We're Going to Paris

His eyes were wider than usual. His breath - fast, steady and heavy. He was hunched in a corner, back arched and ears standing straight up. A far cry from his usual stretched out, relaxed and playful self. You could feel his anxiety radiating. Diablo, our pet lionhead rabbit was about to be left behind.

My wife lifted him up from his cramped carrier and placed him down on his new home for the next 6 weeks: a short and low store-bought generic rabbit cage made for dwarf rabbits. His cage at home was hand-built by me from wire shelving that I got from the home storage aisle of the local Target. It was around 5 feet long, 3 feet wide and 3 feet tall with a loft where he likes to leap up on and out of. His new cage was definitely a downgrade. It was the largest cage that the local pet store sold off of their shelves.

Though we were leaving him with the kind people at the pet boarding facility, our throats were still lumpy. We felt really bad about it. We petted him and said our “I love you”s one last time and we left. To poke humor into the situation, we imagined that he wouldn't want to come with us anyway because where we're going, they eat rabbit almost like it was chicken. We were going to France. Paris to be exact.

Before most of the people around me knew about our trip I knew what they were going to say: “WHY?!”, “What the fuck?!”, “Aren't you scared of them terrorists?”. And that's exactly what some said. We were going to France in a time when the attacks were fresh on every mainstream news-watching American's mind. I was quick to say, “Well, they just attacked us in Orlando. You're probably in as much danger as anyone else in the world is.” . Besides, the people who let it get to them are the types that have never left their hometown, are disgusted by food that they haven't ever tried and the only “vacation” that they ever had was Black Bike Week.

Some people I know wanted to see Europe, too, but just never tried. The main reasons were, as I mentioned, their fear of terrorists and some just couldn't afford it.

My wife couldn't afford it either. She couldn't afford to not try to follow her dream. Her dream of becoming a patissier - a French pastry baker, no less.

So, we prepared. For years we saved up. Penny-pinching here and there, like squirrels saving acorns for the coming winter except that we were saving for a summer. A summer in which she will be attending a short baking course at the famed Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. And now I'm typing this on a coach seat on a late night flight to Paris that just happened to have a 6-hour layover in Stockholm. And I'm thinking, “did I turn off the iron?”, “I hope nobody breaks in our house.” and “I don't know how to speak French.”