Paris Answers--Part 4

My apologies to Amie for guessing her thoughts (from my last post), I didn't mean to be rude, I just imagined some criticisms going on our there and wanted to cut them off at the pass but that wasn't fair. Lo siento, I really am.


Barb--What do you think would have been the perfect Paris trip length?
I think 2 weeks would have been nice, though I think we were spoiled since we only had to pay for 3 nights in a hotel and the rest of the time at the Study Abroad apartment. This gave us a much bigger home base set-up and was free, so I'm not sure how comfortable or pricey a 2 week stay would be otherwise (though I'd be willing to give it a whirl).

Was 8 days too long away from your family? Was it too short - were you cramming in the sights, or could you enjoy it? If I ever go to Paris, how long should I plan for?
The time went so quickly and 2 of the days were spent traveling, so no 8 days wasn't too long away from my family. When we first got there and were busy seeing things I didn't feel like we were going to run out of time, but when it was all over I definitely felt bamboozled, like "Where did the time go? Why didn't I eat more pastries? How did I miss going to see the Tuileries?"

{Photo by Collette at the airport in Paris}

Melinda--Glad you are back and enjoyed it so much. That gives me hope that I might want to go overseas; that it is worth the scary plane ride?
It was definitely worth the plane ride. It wasn't scary at all (of course I was in a middle seat and never got up so I never looked out the window and saw water). I just told myself that the cost of going to Paris was sitting in this cramped seat for 8 hours, and it worked. (My camera was in my carry on case on the plane, so I don't have any pictures from the flights!)


I am dying to know where you got that fabulous skirt you were wearing.
I got it at Dress Barn (a horrible name for a store, how is that supposed to help me feel good about myself?).


Denise (Michelle's Aunt, no blog)--Whose idea was the book club trip?
I think it was Jenn's idea. One night at book club (last summer) Michelle was lamenting the fact that they were going to Paris for 2 months, and then Jenn said, "We'll come see you!" and because of that we started really discussing the possibility of going.


How long did it take you to save up for it?
About 6 months or more (Randy handled things for me, though I did put some money in this cute bank Jenn made for me).


If you could have done one more thing, what would it have been?
This is a hard question, but I'm going to say I would have liked to spend a day wandering around the city on foot (my very sore feet), so that I could see all the shops and restaurants and get a feel for real life in Paris. I walked down a street near Michelle's apartment on our last night there so I could get something for dinner (since they were going out to the fancy shmancy restaurant and I was staying home with Eva) and just that short walk was fun. I saw this cute vacuum cleaner store, which caught my eye because I love vacuuming and because I hadn't seen anything domestic the entire time we were there.


Did you ever get homesick?
Not at all, which is amazing considering how much I love being home.

Are all Parisians thin and fashionable?
I didn't see any fat people (unless they were tourists), but I didn't really get to see any super fashionable people either. I saw a lot of questionable fashions (strange black lace tights with short skirts, bright orange hair, and many visible pantie lines), but this is probably because of the touristy places we were visiting.


How are you planning to scrapbook this trip?
I haven't scrapbooked in over a year, so I have no plans right now. I feel like my blog has replaced my scrapbooks a bit so this is helping. But I took over 600 photos and love every single one of them, so I'll probably just put them in a regular scrapbook of some sort and not mess with them. (I'm not sure what happened to my addiction, but it seems to be dormant right now, though I still love all the supplies and shop regularly.)


Laralee--How was the food, especially the pastries?
Even though I've pretty much answered this question, I still have glorious pastry pictures to share so I will reiterate that they were fabulous and that I wish I would have eaten more of them!

{A street musician, I needed a photo for this question.}

Overall how were you treated?
I thought we were treated really well. The hotel employees were super nice and helpful, and other than seeing a lot of extremely bored gift-shop clerks, everyone was very nice.


Was there anything you really wanted to see that you didn't?
Fortunately I went to Paris with no preconceived notions or plans. It was such a big deal for me to be going there at all that I was determined to be happy with whatever we did. This worked out splendidly for me and I was sincerely pleased with everything we did (even getting lost, taking the wrong trains, getting to the Musee D'Orsay only to have it be closed, etc.) it was all part of the trip and I loved it. So there isn't really anything specific that I wish I could have seen, pretty much I just wish I had more time for everything we did.


How was the shopping?
I'm sure it was fabulous, but I really wasn't into shopping at all. It's probably because I didn't have anything specific in mind and because I had done so much clothes shopping before the trip. I didn't feel the need to buy anything fabulous and never saw anything I felt like I had to have. I'm sure if we had stayed longer my feelings would have changed about this, but for me it felt like we were on the move a lot so we really weren't shopping much.


Jenny D.--When are you going back?
I'd like to go back NOW! Seriously, I have been thinking about how Michelle is going to be there until the end of June and am wishing I could go back for some more time with her, it just seems like such a great opportunity, that's it making me crazy thinking about it.


Kristi--Is it true you don't tip at restaurants? And if not was that so nice, to see the price was the price.
It took us like 20 minutes to figure this out at the first cafe we went to for lunch. The menu said it was included, but the bill was confusing for us and I'm not sure how we finally decided that the tip was included. We left the cafe that day and I feared that we'd stiffed our first Paris waiter (who was very nice). Fortunately Michelle told us later (she wasn't with us for that first meal) that the tip is included, but that it is customary to leave some coins on the table (oops, we didn't do that). It was very nice to have the price of things be the actual price. It was like that everywhere because they don't do sales tax like we do. So everything ended up being in nice even amounts, no $5.99 price tags over there.

**Any new questions for me?
I will have my final thoughts tomorrow.**