That Time We Saw Selena Gomez in Paris

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There had been a hoard of pre-teen girls teeming outside our hotel for the last two days.  They stood out there all day long, waiting.  For whom, we wondered, every time we had to awkwardly walk down the "red carpet" to exit the building.  We took guesses, but figured it was probably some French boy band we'd never heard of.

On our third day in Paris, I woke up at 11:30am.  11:30?!?!?!  Cue panic induced by guilt of wasting sweet, precious vacation time, followed by self-pity whining session about how we wouldn't have time to do anything and it was all my fault.  Once I got over that (sheesh, I'm cranky when I sleep in), we recovered with a plan.  We'd go to the d'Orsay today.  There wouldn't be lines on a Monday, right?  Right -- because it's not open on Mondays, as we found out from the concierge.  Neither are restaurants.  Or markets.  And it was drizzly and gray outside and I didn't have a raincoat or a coffee and nothing was going right.  (Like I said, crank-y.)

Following a pep talk from Brian entitled "who needs plans; we're in Paris, bitches!," I stopped being a jerk and we set out to do something.  Buy some presents for people at home.  See a subtitled movie.  Get tipsy at a cafe at least.

As we walked out of the hotel, there was the usual gaggle of girls anxiously waiting for a glimpse of the unknown star.  This time, though, Brian managed to sneak a peek at a flyer one of them was holding and saw that it was a Selena Gomez poster.  Ah-ha!  So she was the mystery celeb.*  Funny, I said, that she was staying at our hotel, and maybe we'd see it in Us magazine next week or--

I looked up, and --

No way, I thought...yes, YES WAY. 

There she was, Selena herself, right smack in front of us, being ushered into the cheesy, run-down Chinese restaurant down the street from the hotel by her bodyguards.**  How is she wearing those heels when there's so much cobblestone here?  (Yes, that's what ran through my head.)  I looked at Brian, he looked at me, and we just laughed in disbelief.  A celebrity sighting in Paris?  When we live in LA?  And again with the uncanny timing!

From that point on, everything changed that day.  The sun came out, we found an awesome cafe for lunch, explored the Marais, and generally had the best day together.  We decided it was because of Selena -- I suppose there's just something about an unexpected and perfectly-timed celebrity sighting that makes it impossible to stop smiling.  Now when something isn't going well, Brian or I will sometimes say we're going to "Selena Gomez it," and it never fails to make me feel better.  Thanks for that, Selena :)





*Indeed, she was.
**I'm assuming she was going to go out a back door to avoid the fan line-up.  Although it's funnier to imagine that she just really wanted some greasy Chinese food.