Paris is exactly like the songs, books and movies that sing it praises. Prior to this trip I'd been there only once, when I was 9, so I had little memory of it. It was like starting anew.

I studied French in high school, the time when everyone falls hopelessly in love with either Paris or London or both. We're young and very prone to idealizations (some of us still haven't grown out of it). How could you not idealize Paris and France when you were constantly exposed to Joe Dassin's uplifting and carefree music and stylish French New Wave films? Riding your bicycle in Paris, speaking French, having breakfast at a corner café with your best friend. In that sense, Paris was always a dream.

The only touristy thing I did in Paris was this: I took a walk from the Arc de Triomphe to the Place de la Concorde on the Champs-Elysées and I understood there was so much of Paris beyond that for me to see, but it also felt very real because it actually was Paris, albeit commercial, touristy etc. I waited at Ladurée for 30 minutes to try the original macarons, only to discover they're not exactly the heavenly goodness everyone makes them out to be, and I regretted having lost so much time there (or at least not getting some of their chocolate instead).

Paris is like London, only much more beautiful (both of them don't stand a chance compared to New York). When I say beautiful, I mean it. The architecture is to die for, which had somehow vanished from my childhood memory and I didn't expect it. It makes you feel lucky just to be there, as if you're in a museum.

My 24 hours in Paris wouldn't be complete without a short night walk around the 8th district. Cities are always more magic at night. At 11PM, Paris was calmer than I'd expected. Calmer, but definitely not calm. If it were calm, it wouldn't be Paris.

P.S. Updates on Cityfinity have been sporadic not due to lack of time but lack of material. I haven't been traveling much lately and needed some new inspiration.

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My first visit to Barcelona showed me that it has colors that would look great on polaroid. The second time I went there I wanted to bring my polaroid camera, but I didn't. It was my high school class' graduation trip and in the midst of messy packing infused with mild fear that airport scanners would damage polaroid film, the camera didn't end up in my luggage. So "shoot Barcelona on polaroid" remains on my to-do list. Until then, when I want to visually illustrate how Barcelona feels like, I have to use other people's photos just like with Belgrade (although Belgrade isn't about polaroid or non-polaroid, it's that in my photos it always looks completely different from what it really is). The photo above is a scan of one of the postcards I bought there. Those postcards remind me of Madrid and Almodóvar's films, although Barcelona doesn't want to be Spanish; it's Catalan. Maybe it's a Mediterranean thing.

When I first came to Barcelona, I was surprised at how un-Spanish it really was. It began with the language: I'd learned Castellano in elementary school for 2 years, so Catalan was both familiar and strange to me when I was exposed to it. Initially I didn't like anything about it, but it's one of my favorite languages now, probably also because of my connection with Barcelona. It didn't take me long to figure out it would be pretty cool to live there, at least for a while. That whole "get up at 10:00, have dinner at 22:00, go out, go to bed at 03:00" scenario is universally appealing, but it doesn't work in many countries. Everyone I know who did an Erasmus exchange in Barcelona had mini reverse culture shock adjusting to the schedule back home.

I've been thinking about Barcelona lately a lot, although I'm not planning to go there in the near future. Most likely it's because of its high temperatures in the time of the year when I just want the winter to be over.

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The end of 2010 rolled out so quickly (and hazily in the way only ends of the year can be hazy) that I had no time for introspections and retrospections. Therefore, I didn't determine which was my favorite city of the past year, nor my favorite travel. Can I say everything was my favorite?

- There's one thing I really yearned for this winter, but didn't make it happen: a trip to someplace warm. Before last December, winters in Ljubljana were always unpleasant, but not in an unbearable way like now.

- I took surprisingly few trains in 2010. Strange because taking trains was something I partly identified with (and enjoyed as long as the rides were not too dull).

- We didn't go to Venice in December either, but thankfully I know what Venice in December looks and feels like, so I'm not too sad.

- Dubrovnik (photo above) is where I'd like to be on January 1st 2011. It might have to do with the fact that I missed Venice - I think of Dubrovnik and Venice as sister cities because of their similar historical development (they were both independent states for the longest time, and it still shows).

- In regards to fashion: the place is really the best accessory there is.

- In regards to my "hometown": I'm as clueless as ever.

- I write considerably less in my moleskine than ever before, which means I keep most thoughts in my head. If I did New Year's resolutions, one of them would be to start writing things down more again.

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2. Late-night note from my cell phone: "This person keeps reappearing in my life and creates chaos every time."

3. I've been going through a period when I don't want to talk (or write) about myself because I don't know how. It might have everything to do with the fact that I've been burdening myself with other people's problems (that they don't even acknowledge, oh the hilarity of it all!), which leaves me little time and rationale for introspection. I feel very out of touch with myself. In the past that would've been a very valid reason to pack my stuff and hop on a train, but this time I've decided out of spite that I'm not going anywhere until I'm "normal" again.

4. I'll be in New York next October. It'll be a 3-year anniversary since I first came there. I know it'll be different, but how much different?

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When I'm at the seaside in fall or winter, the thought that I'm looking at the very same sea that I swim in in summer never ceases to puzzle me. It looks so alive and then, with all people gone, it begins to speak of vast emptiness, as if everything underwater is hibernating too. Colder temperatures, wind and vacant streets on Friday evenings don't quite match the image of Crikvenica in summer either. The curse of small coastal towns that only seem to exist during high season.

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2. Most of the more expensive cars in Belgrade have tinted windows. Every time I see a car with tinted windows somewhere else, I automatically assume it has Belgrade license plates.

3. All Belgrade streets smell of the same perfume, but I have yet to catch it on a particular person. This way it's everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Who knows what it would smell like on me?

4. Although I've been to Belgrade quite a few times, I know there are large parts of it that are still completely unknown to me. "Parts" meant not (only) as locations but experiences. I also think it's impossible to live through all of them in one lifetime. Belgrade is vast (metaphorically).

5. My favorite thing to do in Belgrade is to go to the Kalemegdan Fortress at night and watch the lights of New Belgrade across the river. I never stay long, just a couple of minutes, but this view is probably why I'll be returning to Belgrade all my life.

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Belgrade, the most interesting city that never turns out photogenic in my photos so I have to use other people's. Belgrade, the only city I was sure I'd end up living in at some point, but I now realize it'll probably never happen and I don't know what to think of it. Belgrade, the city that has played with my head more than any other (ever will). Belgrade, the city that was and wasn't, is and isn't, will and won't be home. It's inarguably the best city to be young and I can't help but feel a little envious of those who grew up on its streets, especially in the 1960s - 80s when Belgrade was reportedly a whole different story that I can unfortunately only observe via books and films. Not that I would exchange it for the Belgrade I know, though.

I was in Belgrade for 5 days, my second longest visit so far. I saw everything on my agenda in the first 3 days, so the remaining two were completely dedicated to wandering around aimlessly without getting lost because someone will always show you the way, which is why Belgrade is also the only city where I don't have to rely on a map. I think most foreigners experience the same "phenomenon" - hearing different languages always means a lot of tourists are in town, but I didn't see anyone perusing a map/GPS or looking even remotely lost the entire week I was there.

Belgrade reminded me that I must not lose the ability to connect to places and people; no small talk, only relationships that matter. It's probably because everyone I encounter there is always frank; not that I would dare to make a generalization that all Belgraders are this stellar, it's just that my experience has always been such. Also, I suppose that now I'm fine with the fact I'll never be a (true) Belgrader, an irrationally heavy burden that has perplexed me for many years. It all comes down to the fact that my "city identity" has always been fluid (and nationality: Undefined), thus omitting that sense of "belonging". I think in 2007 Belgrade was the first place I consciously wanted to belong to, and it'll probably never wear off completely.

It didn't help that I had and still have no idea what "belonging" means in practice when it comes to cities. Is it enough to like and understand a city in order to belong to it? Or do you have to spend extended periods of time there to be able to claim that special bond? Although these questions have provided much thought material over the years, it seems that I've let them go with this visit to Belgrade. It's better this way because I've never got any fruitful answers from them. Could it be because they don't exist?

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For a city in danger of disappearing underwater relatively soon (what do a couple hundred years mean in the large scheme of things?), Venice is so calm and constant that it makes you think it's not aware of the impending disaster at all. The truth might be that it consciously chooses not to stress over it; Venice is the only city where everything is always the same and  people enamored with it will come back to it despite it rarely offering anything that isn't centuries or at least decades old (Venice is small, I believe it's possible to see all the main tourist attractions in 1-2 days). For example, every other Venetian masks store displays a sign claiming they were the official masks supplier for Eyes Wide Shut in their window. Even if they really did make masks for Kubrick, that was more than 10 years ago, meaning they continue to rest on laurels of the past, not thinking about how they could improve their business with a more recent achievement or idea.

Speaking of Kubrick, we unexpectedly found ourselves at an exhibition of his photos (shown for the first time) at the Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti. He shot them between 1945 and 1950 when he wasn't a filmmaker yet and the negatives were lost for a long time; looking at the photos I was surprised that someone who not only had "the eye" but also vast knowledge about the technical side of photography would change his profession and become a film director. He did make prominent use of his photography skills in his films, but still. There isn't a single photo in this exhibition that doesn't create a world of its own. The exhibition runs until November 14; if you're in Venice, right now it's the one thing you cannot miss.

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This is the graffiti I miss the most in Ljubljana. There are variations of it - birds in different colors and sizes - all over the city, but this one was special because its home was the Slovenian Philharmonic Hall. They repainted the wall just when we all accepted the bird as something bound to make us smile during our walks by the river. Unfortunately, this is how graffiti are treated here in general.

I'm going to Venice and Belgrade very soon. It's as if my real vacation is only beginning now (although visiting cities is never a vacation for me). This is what I've been looking forward to all summer. Ljubljana sort of went by this year; I didn't engage much in anything it had to offer apart from a couple of concerts. I hope September will bring a dash of fresh air.

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When I hold this photo in my hands, the sea surface becomes liquid, flowing under viable rays of late August sun. Is it the memories resurfacing? Whatever the secret of sea coming to life so vividly, it's the reason this whole scenery is so "ideal" in summer, especially in the last two weeks of August when people are still flocking to Dubrovnik, although the usual run of things would rather have them back in their offices and classrooms as early as possible. The decline of summer inspires a want to prolong it; in Dubrovnik's case, this means that any change of estival habits is out of question. Old ladies with little dogs still drink their coffee and sit ashore, gazing into the distance. Cruise liners keep offloading tourists and guiding them through the Old Town slowly so that nobody gets lost. Restaurants remain so packed that you wait 10 minutes before you're served. But in defiance of their effort, everybody knows that the end of the season is imminent, that the next summer is 9 months away, and so people's quotidian rituals become infused with a dash of melancholy.

Late August was when I was in Dubrovnik the first time. There's something in the city's coming to terms with its spiralling towards a long period of mundanity that makes me doubt I'll ever want to see Dubrovnik in June or July.

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