Road to Elsewhere Excerpt #45*: Why Did I Leave Paris?

And other bad ideas, explained. WRITTEN AND ILLUSTRATED BY PETER MOORE

I LOVED EVERYTHING ABOUT PARIS—the language, the fragrant Metro, the vin du table, and my appealingly freckly French teacher.

Au revoir to all that. 

In pursuit of what?

I was embracing change, for its own sake, even though I’d already effected a wholesale transformation by crossing the Atlantic ocean and living in French. In eight weeks I learned to drink coffee (cheaper than tea, in Paris cafes), fell in love a few times (Diamant, et al, but also countless Metro crushes and art-gallery intrigues),