Landing in Paris and Waking Up in Gay Paree

Karla and I consistently end up doing two things the last weekend each June. Primarily, we celebrate our wedding anniversary. Our second "do" for the weekend is really a "didn't" because after just under twelve months of telling ourselves we need to attend the SF Gay Pride Parade, we somehow miss it due to other commitments.

In 2009, we would be celebrating our anniversary in Paris, so we made no illusions about seeing the SF spectacle.

Our plane landed at Charles DeGaulle Airport early on June 27th. Instead of being ready to hit the ground running, we were just glad that we didn't hit the ground face first. (Mon ami are those Americans so happy to be in France that they are kissing the ground? Non. They had an overnight flight.)

While waiting in the lobby for our room to be readied, my eyes focused on a quiz show on the television which seemingly only had one topic for the enitre show: Gay Culture. There was no volume, but there were subtitles in French, but I don't speak or read French, so all of the answers in my head were in Jeopardy form ala questions. (Stonewall? Oscar Wilde? Baudelaire? Whichever one was that cute one on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy?)

So after one of those comotose, feel like you are falling deeper into the bed naps, Karla and I woke up bemoaning the fact that it being 5 pm, the museums would be closed, and we had wasted our first full day in Paris. We walked out of the hotel on a mission to see some sites. To our left, we saw a policeman standing in the center of a cordoned off street, and our interest was piqued.

We turned around the corner and a block away there was some sort of parade that made us bi-curious. Or is that both curious? A few steps later and we realized we had traveled 6000 miles to FINALLY attend a Gay Pride Parade.

Click the picture link below to see our seven best pix from that evening.

Gay Paree

A Christmas Gift That Says It's Time to Accept Failure

Brian and Jackie, Karla's brother and sister-in-law, are always interested in our next travel destination. So this year, they decided to keep a travel theme in putting together the packages that made up our Christmas gifts, and in their own way, get into the act of helping us plan our next big trip. The centerpiece of our yuletide booty was the tome 501 Must-Visit Destinations.

When I tore off the wrapping paper (and lest you think I hogged the biggest package, it was the one I was assigned by Jackie to open), after reading the title, the first thing that I saw was the Pearl Mosque (Taj Mahal) in Agra, India. Been there. Done that.

Next, Karla and I saw the pictures of Liberty Island and The Louvre, and we were feeling pretty smug. It didn't occur to us that there were five other pictures on the cover of places that we had not visited. Nor did we turn over the book to see an additional eight pictures on the reverse cover of places we had not visited. No, we saw the three and both thought, "Probably been to at least 100 or so."

The next day, we decided to check out the one-hundred-plus places that had achieved "must-see" status and that we've shared. Even if there were just under four hundred more locations, we knew we were well on our way, with our best travel years hopefully ahead of us.

The final tally of catalogued destinations that we've seen together? Thirty-seven. Our spirits (and self-satisfaction) dropped faster than the full-moon's tide in the Bay of Fundy (on the list and I've seen but Karla hasn't).

So we haven't put as much of a dent in the list of places we must see as we first thought. Next week we're going out to buy the book of 1000 Places to See Before You Die. If nothing else, we're at least hoping for a higher "destination IQ" in terms of percentages.

Lions - No; Tigers - No; Bears - Yes

I was hoping to be able to post pictures of our encounters with all three at the same time, for that inevitable reference to Oz, but a friend of ours is heading to Yellowstone this week, and I promised to have our pictures up before she went.

Hope you enjoy our Yellowstone pages.
Yellowstone - June 2007
Yellowstone Gallery
Bears