"Escapades"

Sometimes I skip lunch.
Some of you will tell me it's bad; unhealthy; unreasonable.You are probably right, if anyone is at all.
The reason why I skip lunch is that I want to travel, to discover, I am hungry for new sights, new feelings. Maybe you know this feeling. You want to drive as fast as you can, to feel the rush of speed. You want to walk in the middle of a huge, hurricane-like storm, to feel the unleashed strength of nature trying to blow you away. You want to feel alive.
When I skip lunch, I just go for a walk, and shut down my mind. I just trust my feet.
Yesterday I went to the gym in the morning, and after working out I felt this gush of energy, so instead of going straight down into the first subway hole,I decide to walk for a bit. As I stood right in the middle of Paris, I could go exactly anywhere.
I walked from Palais Royal to the Louvre, walked around it, going around the "Cour Carrée", and found myself at the Pont des Arts. There was no snow, just a freezing breeze moving the top branches of all the leafless trees bordering the banks of the river Seine.
I had this impression of being detached from myself, looking at the whole scene from somewhere else... I could almost take everything in at the same time:
The slow, fat "bateau-mouche" humming away from the bridge, with its scattered tourists all on the lower, indoor deck. No one outside. The weather made everything look crisp, fragile, thin.
The long, squeaky shrieks of the gulls muffled by the soft, freezing breeze; the birds flying in circles behind the boat, following its backwash, probably looking for food in the muddy waters.
The reddish roofs on the island and on the opposite bank of the river covered in white frost, reminding me strangely of strawberries with icing sugar.
The passers-by in long, winter-fashion trench coats and parka, white, beige, and red, mostly; slowly crossing the bridge, enjoying the relaxing view.
And suddenly, I realized who I was, where I was, the lon way I had come so far, from my childhood to university to job in Paris; the importance of this city in history, the importance of France in the modern world, the wars and battles that took place in this city, the rise and fall of kingdoms decided in the Louvre, just a few yards behind me. The crownings in Notre Dame, whose bell tower tips I can spot from here, towering the shorter buildings around it. The passionate, enraged and furious lives of artists whose works are on display at Musée d'Orsay, a short walk to my right. And dead ahead, the average Parisian house, high and narrow, that probalby hosted its fair amount of wealth and joy and crimes and great, historical moments forever lost in the flow of history, as no witness passed them on to posterity.

It shatters your mind, to realize all that at once. It did, to me. I felt born again. And also calmer, and more serene. Then I realized I was hungry, and went for lunch anyway.