Theoretically, we leave on a week-long vacation to Paris (and potentially Normandy) in less than 10 days.  Even ignoring the fact that I don’t currently have a valid passport (details, details) it’s not real to me that we’re going.

I have a tendency to over plan and over prepare.  I like to spend lots of time creating a ranked list of sights we’d like to visit, figuring out the most efficient way to see everything that I deem important, scoping out the best restaurants near where we’ll be, agonizing over the perfect hotel room and sorting out the details of our transportation.  And, along the way, I delight in getting the very best deal possible.

In the course of all of this thinking and planning, the trip is cemented in my mind.  I visualize us doing all of these things and imagine visiting all of these places.  As I go through the process, I think of details, considerations and things to pack that hadn’t previously come to mind.  By the time I get to a week or so away from the trip, everything is plotted out and I’m chomping at the bit to get on the plane or train and head out.

This time, though, Dan is doing the planning.  So, to me, this trip is largely theoretical.  It’s a very strange sensation for me.

I have a wish list, of course.  I want to see the Eiffel Tower, visit the Louvre (even if only for a few minutes) and eat in cafes (*someone* needs to do the vital research required to determine whether Paris or Vienna truly has the best pastries).  We also want to spend a few days in the countryside, experiencing a little of what France-other-than-Paris is like.

I think it’s a pretty reasonable list, but I honestly don’t know what to expect of France, never having been there.  I studied French for 7 years in middle and high school so I’m counting on the fact that somewhere, deep in the recesses of my brain, something has been stored away and will come out in time for me to be able to read the street signs, order our dinners and apologize profusely for being American and so largely ignorant of French.

I also don’t know what to expect from this trip because I’M NOT IN CONTROL (which, obviously, is freaking me out).

Really, it’s lovely.  I’m so used to being the “travel fairy” (actually, the “planning fairy” of all kinds) that it’s liberating and novel to not be the one agonizing over the details of every decision.  (At least, that’s what I’m telling myself.)  I don’t want to give Dan a hard time (it’s hard being OCD with an ADD husband) but he doesn’t plan the way that I do.  I know he will make his own brand of magic happen and the details will come together, but, not being the one making it happen, it’s truly not yet real to me that we’re going.  (I imagine we really will, though.)