Kathy goes to Paris...alone!

First full day…here we go! After sleeping great (although I did wake up at 2:30am very very confused…my room was light but my phone said 2:30…was it the afternoon…did I sleep all day?!?)  I eventually realized that it was light because I had left the bathroom light on, and I went right back to sleep until 6am. I headed down for breakfast in the basement breakfast room.  There was a great spread…fabulous baguettes, 2 types of great French butter, 6 kinds of jam, baskets full of croissants and Madelines, granola, sliced meats and cheeses, yogurt, hard boiled eggs, 25 different kinds of tea, a Nespresso machine…everything I needed…and more!  They even had a whole gluten free section with 3 kinds of GF bread and 4 kids of GF granola…it made me feel a little bit guilty that Gary wasn’t here to enjoy it with me. As it was quite dark out still, I was in no hurry to head out, so I hung in my room a while and read, trying to decide what to do on my first day.  Eventually I he...

It's finally travel day!  My flight from SFO to Paris is a "red eye", which is great, I can usually sleep a bit on a plane...however the problem with this timing is that the flight doesn't leave until 8:30pm!  That means a whole lot of sitting around, anxiously waiting to go, once you are packed and ready!  Oh well...c'est la vie! I flew on FrenchBee, a budget airline that we have flown 3 round trips before...no frills, but the planes are nice, new AirBus planes.  The planes are spotlessly clean (in fact, last time we flew FrenchBee, I saw the flight attendant clean the bathroom twice  on the flight!), I checked in online from home, got my digital boarding pass, and we headed to the airport.  Once we pulled in to SFO, Gary headed to the International Terminal to drop me off...I looked at my boarding pass and said "no...I need Terminal 1" so that's where he dropped me off.  I grabbed my backpack and suitcase, gave G. a kiss and started to walk off....

Well, I'm doing it...heading to Paris ALONE for one week!  Am I excited (YES!), am I nervous (YES!), am I crazy (I hope NOT!), am I counting down the days until September 28 (YES!).  Lot's of people have asked why I'm doing this, and I'm not sure I can really answer that other than to say I just feel that it is something I NEED to do (and I have felt that way for a while).  I think Gary was tired of hearing me say I wanted to go solo to Paris, so one day he just said "stop talking about it and just book it!"  I didn't waste a second...I ran right to the computer and booked that flight! I love Paris so much, and feel so comfortable there...I'm not sure I'd consider traveling alone to another city that I didn't feel so comfortable in.  But I "get" Paris...I feel comfortable navigating the Metro (in fact, I LOVE the Metro!), I understand how the city is laid out...and I have enough French language skill to get around, be understood, and ...