At six in the morning, a very familiar dynamic. A bus ride to the airport engulfed in the stillness of a spring morning in the capital, the smell of grilled cheese at the airport McDonald’s, the hushed security checks amongst a sea of colourful cases. 
On this Saturday morning, the airplane floats over an orange sunrise charged with the moist of the Irish Sea, while cabin crew sell scratch cards, menus, half-cooked burgers and packets of cigarettes at the beep of their card machine.

Crosswinds rock us down to land at Beauvais, a Ryanair airport enclaved in the middle of nowhere, advertised as the gateway of a city not even remotely close to it. Buses line next to the small terminal and passengers rush to queue and buy tickets out of the airfield under a spring sky clear of any clouds. 
It takes two hours of motorway to enter the ring road that defines Îlhe-de-France. In the distance, the Eiffel Tower dominates a horizon only challenged by the tall glass and steel towers of La Defense. Around us, the avenues grow busier with Peugeots and Citroens cramming their way into the City of Light.

At Port de Chatillon, a parade of international coaches drop passengers from places as distant as Warsaw and, following footprints of my first time in Paris, the time I came to the city as an air steward, I walk down a boulevard of naked trees to the Arc do Triomph.

At the Champs Elysees, I get flashbacks of a lunch at McDonald’s flavoured by the excitement of being in the French capital from the first time, and at La Concorde, where the wide boulevard surrenders to the magnificence of The Louvre, I enjoy a memoir of a fleeting visit charged with French cliches.

There is not any other city like Paris. No other city combines the charm of the meandering Senne and the rudeness of the restaurant staff in Montparnasse as harmoniously, nor there is not any other city in the world that can be as intimate as St. Michel and as extrovert as Montmartre at the same time as Paris. 

At sunset, the streets shine like diamonds thrown to the sky, with “La Ville-Lumiere”, a nickname the city has well earned. I see how the Eiffel Tower shrinks into a keychain of lights, reachable to my bare hands. I sit on the grass and  sip on my second bottle of Côte du Rhone thinking about how this three-hundred-and-something meters structure was once considered an eye sore by Parisians. Misunderstood, yet proud.

At Boulevard St. Michel, white dishes with fresh omelettes are served next to today’s Le Monde. I relish on the idea of being Parisian in the Sunday morning: an omelette with coffee, fresh fruit at Odeon street market, baguette with cheese at Jardins de Luxembourg.

Montmartre might be the perfect setting for a French-themed movie with its dark cobblestoned streets and magically crafted pan au chocolate, and Sacre Coeur might be the most romantic view of a city like no other, but this Sunday, after hopping from Vanves to Montparnasse, from Montparnasse to Montmartre and from Montmartre to Notre Dame, I can feel the real essence of Paris, away from the tourist traps, baguette in one hand, bottle of wine in the other, resting my legs on the concrete blocks at Île de Saint Michel.

And if Sunday I was a Parisian by leisure, on Monday I become a Parisian by toil. Metro stations crowded by morning commuters glued to their mobiles, traffic horns echoing across arrondisements of empty apartments and cafes of red tablecloths in a solitary spring interlude.

At the toolbox-like Centre Pompidou in the morning, an exhibit hits Irish roots from within its steel skeleton, and at Arc do Triomph at lunch, when the day is busy with Chinese tourists, I bite on a Big Mac for the wi-fi.

On the two-hour ride to the Ryanair airport, I rest my head on the cold window and see the city dance at the compass of afternoon rush. Clogged overpasses of cars turning a blind sight to makeshift refugee camps, suburbs of two-story houses caressed by pine trees, and finally, the open French countryside, arms wide open to the fresh air of spring.