And like that, we booked tickets yesterday for Paris. Will we get to go this summer? Who knows! Louie is going to a work conference and so we are staying afterwards. If the conference gets canceled due to the coronavirus, we’ll figure out our next move, but the airline was offering no exchange fees for tickets purchased now and we figured if we were going to go this summer we should go ahead and buy. Worse case, we don’t go, but we should be able to exchange for other flights, or I imagine get a refund if things really get crazy. Better to pretend everything is okay, right?

So we are definitely flying in and out of Paris, and we are definitely spending about 1 week there for his conference, but then we have another week. Should we stay in Paris longer (Louie will have mostly been at the conference up until then) or tool around the French countryside? There are so many great options of things to do and places to go that decision making will be difficult. We also have in our heads that the whole thing might end up being canceled (what if we aren’t even allowed to travel anywhere) so there’s that, but I’m going to just operate under the assumption that we can…and book refundable lodging. We don’t think we want to rent a car, just take trains if we go other places. Ideas from my end so far include Reims or Strasbourg. I’ve got a few more travel books on hold at the library (I’ve been reading Rick Steves of course, but he doesn’t have many pictures, and pictures help me figure out where I want to go!) so I’ll look and see. I may change my mind (if Louie ever gets involved in the decisions, for instance…) but right now I’m thinking go elsewhere for 3 nights and then back to Paris for the last 4 nights. I think a smaller historical town or two would be ideal, someplace to wander and walk around. Or do we want to go to the French Alps and hike? I think that would be fun, but would require hiking boots and such and maybe we don’t want to pack for that and would be better just packing for a city type vacation.

Before that, Atlanta! My week is getting done, my headache is (for the moment) not here, and Spring Break is in sight (it officially starts Wednesday morning for me.) I’m feeling better now at least! I’ve been trying to just relax and not worry about all the things I can’t do anything about, and just focus on more positive thoughts. My band is playing a coffee shop gig Saturday morning, I have the afternoon and evening off, then Sunday is only an opera performance. The opera this week is fun: it’s Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West which is a rarely performed opera (we are doing the St Louis premiere) and I like the conductor quite a lot. (See what I’m doing here, positivity.) I have 5 hours of teaching ahead of me today, but it’s my Friday students…they are always more relaxed and glad for the weekend.

So if you’ve been to France, let me know what you thought! Or if you haven’t, where would you want to go?