We leave for Paris in 16 days. Scott will only be home for a few days from Poland before we fly out. I imagine his time will be f***ed up when he's in the US but go back to "normal" once he's back in Europe. I don't feel nervous. We - or I should say I - have prepped within an inch of our lives. We ordered metro passes and museum passes. A lot of places say the msueum pass is a scam but apparently lines at major attractions can be up to two hours long in June and the museum passes allow us to bypass that line and go straight to security, so I figure it may save us an entire day. That's worth it to me. So far the plane tickets, transportation, 99% of admissions and half of the apartment are already payed for, as well as the entire day trip to St. Michel. I hated worrying about how much we were spending on random crap when we were there before so I'm glad this plan is working out. We really only have to worry about food and the other half of the rent for the apartment. No big deal.

I'm slightly worried about the first day. Our flight arrives really early in Paris - like 8:30 AM their time. We can't check in at the apartment until 5:00 PM so we will have an entire day to kill while being extremely tired and not smelling too hot. Jet lag makes me cranky which is fun for everyone. I'm going to email the apartment owner and see if we can get check in moved to 3:00 PM. We can drop our luggage at the rental office. I'm considering finding a couple of nice dogs and curling up with them under a bridge over the Seine for a few hours.

I've seriously slacked off on my French. I can say the following in French with no problem -

• My name is
• Good morning/Good evening/Good night
• Do you speak English?
• Pardon me
• I'm sorry
• Counting to 10
• I don't understand
• Can I get the check?
• Please
• Thank you/Thank you very much
• I'm hungry
• How are you?
• I'm fine
• Goodbye
• And you?
• How are you?

I think that's about as good as it's going to get.

As for domestic travel, I booked our Chicago stay for the Pearl Jam concert. We're going to stay 2 nights instead of 1 downtown at the Sofitel Hotel. This hotel is new to me so I hope it lives up to the reviews. I'm super excited for that trip.