Bonjour from Paris.

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Blogging again!

It's been about a year since my last blog from Asia (the vacation trip to China and Japan that Mark and I took last summer). I think I promised more tales from that trip and then got sucked back into the world of work and daily life. So this trip I am hoping to do a bit more writing while traveling. We brought Emily's Mac and it's far superior to the junky little notebook toy computer we took last summer. No offense, Mark or toy computer manufacturer.

This trip was about a year in the planning. The impetus for the adventure was the engagement of our dear friends Lisa and Rikard from Sweden. They are these beautiful friends we made--first Lisa in Shanghai at a language class and later Rikard when they both came to Shanghai during our second year. We traveled to Moganshan and had a crazy time in the very cold mountains, cooking in a rustic authentic (open air at times) kitchen. We cooked and hiked and had a great time in the mountains and back in Shanghai. Fast forward several years of Skyping and emailing/facebooking and Lisa and Rikard became engaged and planned an August wedding. So we had to go. We just had to. The wedding is at a castle outside of Stockholm. The entire thing has been planned with such creativity and care that I know it will be an epic wedding.

The kids are with us because a) they are great kids and excellent travelers, and b) we wanted to bring them with us after ditching them last summer. We missed them very much last summer and felt a bit sorry that we couldn't take them with us. I say a bit because we had a fantastic time on our own and it was also super hot and steamy and they would have complained. That trip was also a wedding themed trip. We went to the wedding of Ting and Ray in Beijing and Mark and I were both in the wedding which was amazing.

This time, the wedding will be near the culmination of our 15 day trip. We will start out in Paris, France for 5 days, then off to Copenhagen, Denmark for 4 days and finally, Stockholm for 6 days. We have some day trips planned for each city. We are staying in apartments in the 3 locations which will be a first for us and a nice change of pace from hotel stays for most vacations. We love to shop at local groceries, live in true neighborhoods like we did in Shanghai and explore in a more local fashion. This apartment thing seemed like the best way to do that. Plus, we can cook some meals and save some dough by not eating out every meal.

I must credit Mark for doing most of the travel planning. He found 2 out of 3 apartments (Lisa, Super Bride found our Stockholm apartment and a sitter for the wedding days). I did stuff too though. I did the whole summer as a single mama thing while Mark was on the road most of the time working in Georgia. It was all worth it though because we had this trip to look forward to and a whole lot of quality family time PLUS adventure PLUS seeing our friends get married. It's a triple win.

I'm writing from the United flight from DC to Paris listening to fantastic on demand music to drown out the less fantastic (albeit adorable Gerber baby who is having a less than fantastic flight in the seat behind us). Been there, trying not to be a grumpy passenger. Plus I'm sharing the adventure with you and nobody likes a grumpy blog-guide. Mark has been obsessing about our luggage (with good reason) for weeks, maybe months. He had good reason to worry because while we have a reputation for some great family adventures, we also have a very bad track record when it comes to our packing habits. We tend to overpack and also pack poorly. This trip we booked our apartments with washer/dryers or at least washers and we were each allotted 1 carry on size wheeled bag and 1 backpack. The ladies have purses. We're ladies after all. But they are small purses. The men have bigger backpacks so it evened out.

We had an easy flight to DC after getting delivered to the airport (10 min from home) by Laura, our wonderful friend and neighbor. Then we had a short hour and a half layover in DC. Upon shutting down our phones we were given a very cryptic update about a possible issue with the plane, soon followed by a "never mind, it's all good" and we were off. We "blasted off" as the cute sister of Gerber Baby called take off and tuned into our respective movies. I watched a really good but really sad movie about a women dying of colon cancer. Why? Because I'm an idiot. Kate Hudson doesn't make movies about death. Oh. Well I guess she does. It was good though. I cried about 2 gallons of tears and the flight attendant stopped to see if I was ok. I explained it was so, so sad and I couldn't stop. She gave me some wine (free!) and I scored one for Mark too. Yeah, the free wine in coach International seems to have gone the way of multiple bags and cold air coming out of the vents. We did have these amazing individual tvs with free movies so it's a very mixed bag. and the flight attendants are super nice. And my kids don't require much care and they are being nice to each other so overall I'm pretty pleased. The wine helped, A little bit of heaven. That was the movie. Turns out the title was literal not figurative. Who knew? Not I said the canard (that's French for duck).

TIme for a nap. We have big doings tomorrow in Paris!

Time to land!

Nap was a bust. the plane was really quite hot and even though I got a hookup with the wine, try as I might the air was never cool enough. Nathan was at the window in one of his pretzel positions and Emily was trying to find a spot to snooze and couldn't find one. I was at the aisle and Mark was across with a seat between himself and a cute young gal reading Fifty Shades of Grey. Yep. So I watched a second movie and slept maybe 20 minutes the entire flight to Paris. Emily did conk out a bit at the end and woke up extra groggy.

I mention Emily's grogginess because upon arriving at the Metro station after a very uneventful and somewhat anticlimactic customs experience (no line, lame stamp, nothing exciting) we were on the train to the city. Mark hoisted all our bags overhead--one, two, three, oh crap where is the fourth? Emily left her bag at the platform and we were already en route to the city. We got off at the first stop past the airport and crossed over to the other side with our 3 of 4 bags in tow. Emily was so tired she didn't have time to feel bad. I saw a large (and rather handsome) group of French police/security looking guys and asked if they spoke English. One said "No, but my friend does" in English and pointed out another fellow a few steps away. I explained that we had left a bag at the previous station and it was red and wheeled and small and he took me to the office and the woman there called to the other station and after much waiting and hoping that our unattended bag would not be blown up (that's what they used to say at the airport, not sure if they still say that,) we had confirmation that our rouge bag bag was found. Yay. We went back a station, found a friendly woman who worked at the ticket office, found our bag and were back on the train to the city.

The entire time all I could say was it's bloggable and therefore it is good. This is why I blog. It helps us all find the humor and appreciate the stories in all of our mishaps and wrong turns. Speaking of wrong turns! We were supposed to call the apartment manager to arrange a meeting upon landing in Paris. Small detail--no phone. So after trying to get a wifi signal so we might use Skype, we decided to wait until we were closer to the apartment to figure it out. We went to the building and Mark had the access code so we could enter the lobby. However, we still needed a phone. We decided to head 2 doors down to the cafe and have a coffee and some breakfast while I would ask to use the phone. Mark reads the maps and I talk to strangers and ask for favors like borrowing phones. Team work.

I called the manager and left a message after hearing a French voicemail recording and a beep. After this, Mark said "but the instructions said do not leave a message. You have to talk to the manager." We ordered breakfast. A bit later, mid coffee, baguette with butter. some mediocre crepes sucre (we know we can do better) the restaurant manager handed us a phone. It was Mr. Delanaud. He told me to go to #67 (we were at the cafe at #65) and ask the lady for the key. We went to #67 and there was nobody there. Long and crazy story short, the cafe was the place we were meant to get the keys. He never said Cafe and he gave us the wrong building number. We ran around in circles, actually explained the saga to the cafe ladies and they shook their heads with confusion and said they didn't know about any apartment keys…and finally after a third call, Mr. Delanaud said "they keys are at the cafe!"

Odd all around, but we were given the keys by the cafe waitress we had borrowed the phone from an hour earlier, paid our bill and went back to find our apartment. Mark was now getting a little sluggish and misread and mis-remembered the apartment details. He said we were on the 6th floor and promptly sent the kids up the elevator to 6. Funny thing was he had previously made a point to share that we were staying on a high floor and there was no elevator. Nobody questioned him. IThe elevator was too small for all of us and just fit the 2 kids sans bags. While the kids were heading up the elevator in the wrong building, I read through the notes and realized Mark's error. He also said "we need to go to the 3rd floor and cross a courtyard," when it actually said "go through a third DOOR and cross a courtyard." Mark found the kids in the wrong building, we gathered our luggage (thank goodness we traveled light) and made our way through the courtyard and to our 5th floor apartment (spiral staircase, no elevator). We huffed and we puffed and we struggled with the crazy key and we were in.

The apartment is cute. Very comfortable and very petite. That's French for small. It has everything we need. Wifi, dishwasher, mini laundry washer/dryer combo, fridge, etc. Full kitchen of dishes and cutlery. And we were left a bottle of wine and clean linens. We were home for the next 4 days.

We hit the road quickly to avoid the attack of the jetlag and wound our way back down 5 flights. OUr neighborhood is adorable. Cafes and shops galore. We walked and took in the architecture, marveled at how much SHanghai's French Concession really resembles France and settled on lunch at a sandwich stand. We ate baguettes with fillings ranging from curried chicken (Mark and Suze), ham and cheese (Nathan) mozzarella and tomato (Emily). We scored some Orangina (that's French for orange soda) cans at a nearby shop and ate leaning against a wall.

Then we walked a long while and saw Notre Dame, walked along the Seine River and finally back to the apartment. I won with the 3 hour nap, Emily probably almost matched me after she and the boys tried some desserts we grabbed en route back from the walk. We had to get back at it, and went to dinner at a fun local bistro Mark found through his research. We sat at a large table with a group of French young women. They ate 3 courses to our 1 each and we finished after them. I thought this interesting only because we are the Americans with the overeating reputation. Our waitress spoke English and was super nice. There were other tourists who had read the same article/reviews but we were definitely in the mix with a local crowd. Good work Mark!

We walked to the Eiffel Tower after dinner. First it was meant to be a peak at the Eiffel Tower, but we kept getting closer, the light kept getting more amazing and finally we were right there at the Tower in total awe. We didn't go up. Lines were insane and we had not even planned to go our first evening. It was amazing and I told Nathan that seeing it with him and Emily made it a new and better experience. Even if we've been there before. Seeing it with the kids was all sorts of better.

Now, it's bedtime. We are tucked in at our 5th floor apartment after a great first day in Paris. We did a lot for 4 weary travelers. Nathan, our usual narcoleptic, wins for least naps taken. And hello, steps! 25,000, 10.5 miles. and this on no sleep. we are going to sleep well tonight.

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Photos

kids day 1 paris
Notre Dame

river shot
Seine

us
french stripes. trying to blend.

yum
no bites for mommy.

ET
ET

picnickers
loved the scene near the ET. picnics and wine drinking and general hanging about. we may be back.

stunning
could not get enough. we took a million pics.

Comments

[Linda]

She's back!
...to blogging about the Slaven travels, that is. Je content de vous revoir.