This is our annual family “Christmas trip,” this time in December (last year in Janurary). We’re obviously not calendar-centric.
We are in Paris. Sean missed today’s text saying so and was wishing me a “warm ale” in Europe…I’ll let you do the eyeroll.
Originally we were going just to Nice (insert joke here), but when we found out we had to fly through Paris (or it was the best option, as opposed to flying through London or Lisbon), and our plans there were flexible, we decided to spend 2(?) days here.
I wasn’t going to blog today, or our arrival day, but by midafternoon I said I had so much material today that I had enough for a week.
I will start with the photo thumbnail: 
These are from the Christmas market in Tuilleries Garden (the royal garden from the Louvre to the next bridge across the Seine). It was packed. I got a lecture about both pickpockets and not checking the credit card machine. 🙄
But, to get it all in perspective we have to start in the living room at home with three personal bags and three carry-ons and too much weight. One set of guidelines from the airline said 12 kilos including the personal bag; K googled it and google claimed it was 12 AND the personal bag. There was an hour of handing things around and one pair of shoes (not mine) that didn’t make it (“they’re leather…”…therefore heavy?) It was 120 euros for a checked bag. In the end, we went heavy and hoped. But much stress. Even went back and got another bag because EH worried her new “personal item” was too big for the airline’s specifications.
The check-in person weighed the carry-ons, shrugged, tagged them, and never looked at the personal bags.
From there things went well, except it was an overnight to Europe in small seats and the usual. K said it was most sniffling and coughing she’d ever heard (EH and I are both sick, too 😃)
There was texting back and forth with KG, who flew into a different airport from Houston, 3 hours ahead of us. I found a place AT the SAME address as our apartment that stored luggage. But he couldn’t find it (not surprisingly, it seemed).
The taxi ride for us from the airport was 45 minutes (15 miles) and the driver kept trying to find a way around traffic. Found none. :) At one point I wasn’t sure whether he as going to hit the car on the right he was swinging behind, or the car on the left he was swinging behind, the other way! The alert beeper went on both sides!!
But we made it. KG was sitting on the sidewalk, sans luggage, waiting for us.
But we had to kill 3 hours till check in. we checked our bags.
As I pointed out the group (this always goes over well 😂) that the article I forwarded them two weeks ago from a writer for Business Insider on taking her 70-year-old parents to France concluded with 2 tips: don’t go too fast (amen, sister!) and don’t wing it on what you are going to do, especially eat. You’ll spend a lot of time just not deciding. That’s what we did, till we had gone downhill a mile, past 20 eateries (name the cuisine, we could have had it, including the most beautiful restaurant in the world — there was a line) before finally saying “no mas” and pretty much collapsing at this either blah French bistro (we ate at another much like it for dinner) or charming very French place. :)
We won’t be going back there. I will be judicious and just say there were contretemps over “lunch.” And then, on the way out, (charming means the tables are literally 4” apart) EH rolled several glass bottles off the table! I don’t think they broke but we high tailed it.
We were let into the flat and then we had “how did you eff up the airbnb, dad?” the listing said 3 bedrooms, 3.5 baths. We circled the place and could not find a third bedroom. We tried a door that seemed locked and a closet, anyway, and I ended up calling the guy, with the floor plan up on the listing, asking if he put us in the wrong apartment. As I asked, KG forced the closet door open and voila! (we are in France) another bedroom. I still am certain they are a bathroom short (there’s one with no toilet but a shower…the half?, but there are really only two fulls)…and I haven’t found a locked door where it could be, yet.
If you think this has been good, well, then there was getting tickets for the metro. KG had already gotten his and I went to kiosk and this guy jumped in to help me. I didn’t know i needed all this help, but, in the end, he ended up with my cash and I ended up with 2 one-way passes, not 2 three-day passes. 😂😂😭😭
Thus, the talk at the market. (repeat eyeroll)
The only thing we bought there, in a crowd reminscent of huge days at the Bloomsburg Fair, were three tetes au chocolat — for dessert.
They are sitting on the table at the restaurant we ate in at around 9.
And then we went to get on the metro and I was the only one to get on the car — the door shut very quickly on a combination of my and K’s arm. We are both all right and I got off at the nezt stop and joined them, but it was the capper to a grand, long day.
But we are in Paris, Sean.
KG finished the day by saying we could have fun, but another kind of fun, tomorrow. 😂
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