Come to Paris with me

Before I left to come to Paris to celebrate Glynnis’s 50th birthday and start writing my new novel that’s set here my four year old told me that when she grows up she wants to be a seal trainer who travels the world. The seal trainer bit came from an encounter with a disturbingly friendly pinniped at an aquarium down the Jersey Shore. The traveling the world part, she told me, was because she watches me do it and sees that it makes me happy.

This made it so much easier to leave her and the other ferals in the hands of Nick Aster when I came on this trip.

So I’m the kind of weirdo who loves looking at pictures of other people’s vacations. I’m assuming some of you are similar weirdos and that’s why we are Internet friends. I figured it would be fun to do a photo journey of my first 24 hours in Paris sans kids and sans husband. I will tell you that when I travel without Nick Aster I have to jump start a section of my brain that I turn off when I’m with him. He is the designated family navigator so I literally just go where he tells me so for my first couple of hours here I was like how the hell do I rent a bike or navigate a subway but then my brain turned back on.

So I checked into my adorable little hotel Maison Saintage.

I took a three hour nap and headed to the Musee d’Orsay on bike to do some research. My new book toggles between a modern day struggling artist in Paris and the Parisian art world over a hundred years ago so the Orsay was a great place to start.

I biked there which is always my favorite way to see a city.