Let me tell you something that seems too hilarious to be true. There is a real medical condition called “Paris Syndrome.”

It’s pretty much exclusive to Chinese, Korean, and especially Japanese tourists who visit Paris for the first time. It seems that Paris has been idealized in their cultures to such an insane extent that, when they actually arrive and see Paris in reality, they are so let down that they go into a clinically diagnosable state of shock. Symptoms include dizziness, sweating, heart palpitations, vomiting, and a host of psychological conditions such as derealization, depersonalization, anxiety, hallucinations, and—my personal favorite—feelings of persecution. 😂

Paris Syndrome first gained recognition in the 1980s when a Japanese psychiatrist working in France actually wrote a book about it. In the mid-2000s, the Japanese embassy in Paris was supposedly had a 24-hour hotline for people suffering from “extreme culture shock” (a.k.a. Paris Syndrome). There was actually an anecdote from 2006 where a worker at the Japanese Embassy in Paris said that they had repatriated (i.e. medically evacuated) 4 Japanese citizens suffering from Paris Syndrome THAT YEAR ALONE.

I’m sorry, I take mental health issues seriously, having dealt with a couple of them myself… but this is just too funny. Because there is no other city on the planet Earth where this is a plausible issue. No city is held on a higher pedestal than Paris. To be real, Paris can be a gritty—even dangerous—place! It’s not just some magical movie set. It’s a real place, and it brings with it all the baggage of any big city. However, this article is going to be mostly grit free. 🧼

And, incredibly, as had been the case in London, my first time in Paris was THE DAY I MOVED TO PARIS. TO LIVE. Yes, I moved to Paris for a job and lived there for about 6 months, before eventually returning to London. I’ll talk about that more later, but for now, we’ll just have normal-ish article.

A 3-Minute Intro to Paris

Paris needs no introduction, but here’s one anyway.

Paris is the capital of France and—in terms of metro area—the largest city in the European Union by a HUGE margin. According to the OECD, the population is 11.2 million. For context, the next largest metro area population in the EU is Madrid, at 6.9 million. London (now ex-EU) and Istanbul (definitely not EU) clock-in at 13.4m and 14.6m respectively, according to the same OECD data set. So Paris is more than just a historic, beautiful place (although it is those things as well)—it actually fits the definition for a “mega-city”, in the same league as Mumbai, Mexico City or Los Angeles. And yet, at least in London, I often hear people comment on how small Paris is. From the perspective of a Londoner, I can understand this. Paris is much denser, and much more walkable, so it feels a bit smaller than it is… but make no mistake: Paris is most assuredly NOT small. This is a massive place. I lived and worked here for 6 months and I definitely did not see all of it in that time.

Paris is and seemingly has always been a cultural juggernaut. Look back at the stories all of the great artists and intellectuals from the past 100 years. One common thread you will find in these stories is that a huge proportion of them, regardless of national origin, spent some extended period of time here in Paris. Paris has a well-earned reputation as boiling cauldron on the bleeding-edge of art, literature, ideas, and politics. However, Paris has had an even greater impact on the world when viewed through a geopolitical and historical lens. France was one of the great colonial powers of the old world… which is a title that brings with it a great many evils and atrocities that now weigh heavily on the collective French conscience. However, to put the morality of this to one side and focus only on geopolitical gamesmanship, the French played a massive role in shaping the world we live in today, on par with the British and the Spanish. I’d throw the United States onto this list as well, but the French actually played a massive role in allowing the US to come into existence! If it had not been for the French intervention in America’s ‘Revolutionary War’ where it won independence from the British, history could have played out very differently. Shortly thereafter, France had a revolution of its own, becoming the first great colonial power in Europe to become a full-fledged democracy; ultimately, the rest of the continent would follow suite. And finally, decades later, most of the western half of what is now the U.S. was purchased from France (the Louisiana Purchase).

Today, thanks to it’s once-vast colonial empire, French is one of the fastest growing languages in the world, with ~220 million native speakers. And the vast majority of these French speakers are in former colonies in Africa, such as Djibouti, Madagascar, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Sudan, Niger, Mauritania, Togo, Guinea, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya… the list goes on! Oh, and my beloved Vietnam was also a former French colony! Of course, the French language did not stick in Vietnam; but the French influence is still evident in many ways that transcend just language, as is true in many other former colonies. Take a walk down any street in Algiers or Hanoi and you will see the French influence quite clearly in the architecture and in the food being sold in each shop. I think it would be virtually impossible to over-state the impact it has had on human culture. And ALL of this—the good and the bad—originated here, in Paris.

While Paris is decidedly less consequential today than it was 200 years ago, it still plays a massive role in international diplomacy, trade, and culture. But what it’s best known for is its beauty, and its magical je ne sais quoi. If you need some reminding about the aura of Paris, the opening scene to Woody Allen’s Midnight In Paris should do the trick…

1st & 2nd Arrondissements

A.K.A. Louvre + Bourse

Paris is arranged into districts (or “arrondissements”) numbered 1 through 20. Ascending numerically, these districts spiral outward from the city center in the shape of a snail.

Each of these 20 arrondissements also has a parallel, non-numerical name, usually taken from a monument located within that district. These alternative names are—in the case of the 1st and 2nd arrondissements respectively—”Louvre” (for the Louvre Museum), and “Bourse” (for the Paris stock exchange).

And then there are also neighborhoods that do not correspond to any numerical area, which overlay onto these numbered arrondissements in seemingly random ways. For example, we have the Latin Quarter and Saint-Germain slated for this article as well, which—as far as I am aware—bear zero explicit relationship to the arrondissements in which they are located. Generally, these named neighborhoods tend to be much smaller than the arrondissements, and therefore are usually a more precise way to describe your location within Paris.

During my time in Paris, I lived in the 2nd arrondissement, which is a small enough area that I could usually get away with simply saying that I lived “in the 2nd.” But if somebody pressed me on it, I’d tell them that I was a 10 minutes walk north of the Louvre Museum. This is an extremely desirable area of central Paris, so I counted myself as lucky to have found something affordable here. It was a little attic on the 7th floor of a building, but it was quite nice actually! And, undoubtedly one of the the most aesthetically pleasing places that I will ever live in my life. Here’s a little video I snapped as I was unpacking there…

Yes, that is an AC unit in the corner 👆👀 which is a rarity in Paris.

Pairs gets quite hot in the summer, and these little attics are notorious for amplifying that heat. I don’t know if I would have survived the summer without that AC, because even with it going at full blast, it still got very hot up here. However, during the rest of the year it was quite lovely up here. The one drawback was the fact that it was on the 7th floor with no elevator. I climbed a LOT of stairs here. As a result of this (and the famously small portion sizes), I quickly lost a bit of weight. I’d live up here again! But if I’d had a leg injury during this time… it would have been problem-attic. 😂

Attics like this one are a common type of accommodation around Paris. Historically they functioned as servants’ quarters, but these days they are mostly inhabited by budget-shoppers like myself. That’s one of the crazy things about living a city as old as Paris: you are living on top of SO much history. And, in moving here, I got to be a small part of the history that is still unfolding here. Paris is truly a living, breathing organism, unfathomably old, yet still renewing and reinventing itself year by year. Just like time-jumping that takes place in the movie Midnight in Paris, from the 21st century, to the 1920, to La Belle Époque, you can’t help but imagine what this place must have been like throughout history. I could down a very deep rabbit hole talking about this, but let me share one little fact that I found to be very thought-provoking: the population trends of these areas.

The current organization of Paris in 20 arrondissements came about in the late 1800s, by which point the population density of the city was already beginning to decline as the footprint of the city expanded… but, for comparison, let me share with you the populations of these districts in the first census conducted based on these newly-formed districts in 1861 vs. the 21st century. Mind you, these are small areas and quite densely populated even today.

1st arrondissement: ~80% population decrease

1861 population: 89,519
2009 population: 17,614

2nd arrondissement: ~72% population decrease

1861 population: 81,609
2009 population: 22,400

This is kind of shocking to me! These areas must have been PACKED in the 1800s. I would love to be able to time-travel back and see what these neighborhoods looked like through the ages. Today, they are chic and beautiful as ever, and yet also quite functional. This is where my day-to-day life played out whilst I lived here. Most of the time when I was walking these streets, I was on my way to or from work, the gym, or the grocery store. Here are a couple of maps and a gallery of pictures from these areas combined…

Now we’ll move on from the 1st & 2nd, and cross the Seine.

The Seine (pronounced, simply, “the sen”) is the river that bisects Paris. FYI: anywhere north of the Seine is locally referred to as the “right bank”, and likewise anywhere south of the Seine is referred to as the “left bank”. To help yourself remember this association, just remember to orient yourself facing west before you assign a “left” or “right” to your bank of the river.

So now we’re going to the left bank… but before we get there, let’s actually stop on a little island in the middle of the river…

L'île-de-la-Cité & THE BANKS OF THE SeiNE

Île de la Cité (which translates simply to “city island”) is the larger of 2 islands that sit in the middle of the Seine River. At 56 acres in size, it’s not exactly small… but it is so packed with notable landmarks—many of which are big tourist draws!—that it can feel pretty crowded. On this little island, you’ll find Notre-Dame Cathedral, Sainte-Chapelle, Hôtel-Dieu, Quai de l'Horloge, the Palace of Justice… and the list goes on.

But there’s also enough space for people to live on this little island. I actually had an American coworker in Paris who was living on Île de la Cité during the COVID lockdowns. Paris implemented strict requirements that confined people to staying within a certain radius of their home. For this coworker, that meant that they could not leave the island. So they we were stuck on Île de la Cité for many months! What a place to spend the pandemic.

We’ll get into some of the specific landmarks on this island in the next article, but for now I just wanted to include this interesting piece of cartography in our walking tour…

One of the coolest features of life in Paris (IMO) is that there are walk-ways on both banks of the Seine which travel pretty much uninterrupted across the entire city. These are actually handier than you’d think for getting from point A to point B. And when the weather is nice, these walk-ways turn into social gathering points. During business hours, people leave their offices to have lunch on the banks of the Seine. After hours—especially in the warmer months before everybody in Paris heads out on holiday (which is usually August, plus a week or two on either side as buffer)—the banks of the Seine are full of people talking, laughing, drinking… it’s an extremely good vibe. And, after sunset, it’s made all the more idyllic by the elaborate twinkling of the Eiffel Tower in the distance. It’s really quite magical.

The Latin Quarter & Saint-Germain-des-Prés

Traveling further south and completing our crossing of the Seine, we will arrive at 2 neighborhoods which feel to me like they belong in the “Paris 101” category: Saint-Germain and the Latin Quarter.

Straddling the 5th and the 6th arrondissements, the Latin Quarter is well-known as a hub for students, as it plays host to a number of prestigious universities, such as the Sorbonne. It is definitely one of the oldest and most beautiful parts of Paris, and also one of the most lively. If I was in the Latin Quarter, it was usually for the nightlife. I believe the first time I ever visited was to watch Paris play against Spain in the semi-finals of the 2024 EUROs. Unfortunately for France, they were beaten 2-1 in this match (highlights here), so the mood was sorrowful by the end of the night—but leading up to the match, the streets of the Latin Quarter were electric! Every pub was crowded, people were spilling onto the streets in the France kits—it was an intoxicating environment.

And when these summer nights out in the Latin Quarter ended, more than once I elected to walk home rather than take public transit or a taxi. The walk back to my little attic in the 2nd was maybe 45 minutes to an hour long—and honestly, it was often the highlight of my night. How often do you get to walk across Paris in the middle of the night? I didn’t stay in Paris long enough for this experience to get stale. I enjoyed it every time.

Meanwhile, Saint-Germain-des-Prés—which is colloquially referred to as simply “Saint-Germain”—is a smaller but equally well-known area right next to the Latin Quarter. It is completely contained within the 6th arrondissement, and functions as one of its 4 administrative districts. It’s not a big area, but it’s packs a power-punch of landmarks, nightlife, restaurants, and culture—and even plays host to another famous Parisian university, Sciences Po. It’s name is also widely recognized because its name has been co-opted by Paris’s foremost soccer/football club: PSG (Paris Saint-Germain FC). It was only a couple of years ago that Messi, Neymar, and Mbappe were all playing here at the same time. So, football fans the world-over have the words “Saint-Germain” at the tip of their tongues when it comes to Paris… but, it’s actually a different Saint-Germain that this is in reference to! Apparently the team was formed in 1970 via a merger of two pre-existing teams: Paris FC and Stade Saint-Germain. The latter of these played in a suburb of Paris called Saint-Germain-en-Laye. And, although I would absolutely consider myself to be a football fan, I had already gone so far as to see PSG play before I learned this.

Here are the two maps, as well as a gallery, which definitely skews more toward Saint-Germain than Latin Quarter. Plz enjoy the final area of this walking tour of central Paris.

Peter’s Perspective (+Personal Problems)

My articles sort of oscillate between a pseudo-journalistic focus on documenting the world around me and a more introspective practice of documenting what is happening inside of me as I move through that world. Since I don’t care about making money on this blog, I can write what I want, and this is where Peter’s Big Adventure will enter peak-diary mode.

I’ll spare you all the details, but my move to Paris coincided a really painful breakup. And yes, the parallels with ‘Emily in Paris’ have been pointed out to me many times. In my first few weeks, when I would catch up with friends on the phone and they would excitedly ask “So how’s Paris??” my response nearly always disappointed them. Of course it was beautiful… but in the throes of heartbreak, Paris was wasted on me. My sorry state was hopelessly mismatched with the beauty and opportunity of the moment. I had to spend too much effort putting one foot in front of the other to look up and really enjoy my surroundings. I was really trying to embrace the experience, but by the conclusion of my time in Paris, which arrived a bit sooner than I had originally anticipated (about 6 months after moving there), I was ready to admit it. That break-up had severely compromised my experience in Paris.

I am still processing my time in Paris. It flew by in sort of a fever dream. What I remember most about it was the weird juxtaposition between the incredible beauty of the city and how absolutely terrible I felt inside as I moved through that beauty. It was like I had been shipwrecked in a violent storm and then—through some weird twist of fate—washed up on the shores of Tahiti. Under those circumstances, it was a bit difficult to enjoy tropical paradise.

To make matters worse, my stay in Paris coincided with the 2024 Olympics games. As cool as it was to get to attend some Olympic events (article forthcoming!) it also prompted locals to essentially evacuate the city to avoid crowds of tourists. As a result, the city was weirdly empty. And I was working during this time in an office where 95% of the staff was on a proper French holiday (i.e. a 3-4 week vacation), so there was like a month where I was commuting to work in sweltering summer heat and crossing police barricades to arrive drenched in sweat to a mostly empty building. And given that most people I would have spent time with outside of work had fled Paris as well, it was a lonely time.

When the fall came, things improved. The broiling heat subsided, the crowds of tourists dissipated, the police barricades and event fencing that had held the city in a choke-hold for much of the summer began to disappear, and bit by bit, locals filled the streets again. And for a brief moment in time, I got to see what life could look like living in Paris long-term. I had friends, I had a routine, I even started dating eventually… and as the intensity of that summer gave way to a kinder, gentler autumn, I realized that I could envision a life here for myself. And it would have been a really beautiful life.

Another unexpected take-away from my stint in Paris is my new-found soft-spot for French people. As an American, I am in no position to be casting stones in this department… but the French don’t have the best reputation internationally. And, within France, the same dynamic exists between Parisians and the rest of country. Parisians have a reputation of looking down on the rest of France, especially the more rural regions. This is definitely not helped by the fact that an actual region of France, as taught in Parisian schools, is the “diagonale du vide” or “the diagonal of emptiness,” so called for its low population density. But, of course, some people do live there, and I don’t get the impression that they appreciate this designation. 😂

Anyway, while I can confirm that most French/Parisian stereotypes are based in reality, I also think that the French are generally quite well-intentioned, and this social friction is mostly just a product of cultural mismatch. Although there are jerks in every society, I found French people to be intense, and loyal friends; idealistic, evolved, thoughtful, and beautifully human. They wear their hearts on their sleeves and—seemingly without exception—they embody a very interesting duality between pessimism and romanticism. Even though I was still sometimes annoyed by the looks of disgust I would receive when I violated some unknowable-to-outsiders social norm, I learned a lot from them, and will be forever grateful for the kindness they showed me during this difficult chapter of my life. ❤️‍🩹 🇫🇷

Here are a few pictures that I snapped on my mobile phone while I was just going about my day-to-day life in Paris, mostly around the 2nd arrondissement. Even though the galleries above contain better-quality photographs, these are the ones that will come to mind when I think back on my time in Paris in the future.