Paris by Plan

If you know me, you know I'm a planner. For past vacations I've planned out every day and usually in blocks of time for each day. For the European trips in the past we needed to plan well because we'd only have a few days in each city before hopping a train to our next destination. 

But for the trip we took early this May we did it differently. We stayed in Paris for eight days, so I didn't have to make such specific plans. Not only did we get to see the things we missed last time, but we could relax and linger over anything we enjoyed, which was usually a glass of wine at a café.

photo credit: Jake Cigainero

The very best thing about this trip to Paris was being with friends. One of the reasons we went was because our friend Jake is in Paris getting a double masters at Institut d'études politiques de Paris aka: Sciences Po. A highly selective university specializing  in social sciences. It's a real honor for Jake to study there, but he is working extremely hard. I'm glad we timed our trip so that he was able to spend some time with us. We drank at his favorite cafés and Jake made all of our reservations and joined us most nights for dinner. Those were my favorite parts of the trip.

Carl and Jake doing what you do on a rainy afternoon in Paris

In addition to Jake being our personal Paris concierge, we talked the Smiths into coming to Paris too. We've travelled with Chris and Heather Smith before, but we were a little surprised they agreed to go to Paris since it's a pretty big commitment. I'm so happy they did. It was awesome.

At the Louvre

I've gotten a little better at planning. In particular, what not to plan. So we'd spend a day or two together and then have days on our own meeting up for dinner if we felt like it. 

I was really excited about a planned bike excursion to Versailles. In my mind I thought we'd bike through the gardens, which you could never see simply on foot, have a picnic lunch, and then tour the chateau. 

It was not at all as I had imagined. Our guide was goofy and didn't share much more insight than we already knew, we didn't bike through the gardens at all, just around the perimeter of the grounds, and three out of the four of us got a flat tire. Me first.

If not for the Smiths being there it would have been a real disappointment. Instead Chris and Carl had a running comedy routine that had the entire tour group rolling. The group should have tipped Chris at the end instead of our guide.

This trip to Paris was wonderful. Having friends there made it even better.