La vie en rose. The Champs Elysees, the Arc de Triomphe, the Notre Dame, One or the other would feature in my dream every night. And the glittering Eiffel tower would always be shining in the background of course. Don't get me wrong, I'm not obsessed with France, but when you're about to go to Europe, and that too, to France. Joie de vivre
My mother went to Paris when she was graduating. It was a graduation present from her parents and she hasn't stopped talking about it since. I'm twenty one so you know, I would know. Since I've been hearing about the 'streets of Paris' and the 'magic in the air' since I was a kid, naturally when my parents asked me where I wanted to go, Paris was the first thing I said. I wanted to experience all that my mother did for myself.
And they agreed! My mother stared wistfully telling me the places I would go and the things I would see, and my dad took out his laptop and started searching for tickets and hotels. My excitement slightly dimmed down when I saw the prices. There was no way I could afford to see everything there. Or shop. I would go to the Champs-Elysees and not shop. Oh god.
I voiced my concerns about being too poor to go to Europe and not being able to afford the ticket (rather dramatically) and my dad just shook his head. His job requires him to travel all over the world and he has way more experience with traveling than I do. I've never traveled out of the country so I mean it when I say 'way more'.
He opened up the website to the airline that we normally use and showed me the frequent flyer program. He had used most of his accumulated miles when he and my mother went to Turkey last year, but he still had a substantial amount left. I searched for the miles required for a ticket to France and my heart sank. Seeing my expression, my dad told me that we could buy Airline miles.
Call me an ignorant person, but I had NO idea that you could buy airline miles. And that you saved so much! My dad made a quick estimate about how much we would need to pay for the miles to meet the required amount and the money required to buy airline miles was nowhere close to buying the whole ticket! I would save TONS of money, since I was getting a frequent flier ticket in comparison to a normal one. A huge grin spread across my face, because my trip suddenly looked a lot better. I would have to spend only a little on the ticket as I would just buy airline miles, and the money that we were saving, my father promised to give me in the form of traveler's checks.
Did I mention I dreamed of Disney Land Paris? And Nice and Monte Carlo and Cannes and meeting someone really amazing and falling in love? Joie De Vivre here I come.
Nguyen An Tra My
Martin Wynn
