On Being Home….

Good morning from your jet-lagged author.  Flew in to Denver last night and am so happy to be home and sitting here on my couch with coffee exactly the way I like it (funny the things you miss), even if I did wake up at 4 am.  I have a new thought on the breakdown of the joy of travel this morning:

30%: anticipation and planning – I know not everyone feels this way, but I find so much joy in looking forward to a great trip

50%: the actual trip

20%: coming home.  I always appreciate everything, everything so much more when I get back from a long trip….everything from my bed and my coffee maker and a long hot shower to the smile of a dear friend meeting me in the airport (oh how I missed my wonderful friends on this trip!).  I remember how much I love Denver, and I know that for a precious little while here everything will feel bigger and brighter and warmer and more brilliant.  It’s like a long sustained runner’s high for a few days….then my brain will reset and this will all be normal again.  

It’s a lovely reminder of how good life is….I try to keep this feeling in my mind and come back to it as often as I can until the next trip.

My friend and I in Paris talked a lot about the many faces of travel, and all the things that go into a memorable trip, not all of them good.  There’s anxiety and ecstasy and adventure and frustration and elation and wonder.  My trip on the whole was outstanding, as you know, and it included all of these things.  You know what I love about that?  It reminds me that all of those things are in us.  All of us.  All the time.  In our everyday lives, our emotional spectrum doesn’t (usually) need to be quite so broad.  We can go through life with general contentment and mild annoyance and little bursts of laughter here and there without even realizing we’ve lowered the standard deviation of our experience on this planet.  

And then we travel.  And it stretches and challenges and broadens us.  I love that.

Of the many things that make a great travel experience, high on the list for me is the help you get along the way….everyone from kind and patient hotel employees to amazing waitstaff that make a memorable meal even more incredible.  Kind and generous and fun loving people are everywhere if you have your eyes open for them.  A great example from this trip:  my friend, before I even got to Paris, chatted with a woman at a super cool little wine shop, and the conversation ended up including her waxing poetic about a Mersault (white burgundy) that she was especially passionate about.  With really not too much trouble, we arranged to have lunch at their restaurant when I was there and have them put that wine on ice for us before we arrived.  

It was transcendent.  In the words of my friend, who knows way more about wine than I do, one of the best lunches ever.  It wasn’t just the wine (itself enough for me to write three more paragraphs about) – it was the perfect setting on a drizzly Paris afternoon, the truly fabulous Alice who served us and chatted with us about the wine, the great conversation.  And then it was Alice that shepherded our trip for a bit from there – she invited us to a wine tasting that the shop was having the next night.  Not only were we the only Americans there, we got to meet the actual winemaker of that magical Mersault.  He spoke zero English and we very little French, and it didn’t matter – he could tell how much we loved his creation and put his hand over his heart and smiled in thanks.

This photo doesn’t even begin to do the setting justice.  I felt like I was on the set of a French movie:



It’s the first wine, above, for my wine loving friends.  We bought some and were able to get it shipped, so count on a dinner party with some outstanding Mersault sometime this fall.

Then….the next day I woke early and went to the Eiffel Tower (I know, I know, but I had never been), and afterwards we met up at my favorite metro station – Cité.  It was designed by an art-nouveau artist named Hector Guimard, who was responsible for several metro stations, and it’s one of the best preserved, with some of the original light fixtures.  I just love going to see it.

A side trip to my favorite bookstore, Shakespeare and Company, and my trip could have been complete, but there was more in store.  At lunch at an amazing Israeli restaurant, Balagan, we had the most fabulous service and meal – the staff couldn’t have been friendlier and more fun.  We sat at the bar and had truly outstanding Israeli wine (admission: I didn’t know these existed.  Some of them were really, really great) and food.  Because we were having so much fun chatting with the staff, we were still there when David Blaine (the magician) showed up with his six year old daughter.  This little six year old girl did a card trick for us that would absolutely blow your mind.  What a fun and totally unexpected experience.

That night we capped it all off with dinner at a great (I am running out of adjectives) wine bar called Frenchie.  A must if you are in Paris.  Impossibly cool decor, outstanding staff, and fabulous food and wine.  The kind of place that makes you feel cooler than you are just because you’re there.

The morning we left my friend snapped these two images while out on a morning run.  If these don’t capture Paris, I don’t know what does:



I’m grateful to be home and oh so grateful for the experiences of the last three weeks.  Thanks for coming along for the ride.

Wishing everyone moments of adventure and love and challenge and triumph and wonder at the kindness of strangers.  In travel and in everyday life.

Until the next trip….

Cheers!

Traveling Girl