Reconsidering France

There’s a trend going around nowadays where people share highlights of their lives from the year 2016.  If I participated, one moment that you definitely wouldn’t see would be my July 2016 trip to Paris.

If you searched my social media for any mention of my France trip, you’d come up empty-handed because I wiped all the memories away.  I’ve since unearthed this YouTube video that shows some of the pleasant highlights, but don’t be fooled by the nice sights.  At the time, Paris felt dirty, chaotic, and disappointing.  The buildings were covered in graffiti, there was trash everywhere, and tense protests were happening constantly.  I wasn’t impressed with the experience, so for the ten years that followed my only rule when picking a travel destination was “anywhere but France.”

So imagine how I felt when my dad invited me on a 10-day trip to France.

I broke out in a cold sweat as I had vivid flashbacks of my 2016 trip and I disliked the thought of being stuck there for 10 days like a prisoner.  But then I was reminded of my decision to start being more open to opportunities that I’d typically decline. Without further thought, I said yes and booked my January 2026 flight.

When I landed in France, it was in the middle of a snowstorm.  My dad’s flight was cancelled, then delayed, then diverted, then delayed again. Was this a sign that France didn’t want us back there? His flight delays meant that I had almost seven hours alone in Paris as I waited for his arrival.  I looked France right in the face and I said the same thing that the class bully said to me in second grade: “you’ve got seven hours to convince me to like you!” France looked back and responded, “challenge accepted!”

After trudging through the snow, I dropped off my luggage at the hotel, purchased an unlimited train pass, and aimlessly wandered the city.  First I went to the Louvre…phenomenal! Then to RH Paris…phenomenal! Galeries Lafayette…phenomenal!  Scoop-Me-A-Cookie…phenomenal!  Everywhere that I went in the first few hours seemed beautiful, clean despite the messy snow, and exceeded expectations.  Was this the same Paris that gave me nightmares before?!

The next day, my dad and I took a long train ride to Vichy for more fun.  Vichy is known as one of the top 5 spa towns in the world and everything about it reflects that.  They had mineral water flowing through their faucets, everyone appeared calm and relaxed, and every part of the city felt serene.  English was not a widely spoken language there, so it gave me a chance to practice everything I learned from French class in grades 9 through 12 with Madame Mamchur. J’étais impressionné!

At this point, France fully convinced me that I had the wrong impression of it, so I did some research to find out where I went wrong. When I visited France in 2016, I stayed in an unsavory area in the outskirts of the city, which explained the dirty streets and the graffiti. Also, it was during a time of significant unrest, with constant social and political protests occurring. These things were significant enough to change my opinion of France for almost a decade. But six days into this trip, I had a change of heart.

When we traveled back to Paris, I was determined to experience the best that the city had to offer. Each day at breakfast, I had the best croissants I’ve ever had in my life. Let me repeat that—France has the best croissants ever and I am tempted to book a flight back there soon just to eat more French croissants. The croissants were so good that they deserve three sentences in this paragraph for me to mention how good they were. Make that four…délicieux croissants!

If it had not been for the trip invite combined with my openness to saying yes to opportunities, I would have missed a great experience.  So let this be a lesson to you as much as it was a lesson to me:  be open to reconsidering things that you previously shut off.  Doing this may change the entire trajectory of your 2026, or at minimum it may lead you to some amazing croissants!