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The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Paris

Hey honey, how about a stroll along the Seine?

We have been home for just under 22 hours, and I’ve managed to eat twice, sleep for eleven hours, and unpack.  Additionally, I just finished organizing my over eighteen hundred photos from the trip.  I made a ‘highlights’ iPhoto album, with all of the best photos in order.  Of the eighteen hundred, I deemed FIVE HUNDRED of them to be highlights.  So I guess I didn’t have that bad of a trip after all.

I realize that I mainly posted negative thoughts on this blog, and the truth is that most of the time, I was feeling pretty negative.  But I’m pretty sure that was at least 50% exhaustion/starvation, as I was tired and hungry most of the time, and extremely stressed all of the time.  But within that exhaustion-starvation-stress, we saw and did many amazing things.  And I am smiling in many of the pictures (though I did include some grumpy face photos in the highlights album, along with several pictures I took of mind-blowingly long lines!)

But there was more to my unhappiness than the biological issues.  I feel like someone should have prepared me more for this trip–for the reality of it, which is why I was so honest on this blog.  I’d really like to write a series of travel books–something like ‘The Curmudgeon’s Guide to _____’.  The main point would be that yes, you should go to all of these places, but know what you are getting into first.  I wish someone had burst my happy bubble filled with me wandering down the Seine holding hands with my husband; that would have better prepared me for being herded along the Seine amidst throngs of people.

Of course, the throngs could have something to do with the fact that we went during the busiest time of the year.  However, for at least the next twenty two years–until we retire from teaching–that’s when we must travel.

All in all, I learned many things, I was surprised by many things, and I am thankful for many things of and related to this trip.  I would do many things differently next time, and I have different destinations in mind for future trips.  Of course, there will be future trips.  And future blog posts.  Stay tuned for a series of list posts I’m working on–titled, not surprisingly, ‘Things I Learned’, ‘Things that Surprised Me’, ‘Things I am Thankful For’, ‘Things I would do Differently’, and ‘Future Trips’.