A Paris Review

Beautiful, Scary, and Lovely

Dear Reader,

As soon as he took his shoes off and put his naked feet on the metro seat next to mine, I should have moved.

I should have got up and moved to the next car, or the furthest spot away from him.

But instead, I listened as he spoke to me in French, and then tried to say that I couldn’t speak French. Many times.

It had been a very long, and very hot trip on the metro to get to the part of the city where the Stade de France was located.

I booked my hotel room near there so that I had easier access to one of the biggest Olympic venues in Paris.

But it was clear, my city survival skills needed some brushing up.

For many years I lived in a rural place where walking at night alone as a woman was mostly scary because of bears, not people.

In Portugal, I’ve been lucky. People have mostly been kind and respectful and I feel quite safe here.

But in Paris, walking alone at night while three young men tailed me, or that guy on the Subway who then got out with me at my stop and stalked me to my hotel, was another experience altogether.

I felt vulnerable and alone, and it shook me up a bit, not gonna lie.

Last Sunday evening, I returned home from Paris and the Olympics, safe and sound, and the stalker disappeared, but it taught me a few valuable lessons about travel.

1. Research your hotel neighborhood before booking: I was looking for the most reasonably priced hotel nearest to the Olympic venues, but that should not have been my priority since I was traveling alone. Safety at night should have been my first priority. I frequently got off the metro after dark, and it would have been helpful to have been much closer to a good hotel.

2. Maybe don’t go alone? I’ve done a lot of solo travel in my life, and I do enjoy being able to observe the world around me without having to co-figure out restaurants or what to do and please the person with me, but in this case, having another person around would have genuinely made the trip better!

3. Save up for a better experience. I did Paris during the Olympics on a budget, and though I saved money and still had a great time, I wish I would have planned further in advance and saved up for a better experience all around. A nicer hotel, more live sporting events, fewer long metro rides.

This week I took a lot of naps to recover and get my mojo back from being in the city for four days.

Paris was beautiful, awe-inspiring, overwhelming, scary, lovely, and new.

A message on the streets of Paris. I think the answer is, “Yes!”

I’m so glad I went.

Feeling the vibe of the Olympics and experiencing France and French culture was exciting and life-giving.

If I had to do it all over again, I would go, just change my itinerary a bit!

Thank you so much for following along and all of the support!

There are more adventures to come (in fact, whispers of a big trip at the end of the month - we’ll see).

But for now, I’ll bid France adieu!

Fans for opposite teams walk down the streets of Paris before the USA vs. France men’s basketball gold medal game.

Love,

Janelle

P.S. I wrote this piece about Paris before Friday, when our dog Loki passed on to dog heaven. One of the reasons I don’t spend much time on Facebook is because the pet obituaries really make me sad, so I won’t spend too much time on this for your sake and mine but he deserves a remembrance.

Loki crossed the Atlantic with me to get to Portugal and was my nearly constant companion for 8 years. He was loyal to a fault. Often spending nights outside in a Montana blizzard because Doug couldn’t get him to come in while I was gone. We adopted him and he adopted us. He endured a lot during our move, without a lot of complaining, because he was with us. He was known as Mr. Loki and everyone who met him fell in love with him too.

We took him into the vet on Friday for what we hoped was a bladder infection, and turned out to be a lot more than that. Probably the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make was to let him go, but the best one for him. He was 15 years old. Thanks for all of your kind words and support during this time.