Rome

As a Kuwait Airways employee opened the gate for the Paris flight check-in, a woman agitatedly jerked to the front of the line, upsetting the attendant and one or two others  around her. Parisian, I thought. She began chatting in her decidedly French accent with me and the 72 year old woman from Los Angelus who had been waiting at the gate since the day before. As the Parisian woman huffed and smiled with her rather full, strangely pink colored lips, she claimed she used to love her country but has since become tired of the government and the people. 

Paris

"In France people are…" she fills her mouth with air and releases it in a “pfff” while making elbowing motions and wringing her right hand in the particularly French expression of something arduous. In two years she hopes to move to Lebanon with the beaches and mountains, an easy way of life, and smiling, unperturbed people. I just grinned.

At first, a Parisian can seem prickly and thick but it takes very little perseverance to reach the human being inside.