From Paris to Portugal

Hello friends, I still owe you notes and photos from my seven days in Paris this past winter. I had so much fun celebrating my divorce, throwing my wedding rings into the Seine –>

and going on not one but two shopping sprees at Parisian department stores, eating the best food I’ve ever had in my life – French food is SEXUAL – and walking for miles every day just looking around, being in Paris. I still haven’t gotten around to transcribing the hand-written notes I made in a little pocket notebook I carried around on the trip. Ile de Paris may be my favorite area of the city I’ve seen so far, there and Montmartre. The Latin Quarter felt like home. That’s where I stayed.

I had several reservations – a day trip to Montparnasse, a Crazy Horse cabaret show, a skip-the-line Louvre ticket. I cancelled them all and roamed the city. I went by the Louvre, saw the crowds and said no way, so instead I hung out with the guy roasting chestnuts in a little metal cart near the entrance. My memory of French was better than I thought it would be. Still terrible, but better than Spanish. We managed a bit of conversation.

I also got wicked motion sickness in the cab to the hotel after smoking half a cigarette I bummed outside Charles de Gaulle from a woman who looked a lot like Isabelle Huppert. I got food poisoning on the plane again even though I remembered to get the vegetarian option and to not eat the dairy, and I never recovered from jetlag or fixed my sleep schedule. Wild to be wide awake at 3am standing on a balcony in the Latin Quarter overlooking Notre Dame, smoking nasty beadies half-drunk in a flimsy red nightgown in 30 degree weather contemplating the many life choices that resulted in me existing in that exact place and time. I slept in til noon, I drank wine with every meal, I spent an hour watching a puppeteer street performer on Pont Saint Michel one afternoon.

Then on New Year’s Eve: an endless frantic parade of police cars down the famous Boulevard Saint-Germain, wailing that particular two-tone European siren-sound.

Heathrow lost my luggage for the 4th time, yes that luggage – the luggage containing all my new clothes from Paris. I got it back after a week of apoplectic frustration and many calls to “customer service,” but I’ve sworn never to fly through Heathrow again. I have so many stories from Paris. Next is…

Portugal. I have a milestone birthday approaching and so I’ve booked a trip to Portugal to mark it. It will be a bare-bones sort of trip, one sturdy hiking backpack and a bag for my camera, no checked luggage for any airport to lose. No fancy clothes, no rental cars, few taxis, just me and a primordial gorgeous coastline and whatever I can carry. This is a trains and buses and two-star surfer bum hotels without laundry service sort of trip. I am going with two objectives: to stand at the Nazare lighthouse at north beach and learn what it feels like to watch monstrous 70+ft waves break (and hopefully watch some maniacs surf them), and to learn the difference between Portuguese sangria and Spanish sangria. I’m leaving the rest wide open to chance. Everything else will be lagniappe. Although I do hope to meet some surfers 🏄‍♂️

UPDATE: Due to work obligations, I am postponing my Portugal trip. I was recently promoted to a manager position and I now have several initiatives kicking off at the same time I was meant to be roaming solo up and down the Portuguese coast. With this promotion, I’ll be able to go on longer, more adventurous trips in the future. Postponing Portugal now is a small sacrifice for bigger rewards later.