Way back in April we went to France for my birthday. The airport was a mess in Paris and it took three hours to get through customs. Our connecting flight was delayed, but since we had bags to check it was too late to get them on the plane, which meant we had to book another flight to Nice, conveniently more expensive than the first.

For five days we stayed there, day-tripping around. On one of those days we hiked up to Eze, where I got my portrait painted by @artberga. Packing it up and mailing it to Canada was a bit of a thing, but it made it!

When Justin arrived from Cambridge, we road-tripped around the south of France for four days. The first night, we stayed at the Hotel de la Cité Carcassonne, which was maybe the nicest building I’ve ever been in. It was awesome there, and the view was neat.

Then we went to Montolieu: a small town with a lot of bookstores. We stayed in Narbonne that night.

The next day was Nîmes and surrounds.

On our way back to Nice, we stopped in Cassis to boat some calanques. It was a bit windy, which cut down on our options. Still, it was pretty awesome.

The next day we took the train to Paris to meet Josh and Chelsea. For the next eight days, we stayed in an AirBnB a block from the Louvre. It was wildly convenient, and the bedroom was built directly above the kitchen of a boulangerie. Every morning at around 5am they’d start pumping the dance music.

I didn’t hate it.

What followed was seven days (Josh and Chelsea left a day before us) of friendship, fancy food, and drinking champagne—where we also went, on a tour guided by JB, who I heartily recommend (we occasionally still WhatsApp about books we’re reading). I would definitely go on another.