Remember Paris? | September 2021 #Shorts

Five years ago this month, we were wandering the streets of Paris on our honeymoon, wide-eyed and jet-lagged and completely in love with a city we'd only ever seen in movies. This short is a little time capsule from that trip, and revisiting the footage while editing it honestly made both of us stop what we were doing and just smile.

September 2021 was a strange time to travel. The world was still figuring out how to open back up, masks were mandatory in half the places we went, and we had no idea what to expect from a honeymoon during a pandemic. But Paris didn't care about any of that. The city was still Paris — golden light bouncing off the Seine, the smell of fresh bread from every corner boulangerie, and that particular hum of a place that's seen everything and outlasted all of it.

What We Actually Remember

It's funny what sticks with you years later. We don't remember every museum we walked through or every menu we ordered from. What we remember is Amir getting genuinely emotional the first time he saw the Eiffel Tower lit up at night, and Samantha laughing at him for it. We remember getting hopelessly lost trying to find our hotel because we trusted Google Maps a little too much in a city where half the streets curve unpredictably. We remember sitting on a bench eating an overpriced crepe and thinking, "we actually made it here, together."

That trip wasn't perfect. We made plenty of rookie mistakes — over-scheduling ourselves, underestimating how much walking Paris demands, and not booking certain attractions early enough. We actually broke all of that down in our list of the top mistakes we made in Paris, which is worth a read if you're planning your own trip and want to skip the learning curve we didn't get to skip.

The Pandemic Honeymoon Reality

If you were traveling internationally in 2021, you'll remember the paperwork. The testing. The anxiety of wondering if a positive result was going to strand you in a foreign country indefinitely. We actually went through exactly that scare — you can read about the day our PCR test results almost derailed our entire trip home, which remains one of the more stressful travel days of our lives, honeymoon or not.

Looking back, we're grateful we took the leap and went anyway. So many couples postponed honeymoons during that stretch of the pandemic, and we understand why, but Paris in September 2021 had this quiet, uncrowded quality to it that we probably wouldn't get if we went back today during peak tourist season. Fewer lines, fewer crowds, more room to just be there.

What Surprised Us

Paris has a reputation — some of it deserved, some of it not. We went in expecting rude waiters and constant tourist traps, and while we did get a taste of both, we also found so much warmth and charm that caught us off guard. We wrote a whole post on what genuinely surprised us about Paris if you want the fuller picture beyond the highlight reel a 60-second short can give you.

Why We're Looking Back Now

Honestly, part of the joy of running this channel and blog is having this archive to scroll back through. Editing old footage from a trip five years ago hits differently now that we're deep in the chaos of family life. Watching younger, less-tired versions of ourselves stroll through the Louvre courtyard with zero responsibilities beyond figuring out where to eat next — that's a gift we didn't fully appreciate at the time.

As an interracial couple, travel has always meant something a little extra to us too — a chance to see how the world receives us, and to lean into each other in unfamiliar places. If that side of things interests you, we've written more generally about what we've learned traveling as an interracial couple, and Paris was one of the trips that shaped a lot of that perspective.

So yes — we remember Paris. The good, the stressful, the romantic, the exhausting. All of it. And we're grateful we have the footage to prove it actually happened.

▶️ Watch the full short here: Remember Paris? | September 2021 #Shorts

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