A Sense of Place

Today, I woke up with no sense of place - I couldn't remember where I was, or what was happening - but over the course of today I think I have found my place as a photography student and a sense of this place called France.

As we were walking around the Palace of Versailles today, I was blown away by how grand it was and the fact that it once was someone's home. We walked through corridors, rooms and gardens but throughout I kept trying to think what it must have been like to live there and to have that be your home. I think one of the most important places a person can get a sense of is their home and the fact that this one was so huge and beautiful blew me away. Trying to understand what Marie Antoinette felt like living there mad the place a little more real to me but at the same time, it felt distant, as though all the crazy history that I had learned about it didn't really exist. Also walking around the gardens, I felt like I was seeing my all time favorite movie and book, Pride and Prejudice, come to life. That was an amazing feeling. I felt like I was back in the 1800s being Lizzy Bennett, strolling through Mr. Darcy's gardens. I've often thought of what it would be like to experience that type of life and being there gave me the sense, if only for a second, that I was Lizzy Bennett and experiencing the novel first hand.

However, as I was walking around this morning on our hotel street and then later in Versailles, I realized that I feel like I am in France. It is finally hitting me that we have arrived and I am experiencing this place that I have dreamed about for years. I've decided that I really like this place. I like the feeling of the city, the foreignness of the language and the different sights and smells that Paris has. I always have felt like I wasn't born in the right time period but now I am pretty sure I was just born in the wrong continent. I love the feeling that Europe has, so refined and regal, and it's a place that I could get quite used to.

So what is my sense of place right now? It's here. In Paris, France. On a trip that I can already feel is going to change my life.

Here is the link to the flickr set I created for the day. It has some of where I feel here, some of my best photos from the day, and some fun ones: A Sense of Place