After I went to see one of my favorite bands play in Williamsburg a couple of weeks ago, I told Philippe he should see them when they come to Paris in January. He had recommended Agnes Obel to me, and I liked her music a lot, so I thought I’d return the favor.

Well, somehow or other I started joking about jetting off to Paris for the weekend just to see the Stars show. And then somehow or another I started seriously considering it… And then I looked up the price of flights, reality checked myself, and went back to figuring out how to put my real January plan to take a Spanish class into action. I had heard about a 5-week course offered by Instituto Cervantes that would have been perfect in many ways, except that the 6pm start time would butt up against my work hours. I was searching for better options but I hadn’t found any.

Then today I came home to two pieces of mail that serendipitously fit together like pieces of a puzzle: the NYU Continuing Education course catalog, and the same Delta miles credit card offer I get on a monthly basis. I noted that NYU has a February – April intensive beginner’s Spanish class that starts at 6:45, costs less per hour than Cervantes, covers two semesters of Spanish in one, and provides a reason to leave the house all winter. Perfect.

I read the terms of the credit card offer and realized that if I put the class on my new card I’d be halfway towards earning the 50,000 miles they promise you’ll get after spending $1,000 on it within the first three months. If I hope and pray and wait for a post-holiday fare sale and then put a $500 Paris flight on the card (do $500 NYC-Paris flights still exist?), I’d get a $50 credit and end up with almost 70,000 Delta miles to my name, enough to go almost anywhere in the world for free for my next trip. Which would be really convenient in April, after I finish the Spanish class and want to reward myself with a week of immersion somewhere like Mexico City, or Valparaiso, or Southern Spain. Two trips for the price of one. Mucho perfecto!

I signed up for the card and I’m already fantasy packing my suitcase…

And listening to the people who inspired it all, on repeat:

(Photo by Ilhan Gendron of “blurry stars in Paris” – an appropriate choice for this post about my blurry plan to see Stars in Paris.)