My friend, Dolores, has a timeshare and asked me and two other friends if we wanted to go with her to Paris! It was going to be on Thanksgiving week, which means we all would be away from our families on Thanksgiving. Thankfully our husbands agreed to the idea, and so the four of us hopped on a plane to Iceland, and from there to Paris. We stayed at a property outside of Paris (in Vincennes) and relied on buses and trains to get to the tourist spots in Paris. We got lost a few times and one of us got separated from the rest, but we all managed to navigate the streets of Paris, not to mention the language barrier. On our last day we decided to hit the shops in Vincennes and we bought so much stuff we had to find a luggage store to buy an extra bag each!

Probably the best experience was when we totally got off the bus at the wrong station and had to walk a long ways to get to the main shopping area in Paris. It was drizzling as we were walking so we bought umbrellas when we came to a "strip mall." Then we came to a lovely boutique with beautiful coats and it was a mistake going into that store. We all ended up buying coats!

All in all it was a fun experience; but because it was in November, it was very chilly. We got on a tour bus and, despite the cold, stayed up on the top deck to see the sights and take photos. Two weeks before our trip, the bombing in Paris happened. We had planned to take the train and visit neighboring countries like Belgium and Switzerland, but the aftermath of the bombing kept us on edge and had to forgo the plan.