Riddle me this

All this talk of French women has got me thinking. Why do I even like France - or more specifically - Paris?

There's actually a good reason for me to ask. When I went to Paris a few years ago, I hated it. That's right, the whole time I was there I kept noticing everything awful about the place. I had a good time and saw some neat stuff, but all I could think was that it reminded me of New York, - but with short buildings and everyone speaking French.

Not at all like the impression Venice made on me the year before, or Heidelberg a few days earlier. I fell in love with both of those cities nearly the moment I stepped from the train. In the case of Venice it was the very second I emerged from the station and saw the Canale Grande right there. The clouds broke just then and the sun lifted everything like a rising symphony, glinting off the water and the still wet cobbled street.

Heidelberg was a bit less of an instant blast of emotion. It crept up a bit at first and was in full swing by the time Steffi and I where halfway up the main shopping street there. By the time we climbed the fourteen million steps up to the castle, I was in love with the place. Maybe it was the company, but I think I would have been taken with Heidelberg anyway.

I never really wanted to move there though. Heidelberg was nice, but not a place that called for me to live. Venice - I wouldn't mind living there, but not for a long period of time. The faded grandeur is awesome, but the haunted feeling of the streets at and the way there always seems like there is something dark just below the surface, would be too much. Venice is a place to live when you write a book, or a place to go when old age reduces life to dark halls of thought.

Paris, on the other hand...I want to live there. Even as I was walking the streets, despising the place, I couldn't help but feel at home there. Maybe it didn't stun me with beautiful sights because it all seemed familiar. Even watching 'Taxi Driver' in French on a bad television, in an equally run down hotel room across from Gare de l'Est, didn't strike me as particularly odd.

I even went so far as to look at apartments with a real estate agent while I was there. Some people go to the Louvre, I looked at Paris apartments. But I got to drive in a Smart car and learn about real estate from a guy who spoke very little English. I, by the way, speak no French - or, at least, none to speak of.

So, what was it about the place? What is it about any place? Why do we fall in love with certain places?

I still don't know what did it - maybe a lot of things. Perhaps the lemon tarts I found in a bakery on a side street, or the Greek gyros down in the Latin Quarter, or the gypsies playing music on the Metro (not just in the stations, but on the trains too), or the buildings, or the beautiful women, or the music listening stations in the McDonalds in the movie theatre district, or the Opera Garnier, or...heck, I have no idea.

Anyway, despite hating the place - I loved the place too. I wish I could figure out why.