Well I guess this is the first post on the Paris metblog ! Et ca va être en anglais ;) oui ! oui ! Sometimes I post in English and sometimes in French.

I have lived in this city for over 11 years now and this is the place I call home. My hope is that our future posts here will let you discover what we love about Paris, events, unique places to visit, the daily lives of Parisians and much more ! So here’s an excerpt for you that I particularly like :

Rainer Maria Rilke, the German poet, identified Paris as the place where the ‘elan vital’, Bergson’s phrase for the life force, is stronger than elsewhere. “Elan vital,” Rilke asked, “is it life ? No life is calm, vast, simple. It is the desire to live in haste, in pursuit; it is the impatience to possess all of life right away, right there. Paris is full of this desire; that is why it is so close to death.” Victor Hugo, the great novelist and poet, exiled for many years of his life, meant the same thing when he wrote: “Ever since historic times, there has always been on the earth what we call the City…. We have needed the city that thinks…. We have needed the city where everybody is citizen…. Jerusalem unleashes the True. Athens the Beautiful; Rome the Great. Paris is the sum of all three of these great cities.”

‘Fragile Glory, Richard Bernstein 1990′

… and welcome to MetroBlogging Paris !