travel – Page 3 – The Next 38

Every day, I wake up and go to work. No really. Every day, I wake up, and I go to work. Except when I schedule a day off of call in sick or am lucky enough to be cancelled. But that costs me because I still need to get paid, only after being cancelled I will have less paid vacation hours. That’s for the weekend job (Friday, Saturday, Sunday). But M-Th, I just work. I took this teaching job knowing it meant working every day, but also knowing it would be temporary. And this week I am half way through the first semester. 5 more weeks of my grad school semester. 7 more weeks of teaching. And then I have 5 weeks off (just not from the weekend job). Is it confusing yet?

Basically what it means is I can go some more places. And there is nothing like teaching international students from Brazil, Italy, Korea, China, Japan, Taiwan, and more, to make you want to get out and see the world. So I am already planning a trip AND my husband and I already have a trip to Hawaii booked.

But before the monsoon of crazy work/school schedules began, we went to a bucket list destination.

This summer we drove to the Grand Canyon.

From LA, the drive is fairly long, which is why we did that stop in Vegas. But after Vegas, we hit the road to somewhere I had been wanting to go for a while. And the Grand Canyon was really fantastic. On the way from Nevada to Northern Arizona, we stopped at Hoover Dam for a short tour. It was HOT in July. But the dam is impressive nonetheless.

We also stopped in WIlliams for lunch, wine, and a little Route 66 kitsch.

But Grand Canyon National Park…well, it really was worth the placement on the bucket list. It’s just hard to imagine how big it is until you walk along the rim, and then look back at places you were standing.

When you try to spot the Colorado river and it looks like a small creek, but the park rangers tell you it’s around 300 ft across.

Our short time in park was more than we expected. For example, lodging and dining options in the park are numerous, but we never felt especially crowded like some people describe. Also, we imagined the Grand Canyon to be rocky and dry. At 7000 ft up, it can be dry, but it is also surrounded by a forest. Which means trees. That was something we did not imagine in Arizona. Getting up at sunrise and watching the light change on the south rim was awesome. And then we ate breakfast by the window facing the rim at the Hotel Tovar. If you have ever asked yourself if the Gran Canyon would be worth the visit, the answer is yes.

This year my husband and I celebrated our tenth anniversary. It was just last Friday, in fact. Part of our motivation for visiting Paris was to celebrate this big milestone. We weren’t able to travel on our anniversary due to flights, kid’s schedules, work time off, etc. But it was pretty important to me to get out for a date night in Paris. Our date night? Dinner followed by Basilique du Sacré-Coeur at sunset.

The apartment owner left us tips for restaurants to eat at and we chose Desvouges for our big night out. It was walking distance from our place. The owner came to our table with a large chalkboard to review the specials and made recommendations. He speaks french and English, so no worries if you don’t speak french, although I wanted to order in french as much as possible. We started with appetizers, a pastry filled with cheese for me and escargot out of the shell for my husband. For the main course I had salmon with this great cream sauce and rice. My husband had beef with potatoes and a small dish of ratatouille that was so good. The picture can’t even convey the delicious flavor. Of course we got dessert: lemon cheesecake and a chocolate soufflé. OMG, our food was fantastic. We enjoyed all of it. And we shared a bottle of Rosé, something I decided I liked in Paris.

I didn’t think I was going to be able to walk after all that.

But some how I was. I walked out of that restaurant sometime after 8 pm with the sun still out (summers bring late sunsets) and headed for the metro. I didn’t realize it but we had quite a journey ahead of us. The first metro stop wasn’t running so we walked to another. From there we transferred trains. And the Paris metro is like the Boston subway but seems even larger. Transferring to another line may include heading from the platform down a passage way, up stairs, down another passage way, down some stairs and onto another platform. And we did that for 3 lines. After that, when we arrived at the stop near Sacré-Coeur, Absesses. We did not get memo on this stop, which includes a winding long staircase up to the street, because it is 118 feet underground. Our huge dinner was not so bad with that work out. It was one of those staircases that seems like it will never end and you can’t see the end because it is winding. And it was 118 feet underground.

When we came out the sun was fading. Disoriented and not sure which direction to head, we walked one way. And then back the other way before finally figuring out which way to go. We missed sunset from Sacré-Coeur. But we did continue on up the hill (yes, up the hill) through the cobblestone streets to the famous white church. Everywhere were crowds of people dining, musicians playing, and some of those African guys that are at every tourist location trying to get you to buy a tiny Eiffel Tower. Some guy was playing guitar on the steps below Sacré-Coeur and singing Pearl Jam. We saw the whole city from up there.

After taking in the view, watching the artists and the tourist and the crowds, we started the long and many steps home. Just as we reached our arrondissment, a light drizzle started. For me, this was my previously imagined Paris now realized. I was so happy to have a date nite like this even if we missed the sunset. Happy ten years of marriage to my awesome husband.

Tag: travel

It’s Really Grand

The Quintessential Paris Date