I’m leaving for Paris today. The last time (which was my first time) I visited Paris, it was in June 2011. I’d never really traveled much at all when I went to France then. I was wide-eyed and excited, eager to practice my public-school-learned French (which means it’s extremely basic at best) and explore the world of butter and sugar and la joie de vivre. I stayed in two crappy hostels, one of which had a shower that had no separation from my bed, so every time I showered, my bed sheets got soaked. I even had to pack my own towels and toiletries. That hostel also had only a single toilet on every floor, which meant I had to share the same dirty, smelly toilet (it was so bad that I can still vividly remember how bad it looked. To give you an idea of how bad, it made some of the toilets I used in China seem squeaky clean) with about 20 other people each night. We also got kicked out after our third night because they said they had a policy of only reserving you a room for a maximum of three nights. So we ran around Les Halles and the Latin Quarter trying to find a place for our last two nights. I felt like such a loser — a frugal American running around Paris looking for housing in the summer.

My experience this time around will be quite different. We’ll be staying in the sixth arrondissement in the midst of all the major chocolate and pastry shops I want to visit, in a real hotel that will not only have a real bathroom and a real bedroom, but also its own private toilet and towels. We’re flying business class since we found a deal that was only $150 more than economy. Four years ago, I never would have consented to paying $150 more for business. I would have thought, but I could spend that extra $150 on pastries and other French treats I could bring home! But now I think, wow, how often do you ever see the price differential between economy and business be so tiny? The answer to that is never.

It’s a different life now.