The Trip of a Lifetime (Gretchen’s Paris Vacation)

In February of my junior year in high school I went to France on an exchange trip.

For some reason I saved the program acceptance letter. I don’t know whose phone numbers are written across the top, and I have no idea who Harry is, but that’s definitely my brother’s handwriting.

Fourteen students from my high school participated, and we each spent two weeks with a host family in Lyon, and then we headed to Paris for a few days.

I was 16 years old, and I worked in the produce department at a local grocery store that fall and winter to pay for the trip.

I loved that pea coat and those LL Bean duck boots and I had them back in 1986 before they made a comeback a couple years ago.

I question most of my outfit choices from high school, including this one.

As you can see from this picture, I missed the long coat memo that almost every other girl on the trip seemed to have received.

Maybe I was just a trendsetter and ahead of my time.

Anyway, we were traveling with my high school French teacher, and there was one little hiccup on our flight to France.

Our teacher mistakenly brought an expired passport to the airport, and there was not enough time for anyone to drive back to Connecticut to get the right one.

So my classmates and I flew to France on a huge airplane, unaccompanied.

People could smoke on planes back then, and kids could drink on the plane since there was no drinking age in France.

Fourteen 16-17 year-olds flying unaccompanied on a smoke-filled, mobile bar in the sky was reminiscent of the movie Airplane, and most of us got good an liquored up.

Ahhhhh, the 80’s.

But the title of this post isn’t referring to my trip to France in 1986.

Fast forward to 2023, 37 years later, (ouch) and Gretchen was invited on the trip of a lifetime to Paris with her bestie and her family this year over Christmas Break.

Gretchen’s BFF has two older sisters. One of them is in college, and the other recently finished her graduate program, and they had planned one last big trip as a family since it can be hard to get everyone together for a week once your kids finish college and/or hit their twenties.

The boyfriends of the older sisters were invited on the trip with the family, and so Gretchen’s BFF was allowed to invite a friend.

I’d like to take this opportunity to recognize my growth and give myself a pat on the back, because I’m not sure I could have let Gretchen go do this without me a few years ago.

I would have wanted to be there with her, to see this through her eyes and to share this experience with her.

I would have beat myself up for not being able to take her on a trip like this.

I would have had a hard time not being on her first airplane flight ever with her.

The FOMO would have been pretty strong.

But how often does an opportunity like this come along? And what would I have wanted when I was her age?

I had to let her go.

So every time my brain went directly to the movie Taken I redirected my thoughts, and at 4 pm on Christmas Day I dropped Gretchen off at her bestie’s house, and they whisked her off to an Air BnB in Paris.

Gretchen and her BFF had their own room.

And they had a great view from their place.

They visited the Eiffel Tower at night.

They took a trip down the Seine.

I’d love to see Paris at night at Christmastime.

They saw the Louvre (but didn’t go inside).

She called me from “some palace.”

Aka Versailles 😂😂😂

She ate crepes.

And went to a cooking class and learned how to make baguettes.

She went to the Museé D’Orsay and it’s possible she learned something about a painting.

I’m so grateful she had the opportunity to experience this.

It was the trip of a lifetime for sure.