Sometimes you've got to get out of your own way and in someone else's.

I’m already becoming a Paris snob. I have been silently, and not so silently, criticizing those Parisian-Parisians who walk round with their nose so high in the air they can’t even see all the normal-heighted people they’re knocking over along the away.

But taking my parents round the sites of Paris this weekend I’ve gotten so tired of crowds and people who stand in the middle of the walk to take a picture and loud Americans and I even tried to ask a guard if I could cut the line (which he understood!! But didn’t let me.)

It could to some damage, I think, living here permanently. I think I’d rather be an obnoxious tourist than an obnoxified Parisian. I’d rather be a traffic disruption but open to wonder and appreciate all Paris has to offer than to rush past everything like a ghost and grow dead to the beauty. I have no need for mini Eiffel towers, but I never want to find the shimmering lights annoying or disruptive. I want to be mid-way between a local and a tourist.

The middle road. Yep, that’s where it is. Right in the middle of the side walk.