SerenTRIPity:

The uncanny knack for finding interesting people, places, and things while searching for local tourist attractions.

Whether close to home or traveling in another state or country, my husband Tim and I are adept at taking that one wrong turn and ending up...somewhere else. But in my travels, whether with Tim or on my own, I have had the good fortune of discovering parts of the world that I would never have known existed.  I call this Serentripity.
Life is a roller coaster, no? Yes! An amazing, non-stop thrill ride; ups and downs, twist and turns, parts that you either love or hate.  But if you believe in Serentripity, you'll learn to love the whole adventure, with no regret, turning your travels, wherever they may be, into the trip of a lifetime.
When I started thinking about the content of this blog last week, I was contemplating our trip to Tokyo in a few days. I wondered what the weather is like there in January.  I wanted to look it up but I couldn't.  It was blizzarding in New England (big surprise) and we had lost our electricity. My company had closed for the day and I had visions of doing all my Tokyo travel plans online, but there was no wi-fi to be had.  My laptop battery was dead so I was even forced to use a pen and paper to write my blog ideas. So while I waited to plan the trip, which will undoubtedly turn into The Great Tokyo Serentripity 2011, I began to reminisce about other vacations I've taken in the last five years or so. 
First there was the beach house in the Bonnet Shores area of Narragansett, RI. My first serentripitous vacation with husband Tim when a friend let us use his vacation rental for free for a week. But I will save that for an upcoming Things To Do in RI volume of SerenTRIPity. Wineries and breweries of New England will be a good one too.

So lets talk about France. 2007 it was. And speaking of Serentripity (here's a footnote) my husband has a job that requires him to travel  domestically and internationally two or three times a year....and guess who goes with him!

This time he needed to go to Paris.  I was beyond excited and eagerly began to plan the trip. We had to stay in a certain hotel for the first five days because that's where his conference was.  From there I knew I could either walk, or catch the metro or taxi for a quick ride to tourist attractions.  I also needed to plan ahead (because I love to plan ahead ironically) for a place to stay following the conference for three more nights on our own, no business. After much painstaking research online and speaking with some co-workers who had trasferred from France, I finally landed on this little two bedroom cottage in the middle of the Loire Valley, a wine region south of Paris, and arranged for a car rental. A good story about the Loire Valley later.

The first time I got lost in Paris

I was actually looking for The Basilique du Sacré-Coeur (Basilica of the Sacred Heart)....but I took a not predetermined turn, easy to do in Paris, and found a flea market....a gigantic flea market. And I swear some of the sellers lived right there in the middle of it in makeshift tents amongst the tables. I have never seen so much bric-a-brac. And I wondered if French bric-a-brac was any different than the stuff you see at US flea markets. Not really. There was not one thing that I wanted to buy as a cool souvenier. I wanted to leave and thought I should just take a taxi, but there were none. There were a couple of police cars though, which gave me an uneasy feeling as I began to look around at the neighborhood which suddenly seemed like the inner city of Paris. So I just walked hoping to find a taxi and ended up seeing a part of Paris that no tour guide would bring you to. Several men were sitting on their front stoops making comments in French as I passed by so who knows what they said. Same as what I hear in the US I'm sure. I eventually found a cab and headed toward The Basilique du Sacré-Coeur but it was too late, I would have to go there the next day. I needed to go back to the hotel to meet my husband for a cocktail reception with the conference folks. Cocktails, what a good idea!

The second time I got lost in Paris

I was looking for Notre Dame. The place is huge and hard to miss I imagined. I walked in the right direction and all was well. Then I realized I didn't have a camera. Believe it or not I didn't have a digital camera yet, sad I know. So I started searaching for a shop that sold disposable cameras. I got to a rotary and took a right toward what looked like a small convenience store. They luckily carried cameras, I bought one and was on my way. I walked back to the rotary...in Paris there are many small rotaries that four or five streets lead out of. As you might guess, I walked down the wrong road and headed in a direction which was not the direction I headed in earlier. I was nervous when I realized I didn't know where I was and thought here I go again! Suddenly though, I allowed myself to look around and realized I was in this great, quaint little neighborhood with lots of cool shops, bakeries, and cafes lining the streets. I started bopping in and out of the shops, slowing my pace down considerably, and forgot about finding Notre Dame. But as I finally made it to the end of the street, there Notre Dame was in the distance and I found my way. Great place, Notre Dame. Too bad that disposable camera was bad and only a couple of my pictures came out.