Some trips take years to manifest. Early fantasies and visions slowly give ground to small steps, then bigger moves, and then finally committing time and money to making it happen. Doubts creep in, bookings change, flights are disrupted, and then canceled, and you work through every little quirk of fate to stay on course.
Eventually, as you board the plane home, the inevitability of the adventure seems obvious. The headaches become endearing stories. The mundane moments become the most cherished memories. Fatigue is forgotten, and joy grows with the passage of time.
We just got back from Paris – a big trip for all of us as a blended family. We did a lot, without packing our days full. I now understand the meaning of the cliche’ “we’ll always have Paris.”
Our adventure started with a game at Princes Parc, PSG taking on Rennes. Seeing (well, kind of seeing, because it happens so fast) Mbappe’s stepovers in realtime was a treat.
We attended an immersive light and sound show at the Saint-Eustache cathedral. While the show was impressive, the highlight of the evening was one of the show’s organizers, noticing that were clearly Americans, came up and spoke to us while we were in line. It turned out that he and a colleague had designed the light show after an inspiring trip to Bread and Puppet Theatre in Vermont. Small world…
A visit to the Rodin Museum and Napoleon’s Tomb with Jack and Momo was a fantastic afternoon of sculpture and history.
We did the Eiffel Tower, amazing food, and so many other moments that I’ll be reflecting on for years to come. And on the last day, we speed-ran the Louvre, grabbing tickets online at the last minutes and seeing as much as we could in the 90 minutes we wandered through it.
On a side note, baguettes are now ruined from me, because nothing will compare to that little bakery near where we stayed…