It’s the night before our departure!

We are mostly packed, save those frustrating last few items that you can’t pack until the day of. Even Kimi’s bag is packed, as she is going to spend the weekend with her friends at Dog Party and then the rest of the vacation with Gigi and Poppy. She will have a great time, though she is a little unsure and apprehensive about what is about to happen.

Packing light becomes a little more challenging with each trip, as you remember the things you wished you’d brought on all of your previous trips. Luckily, on this trip our home base won’t change, so it’s not as inconvenient if we’ve over-packed. However, we do want to make sure we leave enough room to bring back several bottles of wine… for our loved ones… of course.

We’ll be flying into Nice, France (after stopping in Houston and Munich), which will be our home base for the duration of our nearly two week trip as we make day trips around the French Riviera. We should arrive around noon local time on Sunday, which will be about 5 AM US Central.

During our stay, Charles plans to attend the Formula 1 Grand Prix in Monaco (this is the focal point of our trip for him). I will accompany him for the practice day (when the tickets are cheaper), but don’t have enough interest to warrant purchasing tickets for qualifying or the actual race. For those of you who are looking forward to reading about my being lost and confused, those two days may provide just the blog experience you are looking for, as I will be left unsupervised with only half a semester of middle-school French and a woefully inadequate sense of direction.

We also have day trips tentatively planned for Grasse, Antibes, Villefranche, Cannes, Eze, and Ventimiglia (Italy). Cannes should be particularly exciting, as the Cannes Film Festival is going on. Between the Grand Prix and the film festival, we are almost certain to have a celebrity spotting. We will keep you posted!