What’s going on here? I’m ranking my experiences in the 20 countries I’ve been to so far. Nostalgia is going to drive these explanations a bit further than #20 – 11. From here on, each country is getting its own mini expose starting with…

#10 – France

Visited: Paris, Strasbourg, Tours, Various towns and cities as a child

Hopping on the ferry across the English Channel was the first border I crossed. It’s still the border I’ve crossed the most. The de facto Malkin family holiday when I was a child was to drive across some nice French countryside, stopping at a theme park on the way to a quiet gîte for the week. It’s also a place I’ve revisited a few times as an adult.

Yep..my dad was a sandals and socks guy…

These holidays were characterised by long car journeys listening to cassettes of ABBA and Dire Straits as we rolled through French countryside. Biking to the boulangerie for croissants in the morning and making friends with neighbourhood dogs. Going to Versailles and found that the only running water that day was in the public toilets. Listening to my dad fail gallantly trying to use the reflexive, and that one time in the restaurant when I showed him up by knowing how to say green beans in French when he didn’t. These trips inspired me to take French at A-level actually. I don’t think I ever understood the reflexive, nor much else in French for that matter, but I do love the language.

Despite living next to Alton Towers, I’ve never loved a theme park more than Parc Asterix, and a couple of visits there have to be my French highlight. The rides, the characters, the shows. Absolute magic. That theme tune rings happiness through me even to this day. Eurodisney is great too, don’t get me wrong, but never overlook a plucky gaul.

Strasbourg is worth a mention while I’m here, a solo trip there was the first place I took myself to completely independent of anyone’s advice while taking advantage of cheap European flights. I’ve been to a beautiful wedding in France too. On the way back from that wedding I dropped in on a friend in Paris whom I greatly admire for the way she carved out her own corner of La Ville-Lumière with a cozy high-up flat.

Paris is a beastly kind of gorgeous. There is a recognised medical condition for disappointed Japanese tourists who don’t find Paris lives up to their lofty expectations and I can totally see why that exists but for me, the Eiffel Tower isn’t even overrated. I adore its balls-out audacity, especially when you consider the time it was built. What even is it? Why does it it exist? It shouldn’t exist, but it does and somehow it immediately justifies itself. Like London or Beijing, Paris has been one of these constantly relevant powerhouse cities for so long that it’s no wonder that you can bounce from world-class this to world-class that. Don’t get me wrong, it’s ugly in parts and I’d never live there, but I’m a world away from checking myself into any Japanese clinic anytime soon. Vive la France.

I’m doing a 30 before 30 challenge. One of the targets was to take my country count up to 20 and I thought I’d mark that with this list of my experiences in the places I’ve traveled to. Here’s the whole list if you’re interested.