Why did you go on this trip in the first place?
Funny you should ask. One day in mid-September, my great-aunt's lawyer called me and said "Hey, your great-aunt says she wants to go to Paris. How about that?" My first reaction being "Wow, she seemed fine when I saw her last; I guess dementia sets in fast." But it turns out that she's not nuts, she just wanted one last trip before she dies. So my mom and I were talked into being her travel companions. Thank all the gods that ever existed that both my mom AND I went. I would have gone nuts alone, and I suspect my mom would have as well.
So with less than a month to plan the trip, Paris not even being in my top-10 list, and my mother wanting to "wing it" once we get there rather than make any plans, I tried to get myself ready for the trip. It was "all expenses paid" but I still had to take 4 days of unpaid-time-off (since I'm out of vacation time), so it wasn't really a "free trip" after all.
So you didn't have a good time then? God, what a loser you are. Free trip to Paris and you whine about it.
It's true. After three weeks back home… I can honestly say that I didn't have a good time. I saw some beautiful art, experienced another culture, and learned to appreciate how hard those who take care of the elderly work. I did not, however, have what could be strictly defined as "a good time."
And catching up on work-work and school-work and personal/social-life has really really sucked.
I don't regret going. I learned a lot. About how I travel (I'm a basket case), how I like to travel (with someone like me - i.e. my beloved husband, who shares responsibility for planning and doing things 50-50), and how I deal with my mother (immediately regress to about age 17, i.e. irritable but trying to be tolerant or at last silent instead of telling her what I think and getting smacked. Not that she ever really smacked me, but the threat was there). I learned that my aunt bugs me. I've never spent that much time with her before and never knew how opinionated and boring she is. All she talked about the whole week was her legal will and her cats. I learned how much I value my alone-time after 10 days of having any privacy except in the bathroom. And my mom walked in while I was in the bath twice.
Well, what did you like then?
I liked the art in the Louvre and the Musee d'Orsay and hanging out in Pere Lachaise with my friend, and drinking thick hot chocolate at Angelina's, and possibly being flirted with at Giverny, and finding a table on the balcony of the hotel and reading by myself for a whole hour. I liked spacing out in the van on the way to Fontainebleau and not having to talk to anyone. I liked lurching across the airport in Monterey and attacking my husband and practically crying I was so fucking relieved to see him.
So what about "sex and writing and schoolboys and motherhood…"?
Sex - well, you know, I always think about that.
Writing - I'll explore in a column coming soon.
Schoolboys… - cute British school boys… Lessons I'd like to teach them… OK, not going there. Unless you beg.
Motherhood - also, probably in a column coming soon.
So there, that was my trip to Paris. Any questions?