Girls Trip to Europe

Day 8 -

Eiffel Tower Photo Shoot

Europe in Retrospect

Signs

Sitting on the floor of my daughters closet folding clothes, I received a text from my friend Ari:

I immediately phone her and she describes the Eiffel Tower photo shoot she wants of her in a red dress. I call Dan and proceed to describe my "business opportunity." Fifteen minutes later we buy our tickets. I've never been to Europe and could not foresee myself planning a trip in the near future so I decided to just go for it and think about the details later.

I took a head spin into the specifics of packing and prep work, but soon recovered and was able to push off my travel anxiety and just enjoy the exciting news.

A month before our trip I bought the Lonely Planet Guide for Paris and Barcelona on my iPad which also worked out great on my iPhone. I'm not a big planner and before our trip I really only scrolled through the photos and travel tip sections. While abroad however, the search feature on the Lonely Planet Guides were helpful on many occasions.

I get a bit anxious for travel and have been known to back out last minute. I knew this would not be an option so I found myself extensively researching what items to pack. The more prepared I felt, the more my mind felt at ease. Besides planning our complete wardrobes, Ari and I wrote up a basic travel itinerary for each day, leaving a lot of time for exploring and people watching. We seemed to have similar priorities for our vacation so our relationship as travel buddies felt promising. I kept thinking that if we returned and were still speaking with one another, that our trip will have been successful. I will spare you the suspense and tell you now that we came home planning future adventures together. Yes I love my husband and I enjoy our travels together, but....well... He won't share his food with me like Ari does.

Ari is a photographer so I left the camera packing to her. We only used her Canon D Mark III for our photo shoot at the Eiffel Tower. She was tempted to bring it on our day to Tuileries Garden but a French woman pointed at her while getting coffee that morning and said, "you're gonna get that stolen." So she pretty much stuck to her Canon Power Shot FX 260 and I stuck with my iphone. We still came home with nearly 2000 photos. I'll try not to be too long winded (fail whale already) but I hope you enjoy reading about our adventure as much as I am enjoying retelling it.

Packing for Europe

Day 1 - Travel & Paris

Day 2 - Eiffel Tower, Luxembourg, Notre Dame

Day 3 - The Louvre, Touileries Garden, Arc de Triomphe

Day 4 -

Day 5 -

Day 6 -

Day 7 -

Day 8 -

Eiffel Tower Photo Shoot

Europe in Retrospect

Signs