My job allows me to work from home but in exchange I only have 2 weeks of vacation time a year. That's a rant I'll save for another time. I love to travel so I maximize a loophole with working from home: my home is where ever my PC and I are. In the past few years, I've taken several weeks where we go somewhere, my companions spend the business hours doing stuff while I get my work done and then my PC goes off and I join them for evenings and weekends.
Cut to Christmas time 2017 and that 5 year mark is rapidly approaching. It was obvious that I wasn't going to be able to quit my job (because healthcare but that's another rant for another time). That doesn't mean the dream is dead. Rich wanted to take a music cruise but I just could not afford the vacation days off. We have other plans that I needed to save my days for. He suggested he take his cruise and I go to Paris in the summer. I love that man.
So we made our plans. He went off and had a grand time, listening to his favorite genre of music and meeting band members. And I booked a ticket for Paris starting July 1 until August 11, 6 weeks. Once I clicked that button for the airfare, this dream started to get legs. This could happen. This was happening. I could do this. I could go and live there. It seemed so simple. All I had to do was book an airline ticket and then suddenly a dream could become a reality. The magnitude of this washed over me and gave me chills. I'm going to go live in Paris.
Next step, where to live. Six weeks is a long time in a hotel room and I needed a living room and a bedroom. It really wasn't a big question; I was looking at AirBnB. There are so many options and so many choices. How do I pick one? I made my list of must haves: WiFi or I can't go and this whole idea is shot, quiet during the day so major tourist areas were out of the question, whole apartment to myself because I wasn't dealing with room-mates possibly making noise or problems while I need to be working, and near a metro stop as I would not be having a car. That narrowed it down to only about 300 choices, Oy. I looked over so many listings, debating choices. It took me several weeks and then when I narrowed it down to about 5, I just picked one.
This is my first experience with AirBnB and it has been most pleasant. However, I will say that the owner of this flat owns 17 other properties listed on AirBnB and due to the "vanilla" nature of the apartment, it's obvious that this is what he does for a living: he buys up properties around Paris and rents them out. Knowing that apartment prices in Paris are more often than not 7 figures, just whoa. And this guy has 17 at least. I wish I had that kind of money :)
Plane ticket, check. Apartment, check. Passport not expired, check. And all of the rest are just details.
And then it was time to get on a plane. I took the first week as a vacation week. Rich, Libs and I spent it doing the tourist thing, seeing all the sights.
My first Monday back at work was a time shift. Now all of my morning meetings were in the afternoon. At home, I have my first meeting at 7AM and I need to be ON, so that adrenaline jolt every morning is an eye opener. Here in Paris, that meeting is 1 PM in the afternoon so I have time to wake up and ease into my day. I'll have to say it has been a welcome respite. My Indian colleagues were available in my mornings now and I didn't have to juggle meetings just so I could find a few minutes to talk to someone in Bangalore. I now had morning hours to complete tasks when back at home it's my afternoons when I have time to work on items. My workday turned upside down.
At the end of the day, I shutdown and I am in Paris! Time to go play. My list of things to do and see is long and I'm not sure 6 weeks is going to be enough.
No comments:
Post a Comment