You Know You've Lived in Paris When...

Before I went to Paris,I discovered a couple of lists ( http://tinyurl.com/3xwn8qm http://tinyurl.com/33eavd8 ) I read on the internet as what Paris might do to me. I've now rediscovered them, and this is what's happened to me and what I think I've become:

1. There's one metro/RER route that you've taken every day, and you can remember the route to walk to the different platforms for all the different changes off by heart.
2. You could tell tourists which metro line all the main sights are on without having to look at a map.
3. You've been in every room in the Louvre.
4. You've discovered one boulangerie that sells the best ..... and getting one from another boulangerie just won't do.
5. You called the arrondissement in which you lived 'home' or 'my area/district'.
6. You've learned that crossing on the green man doesn't necessarily mean that the drivers won't try and run you over.
7. You've been mistaken as a Parisian/a French person.
8. You don't think anything of being on the metro/walking the streets late at night.
9. You consider Boulogne, Neuilly, Saint-Denis etc to be the countryside. I mean, Porte de Versailles or Porte de la Villette mean there IS a door, and therefore an outside and an inside, right?
10. You can tell only by looking at their clothes from which arrondissement people are.
11. You're surprised when someone holds the door for you at the metro exit.
12. "Putain", "bordel", "merde" or the ever famous "putain de bordel de merde" are not considered "bad words"; I mean, you use them every day, and sometimes it's affectionate. (credit must go to a man named Phillipe Martin for that one. His incredibly creative swearing made slow days go quicker!)
13. You think it's normal when you know the life story of the butcher/baker/cashier of G20/homeless man/sales woman of H&M.
14. You know that Paris is not a city, it's an attitude.
15. You've walked for miles through the city just to enjoy the views and the atmosphere.
16. You've woken up happy every morning because you're in Paris.
17. You KNOW that it's the most fabulous,angry, stylish, bitchy, comic, even romantic (even though you HATE clichés) city in the world and that, although you left, you will come back and stay for good.

And the last two are bang on.

I was going to write an obituary, as you know, but having thought about it, obituaries are for the dead, and my relationship with Paris is not dead: far from it. I think it's only just beginning...........