Paris

Being in Paris makes you do funny things. Like wear horizontal stripes and consume Camembert for breakfast. Like sip wine at noon and fall in love with your apartment's Twinkie-sized kitchen. It may make you recite "Madeline" books verbatim while strolling over the Pont du' Art. It might inspire you to put on a pink trench coat, sit on a bench, and pretend you belong in this mad but glam mix of Lilliputian balconies, punctiliously groomed Parisians (canines and human), hawkers, and boulangeries.

It can also make you a bit nervous. Like lunching in a bistro full of Parisians, unsure of what the menu says because you really thought it was a better idea to take German rather than French in high school, and feeling a bit tuckered out after a day's touring. All I really wanted to do was go to the loo and wash up. I didn't mean to turn off all the lights in the upstairs dining area. Gasp. Silly tourist. Tres embarrassing.

I had been feeling homesick before our trip. Exhausted from the long haul between Christmas and Easter, tired of seeing the ubiquitous peachy-brown hue that is Qatar, weary of the increasingly warm weather that would no doubt soon sequester us indoors. I thought that Paris might cure all that, but instead it made me miss home more.

While settling into our apartment the first night, Nolan declared that he heard the call to prayer outside. My ears perked up and then realized it was the whiny siren of an ambulance. You know the wee-eww, wee-eww song of a French ambulance? Should I get his ears checked?


All I wanted to do in Paris was walk. And walk we did.
Everyday, all day, we walked. It was the most exercise I'd had since our nanny left, leaving me with the mildly calorie burning tasks of laundry and cooking rather than a proper butt and thigh workout in the gym. I actually lost weight while in Paris. Don't worry, though, it's all reappeared. Sigh.

Again, like with Vietnam,it's the small slices of the holiday that I will treasure. Watching Greta absorbed in Van Gogh and Monet. I watched her watch the paintings spring to life before her eyes, the swirls of color and playful paint strokes unlocking a world of art in a nine-year-old's mind. I was 23 before I saw any major pieces of art in person. Two brought me close to tears: Goya's The Third of May in Madrid's Prado and Boticelli's Primavera at the Uffizi in Florence. But the image of my lovely Gbug standing serenely in front of her beloved Van Gogh provoked some teary eyes as well. This was, of course, before a museum docent scolded us for giggling as we perfected our hand clap lyrics (shown above in the video).

We surprised Nolan with a two day trip to Disney Paris. My favorite moment with him was zipping up and down, sideways and screaming, snuggled in the roller coaster cart of Big Thunder Mountain. Scared and brave and screeching with joy. That's my boy.





 

Suitcase Savvy

      I was always the girl who forgot to pack something importantly girlie, like post-sun aloe lotion or lipgloss,  a mildly slinky beach cover up or extra earrings. Forgetting these tiny luxuries would be entirely unfathomable to many, but for me it was completely beyond my radar. Why would I take $15 lipgloss on holiday when I have my beloved and reliable tube of cherry Chapstick? Isn't a beach cover up basically an expensive towel with shoulder straps? Extra earrings? I'll be lucky if I don't lose the ones I have on now!
     Now that I am officially, ahem, a grown up woman (really, I almost wrote the word lady there just so I could avoid calling myself a woman - what's wrong with me?!), I should know how to pack a utilitarian yet  feminine suitcase full of holiday necessities. As a mildly-seasoned traveler, I should be able to excise the junk in my suitcase, yet my luggage often reveals a hodgepodge of not entirely coordinating clothing items, assorted reading material (though only some of it will actually be read), and one too many pair of shoes (always). My suitcase is typically on the heavy side even if it's not perfectly packed.
     Suitcase, luggage, carry on. More glamorous words for baggage, I suppose. Suitcases I am still working on, but baggage? Baggage I can do: heart baggage, brain baggage, thigh baggage - I have it all! I truck that stuff around every day! It's the sorting (what's worth carrying, what' not?), weeding (could I really just throw that out without regret?), and rehabilitating (that old plum camisole could perk up that tattered vintagey cardigan!) of baggage that I don't quite have the knack for (yet). Which jacket is both fetching and deliciously warm? What can I simply delete from my packing list? Is there some basic necessity that I am forgetting, or a minor girlie accessory that I should reclassify as a staple item? Figuring out what truly belongs in one's suitcase is a skill I assumed would magically come with age. Turns out, it's a fair amount work.
     This attempt at metaphor may or may not be working for you, so permit me to reveal my intention: everyone has baggage, and at some point it's probably wise to whittle it down to the baggage you can carry without burden, allotting only the baggage that keeps you honest and sincere, ambitious and hopeful. Anything else has to be checked.