and literature." Historical figures like Salvador Dali, Pablo Picasso, and the "Lost Generation" of English-speaking writers like Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, James Baldwin, Gertrude Stein, and Ezra Pound made Paris their home. Just to sit in a coffee shop and think any number of great pieces of Literature could have started here. It is a very inspirational place to be, especially as an artist or a writer. The French don't normally have to greatest reputation for their hospitality especially toward Americans, aside from the very obvious re-pronunciation of almost every word we say to them people were generally nice. The food was amazing, as I said in the last post we ate as much French food as possible. You always know when the restaurant is authentic by how close the tables are to one another. A side note.... a fun game to play with one another, especially by the Eiffel Tower is guess the Nationality. This marks the half-way point pin our trip!