Reflections

Now that we've been back from our trip for a few days and are (mostly) back to normal, I've been thinking about a few things.

*Thanks to Jay's meticulous research, we were able to do most of what we wanted to do with little to no fuss.  We left the airport with our 2 Day L'Open bus tour tickets and our 6 Day Museum Pass, which saved us a little money but a whole lot of time, since we didn't have to stand in too many lines.  We knew roughly where we wanted to go and how to get there with minimal fuss.  I've been teasing Jay for a year about how much he has researched and read about Paris, but it really paid off. 

*We were originally planning to both leave and return on a Saturday but before we cashed in Delta Skymiles for our plane tickets Jay suggested that we leave a day earlier, giving us an extra full day in Paris.  It was a great decision, because that Sunday was the best weather day that we had.  We ended up with 8 total days for the trip - 2 travel days, 1 day in Normandy, 1 day at Versaille and 4 days in Paris.  We could have easily filled more days in Paris because there is just so much to do.

*Museums are great but it was good to break them up.  We did the Louvre on one day, the WWII museum on one day, Versaille on one day, the Orsay on one day and the Pompidou on one day.  We spent the most time at the WWI museum (and we could have spent more time there, but we were on a schedule with a tour guide) and Versaille, but they also required the most travel to get there.  It was nice to break up the inside, crowded museum stuff with just walking around, enjoying the city.

*Trip Advisor is your friend.

*As far as the hotel is concerned - location, location, location.  We had a great one (again, thanks to Jay - as you can tell, he did 95% of the planning for this trip) and it paid off.  Even in bad weather we were close to restaurants and the Metro and there was always somewhere close we could go in the St. Michel/St. Germain area.  We used hotel/American Express points to pay for our hotel.  There were other choices that would have worked - maybe had a bigger room - but the location we had couldn't be beat.

*It's OK to cry when you are leaving your kids for 8 days as long as you relax when you get there and have a great time.  I'll leave you to figure out which of us cried most of the way down to the airport. 

So, Paris.  Great trip.  Jay even managed to get an audio tape of me agreeing to go to Cambodia for our 30th anniversary.  In my defense, he had just surprised me with my replacement wedding set and I was overwhelmed emotionally.  I would have agreed to any number of things at that point. 

Oh well.  I've got 15 years to change his mind.  Or just give up and go with the flow.  As long as he does all the planning again.