Trip to France
- By: Kayla Pullar (Is this you?)
- Created on: 09/26/2007
- Rated By 0 Users
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To me, travel is one of the most worthwhile experiences one can have in a lifetime. We have such a huge, amazing world with so much in it that it seems a waste not to try and see a little of it. Because my father has been in the military since before I was born, I have had the fortune to see more than most people my age. One of the most amazing experiences I have had was my first trip to a country outside of the United States. During my sophomore year in high school, we went to France.
It was lucky that the time my father needed to be in France for work lined up with my spring break for that year. My mother definitely wanted to go, and France was on my list of places I wanted to see in my life. We arranged things quickly, waded through a few weeks, and were soon on a plane over the Atlantic Ocean. There was a brief stop off in Germany, in which there was only time to note the size of the airport as we literally sprinted to our gate, and then we were safely touching down in France. Then came the real fun.
Security, as one might imagine, is significantly tighter when traveling between countries. I cannot even recall much about it, because I was already so tired from the plane ride. I just trailed vaguely after my parents, carrying my luggage and reading all the French signs and their much smaller English translations. Eventually, we made it into a taxi, and we were traveling down the streets of Paris.
That was certainly an experience. When you are on the back roads, it is all cramped streets and tall buildings, like any big city, but there is still something indefinably European about it. It's not just the humorously small cars driving the wrong way down the road, either. It is the buildings, the people, the architecture, and the clothes. It was fascinating and breathtaking, and we were still essentially in the 'bad' part of town. I was hooked immediately.
We, naturally, spent the next few days hitting all the big monuments. We went to the Louvre and got rushed past the Mona Lisa. We climbed the Eiffel Tower and bought food to eat at the top, just to say we did. We bravely took the tightly twisted stairs in the Arc de Triumph and only had to stop once or twice to catch our breath. We took leisurely strolls down the Champs Elysees and ducked into all the little stores lining it. We lit candles in the Notre Dame.
It was all amazing, but there is one little detail that made the trip perfect. Down a few blocks from our hotel was a quaint little bakery. My mom and I walked there one morning while my dad was working. We hesitatingly asked the cashier if she spoke English ('I will try my best,' she said, with barely even an accent) and bought a small baguette. Then we went across the street to the convenience store and bought butter and some milk. That was our breakfast every day, and we went through the same routine to get it. There was something that made we absolutely giddy about starting off the day with real French bread and the view from our hotel window.
This trip really reaffirmed my philosophy on travel. Take the big trips. Go to the big tourist towns and do all the big tourist things that everyone will expect you to do. But never, ever miss out on those small details. They are what make the trip.
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