2008 is THE year.

Am still feeling the strange, lingering effects of my existential breakdown/epiphany or whatever it was from New Year's. I want to feel what I felt that night without thinking that I'm crazy. Other people can think I'm crazy, I don't really care about that anymore. I love the equilibrium between these brief moments of epiphany and long periods of seemingly calm normalcy. Peak, then flat, peak, then flat. Is that normal? I can't really tell, but I love it. Back in SF, life used to be mostly flat.

Looking back on this year here, I can't believe how much change has happened. I'm positive that I've done more growing here than from freshman year of high school to senior year, or even from freshman year of college to my junior year. August 24, 2007 to now--that's all it took for me to question myself, my future, my beliefs, what I want of this world, and what I want to give back. I wished that everyone studied abroad. You learn so much when you remove yourself from your tiny world: your home, your family, friends, your school, and job. All gone. Who are you now? Really? Who are you without all that other stuff that defined you, that you used to define yourself? If you take a plane halfway across the Earth, try to learn another language, and limit your connections with family and friends--you will find out who you really are.

Okay, enough of this heavy stuff...Went to Montmartre with Lucia today since she's never been to Sacré-Cœur. I wanted to visit the café where they filmed Amélie nearby there, so we made a whole trip out of it. This time we walked up all the crazy stairs, kind of like Nino's run following the arrows. Then we walked to the café, Café des Deux Moulins. Crowded as heck, not a surprise. It looked nothing like the movie, but that's movie magic for you. We got a booth, like the vultures we are, after these tourists left. I got café and crème brûlée to share Amelie-style. Here's video of me cracking it: Fun, fun. Then we walked to Pigalle and even passed the porn shop where Nino works! That was a bonus, I didn't really plan that. Lucia was all, "Let's go to Tuileries and take pictures at the metro station!" At first I was, "What?" And then I realized, "That's Paris, Je T'aime! But we can do that if you want."For dinner, we went to this small eaterie nearby Museé D'Orsay that Lucia knew about. She said they had really great sandwiches. She shocked me by saying that they use slice bread. I'm so used to a baguette sandwich! We shared their club sandwich which was damn good, and fries. Yum. We discussed how full our tummies get and how much better small portions are. Then off to St. Michel because Lucia wanted to look for gloves. She bought gloves, a sweater, and a necklace, and I just eyed all the lovely, pretty things. We ambled aimlessly around talking about whatever, then went our separate ways. A nice day.

We both agreed that 2008 was going to be a great year. We didn't know how just yet or what we thought would happen, we just knew because of the numbers. Lucia's favorite number is 8, and mine is 28. Just put 200 in front of hers and two zeros between mine, and BAM, a lucky year. But it's true...2008 is the year. I can feel it.