The One in Which I Went to Paris

I had been to Paris, France three times before this trip, but never with Steven. Crazy, right?

Charles de Gaulle christened my new passport!

1) The first time, I was about 14 years old (there's a mini-debate about the actual year, which could easily be resolved if anyone cared to look in any of several documents, but it's a family thing. You know...) I have no insight as to why my parents planned this trip, but I'm sure that's where I got my wanderlust. In fact, I was scheduled to attend a celebration of my dad's 75th birthday in Paris with them and the two oldest grandchildren in the first week of November 2014, but then I was diagnosed and had a craniotomy in the end of September, so THAT didn't happen quite as planned...

2) I spent a semester of my junior of college in Aix-en-Provence, France, and I flew in/out of Paris. If you don't know where Aix is...you know what I'm going to say...all together now: Google that shit! And everyone who is reading this that is in college or going to college soon (I apologize for the cursing...) Go for a semester abroad! I'm not messing around. Do it.

3) After I graduated from college, my parents gave me the most amazing gift of tickets to Paris and a Eurail pass. That pass let me get on pretty much any train in Europe and just travel for about 6 weeks! A-MA-ZING!

And then there was a little gap in my travel...okay, I didn't go back to Paris/Europe again until....2 weeks ago. Why? Well, there was this little thing called LIFE - a marriage, four kids, back to school for two years to get my teaching credential, a full-time job teaching...Don't misunderstand. It wasn't the time that was a factor. It was $$. We always chose to spend our $ on other things. We traveled within the U.S., but Steven and I had never been out of the U.S. together! Crazy to think about!

Then an opportunity came up: Steven was asked to do a Winemakers Cruise on the Seine with AMA Waterways.   
Kiddies, let's see if  you have been paying attention...the answer to "Would you like to do a river cruise on the Seine for a week?" is always what?
YES!!!  
Oh, goody! You ARE learning some things from me!

So, we said yes - geez, probably a year ago exactly. And all was hunky-dory and we were very excited, of course...And if you've been paying attention, at that time in 2014, I thought I was going to go to Paris twice in one year! Score!

Then I was dx'ed with GBM in the end of September 2014. The November trip was off the table. <sniffle, sniffle> and I wasn't at all sure that I would be able to go in April. A little insight here: When someone tells you that you have Grade IV brain cancer  - something that's nicknamed "The Terminator" - you aren't at all sure about anything. Like, at first, should you make an appointment to have your oil changed next week. No joke.

But I survived the first 30 day treatment, and I had follow up appointments with my doctors in January when I started my Temodar routine.  At my February follow-up appointments,  we asked about this Paris trip, and they said, "Why not? If you're feeling well enough at that point and things are still looking good..."  Well, slap my ass, and call me Sally! Okaaaaayyyy!  Game on!

My MRI in March was stable, and so I was off to the races! (See what I did there?) I packed a gigantic suitcase and got ready for our trip. The rest of this blog entry I'll answer the burning question: Is it different to go to Paris living with cancer? If you want the short answer: Well, of course it is, silly! Everything is different living with cancer. But that doesn't mean that it's all bad.

My plan was to go full-baldy the whole time - for the first time. I didn't even bring my wig because I didn't want to chicken out. What I didn't count on is being cold most of the time! Eek! (One of my anti-seizure meds makes that happen.) But thank goodness I brought some hats. Bald heads get cold! Steven says so, too! I have so much sympathy with baldies everywhere! But I did go baldy as much as possible:

The first night, they planned to embark by 9-10 p.m. so we could all see "a surprise".  They sailed the opposite direction a little bit so we would have a good view of the Eiffel Tower when it lit up.

We were using our lame camera phones so it doesn't look nearly as pretty as in real life  -- but isn't that true about everything? In fact, I was dumbfounded when I started downloading our pictures and I realized most of them were on Steven's phone - not my camera or phone! I was just in the moment instead behind the lens like I used to be!  (Remember when I said some things are different living with cancer? Exhibit A) And guess what? There are a fair amount of pictures of me! Go figure!

After the fanfare of Paris and the Tower, things settled down. We were sailing through Normandy - which I had never been on my previous trips. And as a certified History Geek, the only real images I had in my head was D-Day and the beaches. But Normandy is a region that I bet you could find a cat riding a unicorn with a rainbow in the background if one exists...which is to say that it is gorgeous - in an other-worldly kind of way! Why do we make these crappy looking houses in the U.S. when we would have stunning homes made of stone and wood?  
Look. at. this. beautiful. home.

 And. this!!!

I highly recommend this cruise down the Seine! Although, if you are living with cancer, you might want to pack  more warm clothes...

Notice the man behind me without a jacket on...just for perspective!

 Okay, it wasn't ALWAYS that cold!

Also, I slept a lot. Daily naps are really important to me, and we were walking and on our feet a lot every day. In fact, we missed entirely all three possible guided tours of the Chateau Gaillard (Google is your friend, people!), but when I got up, we decided to go rogue and do our own tour. We had to hustle up a hill to see it, but it was fine and we even had time to walk the quaint streets of Les Andelys.

View of Les Andelys after trek to Chateau Gaillard

The Ruins of Chateau Gaillard as seen from ship - It was worth the walk to see the "real thing"!

Oh, and every day, Steven did a 45 - 60 minutes winemaker presentation, which were very well-attended. I was supposed to keep him on track so he didn't go over an hour. I'd set my phone timer and every 10 minutes, I would put a "10 minutes" to signal time spent. I think our signals were crossed because I'm pretty sure he interpreted that as "mambo dogface in the banana patch..." (Sorry, Steve Martin 70's reference for all you wild and crazy guys and gals out there!)

We had ~24 Steven Kent Winery club members sailing with us, too, and it was awesome to get to know them all better. We had the pleasure of having meals with many of them and tours. I won't post their pictures on here because I don't have their permission, but if you happen to be reading this and are okay with  public posting, just shoot me an email: junemirassou@gmail.com. In the meantime, y'all are going to have to use your imagination! haha!

The most anticipated stop for me on this trip was the beaches of Normandy. Now that I've been there, I almost don't want to post pictures of it all because there is no way to capture the feeling you have when you're there. Imagining these young men - boys, really  - being dropped in the water or falling from the sky to try contend with what they'd been sent there to do...it's hard to even think about...

9,386 Americans are buried in this cemetery in Normandy. It is estimated that there were 135,000 American casualties total as a result of the Normandy invasion. Let's all take a moment of silence and gratitude, shall we?

After Normandy, we turned around and started back to Paris. We ended up four full days there, but that's when I think all that activity started to wear on me. And it was a challenge to time my medications and meals because my meds made me sick on an empty tummy. I just want to make it clear that I am NOT complaining about my trip to Paris. As I said, I'm just trying to explain what I said in the beginning: how it was different with cancer.

I had pictured that Steven and I would visit all the major sites: Eiffel Tower, Louvre, Musee Picasso, Notre Dame, Versailles...followed by romantic late nights in bistros or wine bars. But it quickly became apparent that I was capable of about 4-5 hours of walking. (If you haven't been to Paris before, it is a walking city. there is also excellent public transportation, but since I've been there last they added this RER to the Metro system, which is sort of like BART in the Bay Area? And truth be told, part of Paris is seeing the streets. Check this out! Steven even got all artsy and took these pictures:

We managed the Musee Picasso - which is amazing, but overwhelming, and the de L'Orangerie which has a room with four enormous panels of Claude Monet waterlilies - breathtaking! And we did end up using the RER/Metro to go to Versailles because I was adamant about Steven seeing it.

In the gardens of Versailles - I call this my Inspector Gadget look. Don't blame me. Steven picked out the hat in a vintage store in Le Marais, and he kept declaring how "awesome'" it was. Xoxoxo

After all the activity of the day, I was barely able to stay up until 8 or 9 p.m. and a couple of times, I think I skipped dinner altogether. There were no late stops to wine bars, although I think Steven went down the street from the hotel to one once I was asleep.

Kiddies, I never lie to you, so I'm going to confess that I had at least two complete emotional breakdowns because I felt it wasn't "fair" to deny Steven all that Paris had to offer because of my lame physical weakness. He brushed my tears away and reminded me that all he wanted was to walk the streets of Paris with ME, soaking it all in. And that's what we did. 

The thing I'll remember most about this trip is that I spent thirteen days, pretty much all my waking hours, holding my husband's hand. And every once in a while, he'd pull my hand to his lips and kiss them softly and say, "You know, I love you." And I'd say, "I love you, too." and he inevitably would counter with, "No, I REALLY love you." or "Not only do I love you, but I'm IN LOVE with you."