The Perfect Trip

What is the perfect vacation? Is it defined by how many museums you visit and how much history you digest? Or is it summed up by how well you become part of the place you are visiting? Do you measure a good trip in sights seen? Or in steps taken along city streets? Can a vacation simply be enjoying a glass of wine at a sidewalk cafe or is the mark of a good trip only in the amount of knowledge you gain? 

These are some of the questions that have been running through my mind as I've began to plan the places I'll be visiting while in Europe and the things I'd like to do. I've had people give me their rendition of a good vacation and what they think I should be doing and I worry that I am not taking full advantage of my time here; then I realized that the word 'worry' is something I had hoped to leave in the states.

For the past couple months my life has come down to worrying-- about graduation, worrying about money, worrying about the post-grad job search, worrying about my relationships and my friendships, my future, present and even the past. It has all come down to worrying and now that I'm in France I found yet another thing to worry about--whether or not I am exploring Europe the right way. 

Writer Charles Baudelaire coined the term flâneurie, a whimsical term that he used to describe 'strollers of the city' or people who lose themselves on the streets in a sort-of detached, observant way. That is my perfect vacation. I love roaming the streets of Paris or Rouen and hearing the sounds of French conversation drifting by, mixing with the smells of fresh bread and pastries; I love strolling along and coming across quaint cafes or local shops that I otherwise would never have seen and I love snapping photos along the way and turning street corners to discover more to explore. It's not to say that I shrug off main sights or museums, but my perfect trip is not to live as though I'm a visitor here, it's to live as though I live here. 

So I am sending my worries right back to the states where they can wait for me and my return to reality--I don't care if the number of streets I roam and food I try outnumber the paintings or museums I see, nor do I want to spend anymore time wondering if my flâneur is not enough. What is the perfect vacation? The answer is that the perfect trip comes down to the person on it.