France

With some extra vacation time that I needed to use before the school's closure, I took a week-long solo trip to France, which was a delight. After a few days in an apartment in Paris's 11th arrondissement, I took a train to Lyon and then another to Nice. I checked off various tourist spots in each city but most enjoyed being led by my whims at my own pace.

My high school and college French came in handy. Although when I spoke in French, folks responded in English, which may be some helpful feedback on my accent -- ha!  A few times, people would tell me a bunch of information, I would nod and smile while I generally understood what they said, I would answer with something small in French (e.g., "merci"), and they would say to their friends (in French), "Oh, I thought she was going to speak French." This made me laugh ... because I was speaking French.  Based on the number of people who asked me for directions in Paris, I must have been playing the part of a local well.

Obviously, I ate lots of tasty food during the trip. While I'm not one to typically take pictures of my food, I did at times during this trip since they remind me of fun moments -- croissants, crepes, baguettes, tarts, endless other pastries, a terrible croque monsieur (even after all the times I exclaimed in French class, "J'adore manger un croque monsieur"), seafood, Welsh's from James, and ending with French fries along the Mediterranean Sea.

I'm so grateful for Josh and the kids who were as excited for me to take this (slightly last-minute) trip as I was.