A few years ago, in a program I was in, we were given different questions to reflect on various aspects of our lives. One of the questions that stuck out for me went something like this . . .
If you had six months to live, what would you want to do with the time you had left?
My answer was immediate . . . .
Travel & Connect
To me that meant continuing to explore and experience the energy of other places, their ways of life and people who live there, and also connecting with family, dear friends (long time connections and those newly met), nature and myself.
It wasn’t until others started sharing their answers that I started to doubt if my immediate gut response was “good enough,” if I needed to aim for something “better,” and if I should, instead, think of what I could do to leave the world a better place (believing at that time that only “BIG” things make a difference in the world!)
It has taken me awhile to get here, but I now realize that my gut is usually right, my heart gives the first response and there are MANY different ways people can contribute to making the world better. And so . . . . the last while I’ve chosen to focus and give priority to my answer from that day NOW of travelling & connecting instead of waiting until I only have a “certain” amount of time left.
Which made it easy to say ‘yes’ when B-Rod had a few days off and suggested that we go somewhere. The ‘somewhere’ this time around ended up being Paris.
We had both only been to this city before as a hub to get elsewhere, and the most either of us had ever spent in the actual city was the one time I had an afternoon to wander around a bit. Based on what we could see with flights, it looked like we’d be able to get there fairly easily with no incidents.
So with the decision of a destination made, we listed on flights to head out the next day. No matter how many times we do it, we find that the statement ‘standby travel is not for the faint of heart‘ is true! It can be the highest of highs, the lowest of lows, effortless and easy, or super stressful and doubting if you’ll actually get where you want to be. On that particular day our trip started on an extra high note where we not only personally knew the captain who would be flying us over, but we also had an opportunity to have a comfortable, good sleep on the flight (which of course Rocky took advantage of and B-Rod wishes he could)
Having done little to no research before leaving (that’s not necessarily new ๐), knowing we would only have a few days and the only thing on our “must do” list not having tickets available until the middle of the month, we simply planned to do what we usually do when we travel . . . . wander around and find good food! ๐
As we had booked a place to stay while boarding the airplane, our first order of business when we landed was to figure out public transport to get there and check in.
Our home base for our few days there was very close to the train station and had easy access to the places we planned to wander (though most places within Paris seem to have this same easy access) It wasn’t an overly touristy area and was nice to watch locals pop in for a coffee and smoke before work during the mornings we sat at our neighbourhood cafes for petit dรฉjeuner. When we went on a tour a couple days later, our tour guide basically told us we were staying in a shitty area, ๐ but we never felt unsafe and appreciated being away from the crowds.
Having secured a place to stay, we set out to simply wander. which brought us to . . . . .
Near the end of our day, before we were ready to head back to our place to crash, we found ourselves in a square. It was one of those places that just has a certain magical?, mystical?, sacred?, all of the above? type of energy. We sat in the middle taking it all in for a bit before turning to each other and saying “this must be something!”
Well . . . . . it turned out to be the Louvre!! So, yes . . . . it was something!
The majority of our time over the next three days was mostly spent wandering which seems to be a perfect way to spend time in Paris. We didn’t always know what things we were passing by were, but simply being in a city with such history, architecture and culture is always cool.
The weather was hit and miss, but it didn’t deter us from walking many miles! There also wasn’t a lot of colour in the city (which I attribute to the time of year), so when the sun WAS shining, the bursts of colour felt extra special!
We did briefly consider taking a boat tour along the Seine, but none were running at the time as the river was flooding which also meant we weren’t able to walk along the banks. But, we did walk along a canal and were super excited (in a very nerdy kind of way) when we came across a set of locks!
Usually when we travel to a new city we learn to get around by public transport, but it was just so easy and interesting to walk and see things that this is the way we mostly got around. We did take e-bikes a few times, and it was such a quick, convenient and fun way to get from point A to point B that we never did bother to figure out the bus and subway system.
A friend had recommended checking out the Montmartre area. So when I discovered free walking tours in different neighborhoods, we chose to do the tour in this part. The guide was great, and it was a nice change of pace to know the significance of some of the things we were passing by! ๐
The only other activity we booked was a food tour which we did in the Marais district. Again, we got a great guide, had some good food and got to hang out with a particularly cool Australian couple in the tour with us.
Some of the other food highlights we had included . . . .
Remember how at the beginning of this post, I mentioned a program I was in that posed a question that in a somewhat indirect way guided me to this trip to Paris for the weekend? Well, in a fun twist of fate I was contacted by an American buddy I had met in this program because she saw on social media that I was in Paris. The gist of her message was “Hey! I’m in Paris too!!!”
I got her message late afternoon on the day before we were planning on leaving. So, I replied back something to the effect of “If you’re an early morning person AND if you’re free AND if we happen to be staying in neighbourhoods fairly close to each other wanna meet for coffee before I head to the airport?” I shouldn’t be surprised that despite all those “if’s” things worked out and we got to meet, have coffee and jump for the joy of getting to be in Paris together!!
- Travel โ
- Connection โ
- Merci Paris!! ๐๐ฝ๐ซ๐ทโค๏ธ
