Art Girl Takes Paris by Storm

Wow I am one lucky bastard, I think to myself as the plane wheels land on the tarmac.

Five months in Paris? My karma is not near good enough to have earned me this. But here I am, and could not be more excited for the adventures to come.

My name is Art Girl. Well, that's not actually what my parents officially christened me, but they did manage to instill in me a deep mistrust of all things cyber and a hesitance to reveal my address, social security number and mother's maiden name to the internet community at large. So Art Girl — there you have it — and good luck finding that one on the public records.

My parents also engrained in me a deep mistrust of urban dwellers. Old women innocently asking me for directions, young children begging for change, men with headphones on the sidewalk — all potential pickpockets, muggers, and potential wearers of six inch knives strapped to their thighs. I live in Salt Lake City, Utah, which is, in case you've never been, is about as classic white suburbia as they come. Think labrador retrievers, lemonade stands, and PTA meetings. So you can imagine when my taxi dropped me off in the center of Paris in my thirty-hours sans sleep state of semi-consciousness, I was a little — out of my element? It wasn't like taking a putting a fish-bowl fish in the ocean and watching it flap around for a few minutes before it instinctively headed towards the coral reef. It was like airdropping a gerbil into the middle of the Atlantic Ocean with three unweildy bags tied to its legs and saying 'swim to shore'. I'm the gerbil in that scenario, in case the metaphor was getting a bit too off target.

Contex: Despite having taken two years of french in college, I do not speak french. French people raise their eyebrows at my accent (Au revoir =  'Our-ree-vore'). I have decided conjugating verbs is a luxury my french iterations will never enjoy ('i to go to subway you to come?'). I am, however, an excellent devourer of croissants, a lover of wine, and have had an Eiffel keychain on my backpack since the third grade, so figure these deeply-rooted french ties compensate for my language shortcomings.

Art Girl has yet to see any art, but soon her cot will be planted in the Louvre, sketchbook squeezed under armpit, charcoal in hand, ready to spend some quality time with that reputable lady Mona Lisa.