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My most surprising disappointment was Paris.
What! Paris?! The ‘city of love’ which speaks the ‘language of love’.
Yes, my trip to Paris was a disappointment, but let me explain. I set myself up for disappointment. When I think about Paris, I envision a city of bright lights, couples walking holding hands, french language being talked all around me, french music playing in the streets, I envisioned myself being full force in the ‘city of love’.
Unfortunately, I didn’t feel that way. That let me down a bit, just didn’t meet my expectations in that way. Not in one way did it feel like the ‘city of love’ to me. Maybe I was doing the wrong things or didn’t see the right things, but we did see the tourist things.
Which brings me to my next disappointment, tourism.
There was so many people, all doing the same things, all looking like tourist. One thing I love about traveling is not doing the “tourist thing”. So was it a disappointment that we were doing the tourist thing? Yes it was, but we felt that is what you have to do, as it is Paris.
I lacked in planning and finding something different, outside of the box, to do in Paris to make it more memorable and not a disappointment. But then I think you have to go to Paris and see the Eiffel tower. I didn’t get the “gasp” feeling when I saw the Eiffel tower, like I thought I would. Paris felt like another big city, big buildings, public transportation, with a big tower next to the water.
I love adventure and in Paris I didn’t find that. Maybe this was another planning failure on my part, but we just didn’t get that excitement. The craziest thing we did was a Dinner cruise. Crazy, I know. But I would also say this was our favorite part of Paris.
Another area I lacked in, sleeping. The minute we landed we had plans and places to be. This caught up to us quickly and I believe this affected how we viewed where we were. If we would of had more sleep and energy we might of enjoyed going to see all the ‘tourist’ things.
Lastly, and call me crazy, the food.
I really had a hard time enjoying their ‘must eat foods’: cheese, bread , chocolate, wine, macarons, gelato. These items just aren’t my favorite foods to eat. I love eggs, I eat eggs every day for breakfast. Eggs, that aren’t implanted in bread, were near impossible to find. I also dislike bread, well that is a mistake in a country known for their bread. But I did this, I did know I was going to struggle in the food category, so that didn’t let me down, at least.
Paris just didn’t meet my expectations. When I pictured what Paris would look like I think how Hollywood portraits it, but unfortunately the Hollywood in my head, is not what the reality was like.
I was really hoping to like Paris, my grandma is from France making me part French. I have a tattoo in French, I was just hoping to be more connected to the country if I loved it. But I did learn from this trip-
I learned that I would of enjoyed more going to a place my grandma lived, like Nancy or Nice. I feel I would of felt more connected and in Nancy had a more small town feel. This would of been different and I wouldn’t of felt like another tourist.
All in all, Paris’ beautiful. We did do a few things that we enjoyed but we have had prior trips to bigger cities (NYC) that we have enjoyed more.
