I'v never been to Paris, so my first recommendation is take me with you!

Hi Buffistas! In snowy Otter Lake. My sister picked me up in Syracuse at midnight. Landing while it was actively snowing on white runways was neat. The wings were all icy and stuff. I have zero fear of flying and know that Syracuse understands how to deal with snow so it was just fun. It took my sister 2 hours to get us home because of road conditions, but mostly because of slow pokes in front of us. It would have taken me 4! She felt bad going to work and leaving me without a car. I laughed at her and told her there was no chance of me driving in snow. She also gave me boots, a coat, and socks. I only had footsy socks and covering the ankle in boots seemed wise.

Sad to be here for my dear cousin's funeral, but looking forward to seeing all the other cousins and hoping that shared grief is lessened grief.

Laura, I hope you get to have great conversations remembering your cousin. And stay warm!

I can't believe people are still out and about with bare skin showing when it's 30 degrees here. I just saw some bare ankles on my way to work this morning.

Getting dressed this morning, I thought that my multi-colored scarf was the perfect match for my multi-colored skirt, and it is, but in the bathroom mirror, I thought it was Too Much. Ah well.

I'm going to Paris in the summer! At least, I bought women's World Cup tickets for Paris so I plan to be there. No idea for how long or anything.

I hope to go for a week. I am not opposed to people joining me, like really not opposed, but I plan with a capital P, so fair warning. This may be current headspace, but I also think I might just cry at random times because of architecture while in a Paris.

Paris is a really easy city to wander! My daughter asks to go back all the time. Do all the obvious things. Buy street food. The garden at the Musee Rodin is fantastic on a nice day.

My dog is one of 10 puppies that came into the rescue (she's now 4). We have kept in touch with all the owners, and there is one sister of Salsa's that we see a couple times a year. This morning my DH got a call that Lucy had slipped her collar not far from our house, and her owner had been looking/calling for her for 30 minutes. She wanted the name of our dog tracker, but Jeff also said he'd meet her in a nearby park to help her look. When they got to the park, Salsa barked a greeting at Lucy's mom, and who should zoom out of the woods after hearing that but LUCY! So, happy ending. And a play date for the sisters.

msbelle, I spent 5 days there last Christmas. My recommendations:

Actually plan your restaurants because you don't want to waste a meal in Paris on bad food. (We had two bad/mediocre meals I still regret.) Plan your museums: there are long lines to get tickets for most of them. Versailles is closed on Tuesday, I believe. Versailles is a full day, Musee d'Orsay is half a day. The museum cafes have good food.

There's a thing with the Metro: the locals all have transit cards but it's a hassle to get them, you have to get a photo taken to put on the card. Otherwise, the only way to get cheaper transit is to buy a bunch of individual tickets which are also a hassle and easy to lose. I think it's an intentional policy by Metro to gouge the visitors. We got the cards and then didn't use them much. If you're mostly just in the center of the city, you can walk or taxi most places, weather permitting.

All that said, build in time to just wander: it's a fantastic city for walking.

We stayed in a VRBO in the Marais, 4th Arrondissement. It was tiny but very nice, in a hip neighborhood 10 minutes walk from Notre Dame. I think it was about $200/night USD. It was lovely to be able to make endless cups of tea and have a fridge to store fruit and leftover pastry.

We never made it to the Louvre or Versailles, but we saw Monmartre, the Musee d'Orsay, Monet's Water Lilies, the Picasso Museum (he was a horrible person but the museum is very good), and the medieval art museum in the Latin Quarter. We bought macarons multiple times, and had a fun visit to Bon Marche.

Oh, and we did a food tour in the 12th Arrondissement, that was fun. Wandered with a guide through a market and tasted cheese and bread and wine, ended up with an olive oil tasting in her shop.

Rick Steves has a pretty good guide.

It's been years since I was in Paris, but I particularly remember the beauty of Notre Dame - not just the windows but the flying buttresses, the way the light comes in, pretty much everything - and the Musee de Cluny. the two of them pretty much cemented my wishes/plans to get a degree in history. Very evocative.

Musee de Cluny is wonderful. So is Fontainebleau - I liked it more than Versailles as far as palace day trips go.

I managed to do the transit card thing, although the clerk was Not Happy about selling it to me.

With a year, you could learn enough French to get them to grudgingly speak English to you, lest you continue to mangle their language.

You have to ask for the check at restaurants.