My Exercise In Futility

Yes, you read the title correctly. I wasn’t personally struck, but the airplane I rode in from Boston to Newark en route to Paris was struck by lightning. During our initial decent into Newark, there was a blinding flash and a loud snap outside the left window. That was it, just a bright flash and a loud noise. Otherwise it was as if nothing had happened.

For the next 10 seconds, you could hear everyone’s heart beating just a little bit faster as we all stared out the window wondering what happened. I wasn’t nervous until I heard the gongs that normally cue the flight attendants and passengers about flight activity – like reaching 10,000 feet or starting the initial decent. Once the number of gongs went beyond the usual sequence of four, I started to get nervous. As I ran through the most dramatic, life threatening scenarios in my head in the 25 seconds since the flash, the pilot interrupted the gongs and came over the PA to just let us know that although the aircraft had indeed been struck by lightning, everything was in working order and not to worry. Oh, and he suggested we all buy lottery tickets tonight. (I didn’t think that was very funny!)

I had to chuckle a little bit inside. Although I was able to remain calm on the outside during those confusing 25 seconds (as were the rest of the passengers) there were so many not so calm thoughts going through my head. It’s only the second time in all my years of air travel where I thought something had gone horribly wrong.

I leave tomorrow morning for my final six weeks in Paris. For those of you that know me, I’m sure you’re aware of my disdain for Paris. It hasn’t been so much a disdain for Paris as it has been the fact that I just haven’t been home since July 2009. I’ve started to feel guilty about my constant complaining and that the opportunity to travel abroad has been wasted on my bitter self.

Therefore, I am deciding here and now to go back to Paris with a renewed sense of exploration and wonder. I would like for my readers to suggest and tell me things to visit while I am in Paris. I am then going to visit each place suggested and take pictures and try to learn a little something about the beautiful city that I am in. I have six more weeks there and I want to make the most of them, and I want to have fun doing it.

I am definitely going to visit Euro Disney one weekend. Please leave a comment or suggestion of other sites I should visit. Help me explore the parts of Paris I should be able to talk about when I return home to the States. I promise to take pictures and post an entry about my experience at the sites I visit upon the readers’ suggestions.

Help me make my last six weeks in Paris memorable and worthy of the time I will spend there. Leave comments…

Rather than focus on the negatives, I’ve tried to create a video blog entry about the positives. Winter Party is only 5 days away, I’ll be home (for good) soon, and I’ve caught up on my reality TV.