La story of this photo it's the best travel story that belongs to me. It all starts in September 2009, when I left for my parents six months of Erasmus in Reading, in England. In those months I was able to find the most unlikely friends, the funniest, some of the people I will never forget: among them.
All French, but originating from different parts of the Hexagone. In August 2010 I already missed them. I'm getting on a train departing from Barcelona and headed to Strasbourg, a beautiful city, full of flowers and great food, where Tim was able to spoil me with chocolate bread, croissants and with the typical dish of Alsace: the tarte flambèe, exquisite. After three days on the border between France and Germany I crossed the whole French territory to get to Poitiers, where Marianne was waiting for me to show me her city and to spend a few days on the ocean, in La Rochelle, where we also met Fred and Chloé.
A week full of memories, like any real Erasmus repatriation self-respecting; it was really difficult to take the train back home. Whoops! I was forgetting the story of the photo. A strange one was created last May Astral conjunction, namely the 20 May, Marianne's birthday.
Tim, after spending five months in Canada he was back in Strasbourg; his plane, however, would land in Paris, where he had wisely decided to stop for a few days to recover from jet lag. Fred he was doing an internship with Paco Rabanne, so he had been living for some time now in the middle of the city of lights. Marianne and Chloé they had both been in town for a few months to study at the Sorbonne.
I had read on Facebook that Marianne was happy that Tim could be in Paris for his birthday party, along with everyone else. May 19th was the my last day at work and I just didn't know what to do. Why not go celebrate with all my Erasmus mates? I wrote to Tim, Fred and Chloé and we organized ourselves in detail to make the surprise of the century: Marianne would not have known anything, I would have presented myself in front of her door on the evening of her birthday, risking to give her a heart attack. And I must say I came close! I arrived at her house with Chloé so when she opened the door for her classmate she never expected to see me, with fury. It was aintense emotion, not just for her of course. It was wonderful to see all my friends again, as if not a day had passed since those gray English months that we have cheered up with a thousand colors.
After the party at Marianne's house we moved along the Senna, at a party in a nightclub on a boat, and guess what? We happened upon an Erasmus party in Paris! I spent the following days wandering around the city I had already visited on a cold New Year covered with snow; seeing it in May is a totally different and highly recommended experience.
