It’s not about falling in love with Paris, but remembering what it feels like to fall in love with life.
The first thing I remember about Paris is the sound of a window creaking open.
Somewhere in the distance, a car horn echoed through the early morning haze, and the smell of butter and coffee slipped in from the street below. I hadn’t even seen the Eiffel Tower yet, but already I knew what kind of city this was: the kind that insists on being felt before it’s seen.
Everyone says Paris changes you, but what they don’t tell you is that it doesn’t have much to do with Paris itself.
It’s not the city that transforms you. It’s what happens inside you when you slow down enough to notice yourself in it.
Paris has been written a thousand times before, but never by me.
And this isn’t a story about how I fell for Paris. It’s about how, for a few nights, I remembered what butterflies felt like.
The way I met Paris
I wasn’t supposed to end my year abroad there. I had been living in Madrid for almost twelve months, studying, working, building something that felt like a life, until one day I realized I was homesick. Deeply homesick. That strange kind of sadness that sneaks in even when you’re doing everything right.
I had planned to travel around Europe before flying home to Chile. I went to Belgium first, to visit a friend. His name was David. He was the kind of person who could make any place feel like an inside joke, and when he told me he’d be flying back to Chile from Paris, something in me sparked.
"What if I change my ticket and fly home from Paris too?" I said, half joking.
And that’s how it happened.
A decision made in a restaurant in Louvain-la-Neuve, a few clicks on a cheap flight website, and suddenly I was going to Paris with someone who, though I never said it out loud, was the closest thing I’d ever had to a secret love story.
He was never my boyfriend. He was my almost, my what-if, my quiet crush that existed between laughter and restraint.
I was too shy to tell him how I felt, and maybe that’s why Paris became so unforgettable, because it let me live a love story without needing to name it.
The night the Eiffel Tower sparkled
We arrived late, the city humming with winter chill and possibility. The Metro rattled beneath us, and we laughed at how complicated it was to find the right line. When we finally emerged, the Eiffel Tower wasn’t in front of us yet. The first thing we saw was the park, and then, the rats. Tiny ones, darting between the grass like Parisian pigeons. I remember laughing, saying, "Well, they don’t show this part in the movies."
And then, suddenly, there it was.
The Eiffel Tower, glowing against the night, just as I’d imagined it, and then, it began to sparkle. I didn’t know it did that. Instagram back then was all photos, not videos, so I’d never seen it shimmer before.
The lights blinked and danced like a heartbeat, and for a moment, I forgot how to breathe.
I turned to David and said, "It would be perfect if we had champagne right now."
And as if the universe was eavesdropping, a street vendor appeared, holding bottles and plastic cups.
"Fifteen euros," he said. It felt expensive, but we bought it anyway.
We sat on the grass, the tower flickering above us, the air cold and alive. I remember the sound of the cork, the cheap plastic clinking, the way my cheeks hurt from smiling.
"I wish I could take this moment with me," I said.
Minutes later, another vendor appeared, selling Eiffel Tower keychains. I bought ten. One for every person I loved, and one for myself, to remind me of who I was right then: twenty-something, wide-eyed, alive, scared to fall in love but already halfway there.
When the Metro stopped running that night, we got lost trying to walk home. A police car pulled up beside us, the officers asking if we were lost tourists. They drove us all the way to our Airbnb.
It felt like the city itself was conspiring to keep the night perfect.
And yet, I never kissed him.
I think about that sometimes, not with regret, but with tenderness.
Some moments are meant to stay suspended in what-ifs. Maybe that’s why they last longer.
What Paris actually taught me
I didn’t see the Louvre. I didn’t eat at any famous restaurant or buy croissants from the "best" bakery.
We went to the supermarket, wandered aimlessly, and saw the Arc de Triomphe like every tourist does. But mostly, we just existed, two people in a city that didn’t owe us anything, finding magic in the ordinary.
I didn’t fall for Paris. I fell for a version of myself that still believed in magic.
That night by the tower, I didn’t find love in another person. I found it in the way the air felt, the sound of our laughter, the sparkle of lights that had been waiting for us without knowing it.
Paris wasn’t the reason. It was the backdrop.
What mattered wasn’t the city, but the company. The kind of connection that doesn’t need words or promises, only presence.
It wasn’t about Paris being beautiful. It was about me being present enough to notice.
The afterglow
The next morning, I walked alone to buy coffee. The city was quieter than I expected. The same streets that glowed golden at night now looked washed out in pale grey light. And still, it was beautiful.
Not because it was perfect, but because it was real.
There’s a loneliness that comes after every unforgettable night. The kind that doesn’t hurt, but lingers like perfume on your scarf.
That’s what Paris left me. A memory that hums softly, reminding me that wonder doesn’t have to be loud to be true.
The real story
When people ask me about Paris, I don’t tell them about the tower or the champagne or the police ride home.
I tell them it was the city where I remembered what butterflies felt like.
Not because of the place, but because of who I was with.
I didn’t go to Paris to fall in love with the city. I went to remember that I was still capable of feeling.
And maybe that’s all travel really is.
Not about where you go, but about the parts of yourself that wake up when you get there.
Traveler’s Edit
Some places don’t change you. They just remind you who you were always meant to be.
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