Tag Archives: France

up, up and away

Posted in foreign food festival, French, travel by

new york to paris

Yesterday, within the space of ten minutes, I checked my Delta balance, found my 50,000 miles had been deposited, and booked a 10-day trip to Paris. While I was going through those motions, the rational part of me kept saying to myself, “Maybe this is worth thinking through a little more?” But the part of me that knows how often I paralyze myself by overthinking made a “talk to the hand” gesture and continued on its way.

So now I’m heading to France in mid-January, rather inexplicably. Originally I was going to jet off for the weekend but then I realized that if I’m going somewhere I may never return to, and using valuable miles to get there, I should make the most of it. I decided to tack on an additional weekend to go anywhere in France that my heart desired. I thought about heading south to try to get some sun but that seemed like a fool’s errand. Even the Riviera won’t be able to deliver in January. So I decided to choose my destination based on whichever place has the best food, because really all I want to do is eat as many fatty dishes and patisserie treats as humanly possible, wander beautiful streets aimlessly, and speak a ton of French.

That’s how I concluded that I should go to Alsace, home of choucroute, which appears to be the best invention in the history of gastronomy. According to this handy Buzzfeed article on the 44 French foods you must try before you die, it also boasts the origin of raclette, pot au feu, coq au vin, and boeuf bourguignon. (And now my mouth is watering.) None of the other regions of France look nearly as gluttonous.

This is probably because Alsace also appears to be the coldest region of the country. They have to eat all that fat to prevent frostbite. It’s rather counterintuitive of me to have misgivings about heading to a cold city for vacation only to beeline from there to the very coldest part of the country it belongs to, but I have decided that if you’re going to do winter, you may as well do winter. And look how beautiful winter in Alsace looks!

Marché_de_Noël_de_Colmar,_2005

My own personal not-very-dramatic cliffhanger

Posted in French, Spanish, travel by

selfie in the parkMy new miles credit card arrived in the mail and I was thisclose to registering for the NYU Spanish class with it, but nagging doubts held me back. Is it completely stupid to begin studying one language when you are just getting the hang of another one? Will it confuse my brain and ensure I learn neither French nor Spanish effectively? Wouldn’t it be a more satisfying use of $500 to go on a vacation somewhere Spanish-speaking instead? Or to put the money into my savings account towards my immersion sabbatical? Do I have the discipline to attend three hours of class each week after eight hours at work? And will I actually put in the time to do any of the homework when I already spend two nights a week practicing French?

Then there are the misgivings about my nascent plan to spend my winter vacation in Paris. Why on earth would someone with seasonal affective disorder go to a place that’s even grayer and damper than the one where she lives? Shouldn’t sunshine and heat be on my agenda instead? Why would someone with limited funds go somewhere she has been before and did not feel the need to ever go back to? Is it not silly to spend my one week out of town in another humongous town, doing things that are the French equivalent of the same things I do back home?

Both decisions seem like they come down to one central question: Will I allow myself to embrace plans that are completely illogical simply because I really want to do them?

Stay tuned to find out…

(Photo: my most contented moment in Argentina, posted here to remind me that sometimes the best decisions are also the most random ones, made by an inscrutable heart.)

solo in Paris – or anywhere really

Posted in French, inspiration & encouragement, travel by

strolling couple in paris

My favorite thing is to wander aimlessly around a densely packed city and take in the sights. That’s basically all I did in Buenos Aires from early in the morning til the wee hours of night: walk and gawk, walk and gawk, stop to sit in a park, walk and gawk, stop to eat steak (always, steak), walk and gawk, walk and gawk. I must have covered a forty square mile area by foot and every single block had something to be in awe of, whether animal, vegetable or mineral.

Apparently the French have a word for people like me: flâneur, or stroller. Stephanie Rosenbloom wrote a piece for this week’s Times travel section about strolling Paris on her own, and it perfectly captures the magic of solo travel. The way that being alone enhances the senses and imbues every experience with both grounding stillness and skin-prickling energy.

Paris, she convincingly writes, is a city that “deeply rewards the solo traveler”:

In a city that has been perfecting beauty since the reign of Napoleon III, there are innumerable sensual details — patterns, textures, colors, sounds — that can be diluted, even missed, when chattering with someone or collaborating on an itinerary. Alone one becomes acutely aware of the hollow clack of pétanque balls in a park; the patina of Maillol’s bronze “Baigneuse se Coiffant” that makes her look wet even on a cloudless day in the Tuileries; how each of the empty wine bottles beside sidewalk recycling bins is the embodiment of someone’s good time.

I have only spent a few days in Paris and that was years ago – but I remember it as gray, snobby and overrated. I’ve never felt the need to return until I read this article, which had me wanting to jump on the next plane. Instead I practiced my flânerie / joggerie along the Hudson River on a drop-dead gorgeous New York City day and was thankful to be living in the walkingest city in the world.

(Photo: I took this picture when I visited Paris in 2000. Everything about this elderly couple, from their classic dress, to their slow unhurried stroll, to their arm-in-arm charm, felt perfectly suited to the city.)