Alone in Paris... Kinda

Travel notes from Paris & traveling with a daughter.

Palais Royal

I’m sitting here in Paris at 11:30 a.m. and feeling guilty that I didn’t spring out of bed at 7 a.m. to hit the sights. We are five days into our trip, so I’m not jet-lagged. And we didn’t go on a bender last night, so it isn’t that I couldn’t sleep.

Well, actually, it is that I couldn’t sleep, but not because of some luscious French wine. Rather, it was the 20-year-old woman/child jumping bean next to me in bed.

---

I was going to use this post to do a little Paris travelogue for you, and I still might. But, I also think late May is a fine time to reflect on the mother/daughter relationship. As our kids are out of school or graduated, it’s a time when we are all thrust back together after our respective independence. Am I going to talk about the hurricane of their stuff that returns to our dining rooms? Perhaps. Are you tired of hearing about “The Crapping” and of things that not only don’t “spark joy” but downright tick you off? Maybe.

Just to follow up on that thought, when I left our home in Boston five days ago, the girls’ rooms and the dining room were full of those terrifying blue Amazon “body bags.” They were bursting at the seams and threatening to explode their gross, soggy, dirty, tiny things all over the place. So we herded them all into the dining room until further notice. That notice being who-knows-when because I plan to ignore them as long as possible.

We got through graduation — two of them, actually — and four days later, we left for a foreign country. When I get home raking through years of someone else’s crapola is not on my list of things to do. It probably isn’t on my kids’ lists either. Maybe I can make bean bags out of the blue Amazon bags and solve the problem!

Alas…

---

Back to traveling alone with a daughter.

For some reason, it just keeps raining. Not a light rain, but torrential waves of wet. There is no way to stay dry outside. I have worn the same pair of jeans and sneakers for five days. The white jeans I brought would be gray from the city rain. The shorter jeans look dumb with the sneakers I brought (meant to be worn with ballet flats but they’d fall apart in this wet). Forget the dresses. So, it’s the one long pair of jeans and the one burgundy sweater every day. Please see the video below for my verbal confirmation of the Paris weather this week.

We moved hotels last night. We had stayed three nights in another part of Paris and it’s nice to experience other areas, too. Plus, the hotel looked cute online but was actually kind of icky, and I was finito with it. A friend from Boston (thank you, Maud!) suggested a hotel, Hotel Francois 1er, that is super close to where daughter is working for the summer, and I booked it. Yes, my daughter has a job for the summer in Paris, and it’s very exciting!

The bar..

Last night, I went down to the little bar in the hotel and there was a mom my age sitting in a heap — alone. She looked as though she had been wet and then dry and then wet again and finally, just soggy. As said, it has been raining a fair amount here.

She and her daughter, who is the same age as my older girls, got up early and went to Versailles on a bike excursion (motivation!) It poured, and it was cold. They enjoyed it nonetheless. Troopers! They were over a week into their post-graduation trip and she has that feeling of, “I’m traveling with my daughter, who I love but, acts like I forced her to go on this expensive European vacation, and I am afraid to talk.” I can relate.

I am annoying, but in my defense, so are you.

Traveling with offspring — without friends, spouse, or siblings — can create the sweetest moments because there isn’t anyone else to talk to. And I mean that. If there were other people to talk to, the kid would be ignoring you and talking to them. Possibly making fun of you with the other person. Most probably. Another advantage of not having anyone else along on the trip is a lower cocktail bill. Parents aren’t much fun to party with.

There have been some super adorable moments that cannot have happened with other people around. Fun pillow talk. But, traveling alone with your kid can also put you, the parent, in the position of being the number one World’s MOST ANNOYING Person Ever Known To Man (Woman and Child) Ever™️.

Throw in the math that it’s a mother and a daughter and multiply the above by a million. Nonstop togetherness and then bunking together in a teeny room can be “trying,” to say the least. In my case, said kid is at work all day so I am not getting on her nerves like I would if she and I were tripping around Paris all day together.

And yes, I am annoying. You are too, most likely. After fifty-six years circling the sun, I have, no doubt, accumulated a lot of habits that would annoy me, too.

The mom in the bar…

The mom in the bar represents what a true trip is like for moms and daughters. Basically, 24 hours a day together in pouring rain this week. Meanwhile, the kid can see all of her friends from home and school hanging out together on her phone…without her. Staring at her across the table is her overly enthusiastic mom.

She, the daughter, agreed to do this trip with you last year when you suggested it. “I guess” may have been her answer. You locked in flights and hotels and the cool Versailles bike trip, the wine-tasting trip, the walking tour, and on and on. But, now they both are actually in Paris. While looking over both shoulders, you whisper to me that your other daughter was more fun on the trip you took with her a few years ago. You order another glass of wine. Tomorrow is another (early and wet) day.

The mom in the bar made me smile because her experience is so relatable to every parent from every land: We. Are. Annoying. And when we were their age our moms were annoying. And, their moms were annoying. Or, perhaps it is a lack of experience on the daughter’s part and an abundance of experience on the mom’s part that she is trying to relate, and the daughter wishes she’d stop. Just. Stop. Yup, that sounds about right.

Can you relate? Dit mois!

---

Paris without a plan

I came to Paris accompanying my kid who has a job here for the Summer but does not start her apartment share for the first week. She’s 20 and very capable, but being around to have dinner with her and not leave her alone for her first week in a foreign land seemed like a motherly thing to do. So, here I am.

I have no plans while she is working during the day, and I have been to the City of Lights before and I don’t feel compelled to race from big-name museum to museum (along with everyone else). However, I am alone so I can go do things that no one else in my family would want to do with me like see house museums and their gardens — my new passion. The Town and Country’s house museums list is very good! So far, my favorite is Musée Nissim de Camondo. I really wanted to see is Musée Jacquemart-André, but it is closed until September. It’s huge and has a tea room.

Yesterday, I went to the Musée d’Orsay and had a ball. I spent at least four hours staring at art. No WAY would my family have had the patience or inclination to do that. I also helped myself to a snack at the gorgeous former train station restaurant (see below). It was glorious. Chocolate, hazelnut with passion fruit. If you ever want to know what to get me in a chocolate store, those are the ingredients for me.

Ok. Time to wrap it up. Tune in next week for a more detailed travelogue!!!!

xo

Kim