The Traveling Writer Went to France in Search of the American Dream

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Scenes from Paris, including Notre Dame

By Norma Jaeger Hopcraft

I love Europe. I want to explore it more.

I was so fortunate to have the opportunity to live in Paris for a year, on a creative writing sabbatical. It was beyond my wildest dreams. God turned the tables on me -- I had told myself a hundred times that I would never bother to visit Paris because Parisians didn't have the right attitude toward Americans. Then I found a book, described in my blog here, and ended up not just visiting Paris but LIVING there for a year. Exploring. Experiencing life with a French family (an aunt my age, and her two nieces).

I capitalized on that year to write The Paris Writers Circle. You can click on the book's cover in the right hand column of this blog to read reviews.

I was a big fan of New York City when I moved to Paris. Paris was going to have to work hard to capture a place in my heart. 

Somehow, it managed.

I fell in love with Paris and with Paris doors. There were so many, as beautiful or more beautiful than this one. Feel the history oozing from it and from the surround. Generations have passed through the door, living their Parisian lives.

I do know that Paris is not anywhere near as energetic as New York City. Barcelona is getting there, though. It's a hub of design and entrepreneurship. Pics and stories about my Catalan family in my blog here. I've heard London is full of energy, but I haven't been there in 40 years : (

Paying 70% of their salaries in taxes, and being guaranteed a retirement income, I believe, is a disincentive for Parisians to do the manic level of hard work that I intuit New Yorkers are doing. 

Also, France and other European countries are older, and have more history, which means more history of national mistakes and abuses, which dampens patriotic enthusiasm perhaps.

But Europe exhibits the glories of the Roman Empire and gives us the glories of centuries of excellence in the arts, most of it nurtured by Christianity, I might add. Europe gave us Bach, Mozart, Vivaldi, Palestrina, Paganini, Verdi, Beethoven, Saint Saens. To name a tiny portion of the whole.

Europe fostered and gave us the Pieta, the paintings of scenes from the life of Jesus that still stop us in our tracks, the glories of the Vatican, the statues of David and Mary Magdalene and John the Baptist.

And gave us churches and cathedrals, tons of them. Soaring ceilings, sculptures in stone, carvings of wood, stained glass. Incredible achievements of design, engineering and construction.

We in the United States are all blessed by Europe and the incredible hotbed of creativity it once was and that I hope it will be again.

The rose window of Notre Dame.

It's gorgeous from every angle.

This is the nave, a tiny portion of the cathedral.

I could look at it all day.

On the place outside Notre Dame, tourists mill while guarded by the gendarmerie.

An Audrey Hepburn look-alike thinks this horse is pretty cool.

Then she wonders off into Paris, dressed for breakfast at the King George V. How about you? Do you love Europe too? Crazy about Paris? Comment below!