We arrived in France today. We first drove to Toronto on Saturday and spent a few days with Shirley and family. The kids met a girl named Amanda who taught them French. They fell in love with her and didn't want to leave her, even if we were going to Paris. On Tuesday night, we took an IcelandAir flight at 9 PM to Reykjavik Iceland. Then we had about an hour layover and flew to Paris, arriving at around 1 PM Paris time. The kids were able to sleep most of the flight and got some great kid snacks - sandwich, chocolate, drink, chips - and headsets for free. Us adults got drinks, if we were awake when the drink cart rolled by. I was worried about Zach having another episode since we'd have to wake him up at around 2 AM our time for the layover, but he was fine and slept another 3 hours on the trip from Iceland to Paris.
Finding our way around Paris at first was a little daunting. Trying to find the train station, lugging our luggage up and down the stairs, trying to keep the kids from knocking into people around them. Once on the train, things were going smoothly, even after a transfer, but before our last transfer, Zach left his backpack at the last stop on the floor. He was zipping it up after getting a snack and didn't think about picking it up afterwards. So since it was only 3 stops away, John went back to get the backpack. It turns out the police thought it was a bomb and had to get other police in and shutdown the station. John, who doesn't speak French, had to explain that it was his son's backpack and also didn't even have his passport with him since I had them all. The kids and I were sitting at the other train station anxiously waiting to see if he returns with the backpack. He did. My hero! The main thing in there was Zach's meds. To Zach, his favorite webkinz were in the backpack.
We finally made it to the apartment we're staying in. It's a cute apartment. Would be even nicer if there wasn't construction going on that has pretty much closed the balcony patio. But we did get a huge discount because of it. Today, we had chinese take-out, went to a grocery store to get juice and milk and beer, and ate an earlier snack (since they weren't serving dinner @ 4:30 yet) at a brasserie.
Bienvenue a France!
Finding our way around Paris at first was a little daunting. Trying to find the train station, lugging our luggage up and down the stairs, trying to keep the kids from knocking into people around them. Once on the train, things were going smoothly, even after a transfer, but before our last transfer, Zach left his backpack at the last stop on the floor. He was zipping it up after getting a snack and didn't think about picking it up afterwards. So since it was only 3 stops away, John went back to get the backpack. It turns out the police thought it was a bomb and had to get other police in and shutdown the station. John, who doesn't speak French, had to explain that it was his son's backpack and also didn't even have his passport with him since I had them all. The kids and I were sitting at the other train station anxiously waiting to see if he returns with the backpack. He did. My hero! The main thing in there was Zach's meds. To Zach, his favorite webkinz were in the backpack.
We finally made it to the apartment we're staying in. It's a cute apartment. Would be even nicer if there wasn't construction going on that has pretty much closed the balcony patio. But we did get a huge discount because of it. Today, we had chinese take-out, went to a grocery store to get juice and milk and beer, and ate an earlier snack (since they weren't serving dinner @ 4:30 yet) at a brasserie.
Bienvenue a France!
