Doing right by Monsieur Beauchamp and Madame Hughes

Hey, Internets! I’m in France! Actually, I’m on the plane to France, but by the time this posts, I’ll be in France! If you’ve been around me for the past week you already knew this because seemingly every other sentence I’ve uttered has pretty much been, “When I’m in Paris next week, because I’m going to Paris and going to be Paris,” or something akin to that. To say I’m excited about this would be a slight understatement. I’m freaking ecstatic because, uh, PARIS! FRANCE!

A little over a week ago I got an e-mail from a colleague asking for my help at a leadership conference in FRANCE! It was short notice, but it’s PARIS! FRANCE! So of course I cleared my calendar, and voila! On y va (away we go… which was also the title of the series of textbooks in junior high and high school French).

For the next week, I’ll just be hanging out, in FRANCE! The first part of the week I’ll be outside of the city with the work conference and then LMNT has the weekend to herself in PARIS! FRANCE! I’m armed with multiple suggestions of cafés, patisseries, fromageries, et plus. A weekend in PARIS! in the springtime. Exhilarating and terrifying. Seven years of French, but it’s been 15 years since I’ve used it. I know more than “Bob,” but not much. I know it’s all going to be fine, more than fine, it’s going to be fabulous. But I do kind of wish I would have bought a book or a map or something before I left. Ah, adventure. And can I just tell you that packing for PARIS! FRANCE! is really challenging. It’s like packing for New York times thirty-eight. Because it’s PARIS! You want to impress the city and look cute and not like a back-packing American tourist. Phew. That’s tough, but I’m pretty darn sure I accomplished it and I’ll be looking cute, sitting at the cafes, sipping wine, eating chocolate, and loving every second of the fact that I’m in PARIS! FRANCE!

Okay, mes petits choux, more for you later. From PARIS! FRANCE! Wish you were here.