I have a condition. It’s called “wanderlust.” Wanderlust is defined as: “A strong, innate desire to travel or rove about” (dictionary.com). The 17 countries I’ve visited will attest to the fact that this is a drive that cannot be quenched inside of me. Each country that my shoes tread upon beckons me to see and do as much as humanly possible. I like the beach, but I’m not a beach vacation every year kinda girl. I’m a modern day explorer. My definition of a good vacation is one that leaves you exhausted, yet itching for the next adventure. It’s not uncommon for me to actually be on vacation and simultaneously be dreaming up the next one.
Two years ago, we had the privilege of going to Kenya to help build churches, encourage pastors, speak in schools, and do various service projects. You can read about that experience in my series of Kenya Blogs
There’s something you need to understand about my travel philosophy and that is this: Whether I am going to travel halfway across the globe or an hour down the road, I’m going to cram everything into that experience possible- including substantial layovers. When researching flight options for our Kenya expedition, I started to realize that we would have some sort of layover either in London, Amsterdam, or Paris. London was my first choice, but I couldn’t find anything over like 4-6 hours and that just wasn’t enough time to get out of the airport and get back in time for our next flight and see enough to make it worth it. Amsterdam didn’t have a lot of time friendly options either at that point. But with Paris, somehow I was able to work it out that we would have a 24 hour layover on the way back.
I think my husband thought I was nuts when I told him this. Although he had always wanted to go, he had never been to Europe, so he didn’t know what to expect. This was my second time in Paris. So, I thought back through everything that my two friends from college and I saw on our backpacking across Europe trip the summer after we graduate, and decided that we could see pretty much everything we saw on the Paris segment of that trip in our 24 hour stay. The catch was, we had to be ok with being exhausted from the get go, smelly, and looking a hot mess as we were coming off of a long flight from Nairobi, Kenya after having spent 12 hours in the sweltering airport. We (meaning I) decided it was worth it.
So, get on your running shoes; do whatever safe, moral, and/or legal thing you need to do to get your adrenaline pumping; and get ready to breeze through the beautiful city of Paris at lightening speed.
Ready? Let’s go.