Marvelous Adventures in Paris Last Thursday

It’s now 2.30 as I sit and type. I’m watching last week’s episode of “Lost” that I downloaded from iTunes last night. I just finished CSI. When I’m watching one of those 2 shows, I forget that I’m in England.

Anyway – back to Paris.

Thursday morning when we got up and around, we decided to go to McDonald’s at the end of the block for breakfast. On the way out of the hotel, I stopped at the reception desk to say something about the lack of additional beds in each room. After the lady at the desk asking several times “No second bed? No second bed?” she finally said something about the 2nd beds being under the double beds. Duh. Now we had our additional beds.

On to McDonalds. In France. Menu in French. I don’t know French. It felt, well, foreign. That morning the phrase “fish out of water” really meant something to me. I don’t think I’ve ever felt as out of place in a place as I did in France. Anyway, we got yummy little pastries and egg McMuffins for breakfast. Very nice.

The only thing not going according to plan was the absence of the Baldridges (Steve’s sister & her family). We thought their plane from Ethiopia was supposed to arrive in Paris at 6 a.m. They were going to hop on a train from the airport and be at our hotel shortly thereafter. Or as “shortly thereafter” as possible when you have to gather up luggage, get on a commuter train, get off at the train station, then walk a few blocks to a hotel. I think they finally showed up sometime between 10 and 11.30. I’ve slept since then, so I’m not sure when they arrived. Turns out their flight had a 6 a.m. layover in Belgium, THEN on to Paris.

Back to McDonald’s for lunch. I think they were all happy to eat Golden Arches food again.

After lunch we decided to get on a tour bus and get acquainted with Paris. It was a double decker and Julie and I sat on the bottom while everyone else was up top. It was a bit nippy and I had forgotten Julie’s hat at the hotel. We rode the “yellow” tour line into the city center, then got on the “green” line for what we were hoping was the duration of the tour. About 20 minutes later we had to get off because Julie was hungry and Steve was having difficulties feeding her while the bus was moving. She was in the front pack and I was wearing it, so I couldn’t help much. So we get off and walk about half a block to a Hagen Daas store. We all got a tasty snack there, got Julie fed and changed, ran all the kids through the loo, then headed back to the bus.

This time I took the hood off my jacket and used it for Julie so she and I could ride upstairs with everyone. She was asleep in a jiffy. So was Audrey. We have about half a dozen pictures of Audrey sleeping past the major sights: the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame…I think when I make the picture album of our journeys she’ll get her own “I slept through Paris” section.

It was surreal going through Paris. I guess I hadn’t really been thinking too much about going. I’ve been more concerned about getting train tickets, hotel, getting our guests here, taking care of them, not to mention the regular “mom” stuff like laundry, cooking, etc. So when we get there I’m in a daze. I know nothing about Paris to begin with, so I think I missed out on a lot just because I was ignorant to start with.

I think my favorite thing to see in Paris was the Eiffel Tower. It’s brown! I always thought it was black. Plus the metal work on it reminds me of lace. It seems delicate. My second most favorite thing to see was the gargoyles on Notre Dame. They are cool!

On the tour bus, Caleb sat by Alan. Fortunately Alan has been in Paris before (and will come again due to work), so he’s seen the sights. He told me later that he enjoyed sitting with Caleb and hearing him chatter the whole time. Alan even let Caleb take some pictures with his camera. Caleb said later that was his favorite thing about the whole day.

After our tour of Paris, we got off the green line and I immediately dashed into the tour company’s “boutique” to ask where the nearest restrooms were for the kids. They were kind enough to let the 4 kids use theirs. While we were there, the bus we had been on pulled away before we realized we had left the stroller on it. Darn. Darn, darn, darn! We wouldn’t be able to get it until after 11.30 the next morning. While Steve and I were sorting this out, everyone went around the corner to an “American” tavern that Cindy and Alan had eaten at before. We joined them soon after and all enjoyed a great meal of chicken wings, spare ribs, pasta, burgers, and yummy dessert. We didn’t all eat all of this – just an example of some of the entrees.

Back around the corner to catch a yellow bus home. But we find out that the yellow buses are done for the day. Irritating, since the brochure led us to believe otherwise. So Alan goes inside the little boutique to figure out what’s going on. Turns out there’s supposed to be a straight shuttle to the train station about 30 minutes later. Ok. We wait. No shuttle. Another bus pulls up, but it’s a shuttle going the other way. The driver doesn’t look too happy about having to shuttle, but another bus driver talks rapidly to him in French and then gets off that bus and motions to us to follow him to an empty bus.

He ends up driving us on the shuttle all by ourselves. We joked that we had a chauffeured private bus back to our hotel. Well, almost back to our hotel…only 2 blocks away.

We got everyone tucked away for the night and Steve went downstairs to chat with his family. I’m pretty sure I sacked out straightaway because I don’t remember much after getting the kids all asleep.

I’m going to stop there for now because I need to get Audrey down for a nap. She’s sitting at the top of the stairs wailing, “I’m not tiiiiiiiiiirrrrreeeeeeeeeeedd!” Yeah, right. Friday’s adventures will be the next blog installment, hopefully.