Also, these are both Steph and my pictures, in no particular order, with no captions yet... I will get around to it :-P
Paris pics
Nice pics
The Story of the Origin of the Trip to France
One night, Steph and I were discussing the fact that she was going to London and leaving me for 4 months. She said that I should come visit me, to which I predictably responded "And where am I going to get the money for that?!" Ironically enough, not a week earlier, I had gotten my financial aid award letter which told me that, in order to help with financing the approximately $4,800 in tuition that I would need to pay the upcoming school year, they had awarded me $10,115. Steph promptly brought this to my attention. In a strange coincidence, at that very moment on TV, Sean Connery was traipsing through Paris babbling on about his career as James Bond. Forgetting the previous conversation about me flying halfway around the world to see Steph, I made an off-hand comment that I wanted to go to France some day. Before I could think about what had just happened, Steph chimed with what she thought was the perfect opportunity for me to go to France! I would take my financial aid money and come to visit her for the week she had off of school to travel and just bum around France. Conflicted by the thought of what that much money could buy me, I slowly realized that this was a once in a lifetime experiecne that I dare not pass up. And thus is the birth of my trip to France!
And now, on to the details!
I will be flying out of Madison on Friday, October 8 at 5:56pm bound for Detroit.
This is a McDonnell Douglas DC9-50, the plane with will carry me from Madison to Detroit
From there, I will catch a plane to Charles De Gaulle in Paris, arriving there at 11:10am the next day (Paris time).
This is an Airbus A330-300 which I will trust to carry me safetly across the ocean!
Once I land in Paris, after going through customs, I will meet Steph and we will be on our way! We will spend the rest of Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday morning in Paris.
At 12:35pm we leave from Charles De Gaulle for Nice, and...
...this is the plane that will take us there! (except with an Air France logo on the side ;)
We will do basically the same thing in Nice as we did in Paris, just bum around, seeing the sights. We hope to get to Monoco at some point, possibly Italy, who knows! Once we have exhausted all possibilites in Nice (or run out of money ;), which we assume will conveniently fall on the day before Steph has to be at class, we will bored a plane at 6:40am bound for Ol' Paris again...
...in something looking much like this :)
After which, I will fly back to the US on the same planes that got me here, which in case you are Stephanie, you have already forgotten what they look like, so here they are again! :-P
From Paris to Detroit, I fly on this beauty...
and from Detroit to Madison, it's this wonderful piece of metal :)
I will get back into Madison at 7:27pm on Sunday, October 17 after having been gone for just over 10 days
So that is basically the plan... We really have very little idea about what we're gonna do over there... but hey, we're young, we just don't care! :-D
btw, I figure if I get done with this trip having spent less than $2,000, I will have done good for myself... I've already spent around $1,000 on passorts, ID's and plane tickets :-D
I have archived the pages with details about my flights:
- From Madison to Paris
- From Paris to Nice