It finally hit me that we were going to France when I saw the sign in the airport that said Paris. The weeks leading up to the trip were surreal. A lot was happening, people were sick, packing was commencing.
The flight was long.
“How was the flight?”
I dunno, it was an international flight. It was freaking long and now we are in Paris so… it was a flight! My kids said I MUST have slept because my mouth was drooping open and I looked out of it. I guess I’m glad they didn’t take a picture of me. Although, Sam could have… she certainly took one of G passed out on her shoulder but if she did take one of me, I didn’t see it!
We waited around for a bit after baggage claim but our ride arrived at some point, rescued us, and took us to the parking garage. I escaped into the small car with my Mom and Gregg and the drive in was lovely. Our driver was… shoot, I can’t remember her name, but I remember some of the stories she told. She had a hard life and she has at least one baby die, and I think one of her older children passed away too. Plus her husband died of cancer. She was cheerful though but my Mom asking her questions about her life, as my Mom does, and somehow it came out. We also learned a bit about the Olympics and where the swimming events were, which was right as we came into the city. That was something that would happen all week – we received so many Olympic facts, trivia, and complaints about traffic!
Once we arrived to our amazingly beautiful 2nd floor apartment, the usual negotiation of bedrooms happened. Of course it’s never about which person wants the BEST bedroom, it’s always about giving the best bedroom to someone else, and dealing with the uncertainty of who wants/needs something more. We finally settled on something, and then after 5 minutes had ANOTHER change, and then started unpacking.
The plan was to walk over to the Louvre for an hour or two, have dinner, and then crash by 830 or 9pm.
I walked into Griffin’s room to find him passed out on the bed (him being one of the sick ones!) and he wouldn’t wake up. J was also one of the sick ones – but kidney stone painful sick – rather than ill and he stayed at home with G.
The 6 of us wandered over to the Louvre. I had our tickets. We walked – magically! – through the carousel entrance which had so many fun shops. I had wanted to walk through that entrance so that was cool. We were awed by it and walked right in with our tickets.
After asking where the Mona Lisa was – we went to the wrong side but same-named hall – we figured out where we were going and followed the crowd.
I’ll spare myself the crowded pictures of Sam and I, or just Sam, in front of her because I like this one better. We stood for so long in that crowd to get a front row picture and then we took a wrong turn and walked out the way we came rather than through the guest shop. So we spent about 25 minutes trying to figure out where the Grandparents were and finally wandering around ourselves.
This guy spoke to us so we tried to mimc his expression. Sam is clearly the better actress here!
She struck many a pose and was enjoying the light.
We went to the 2nd most famous art section and wandered around and headed back out. As we walked up some stairs, we came up and… you can see her in the distance… the Eiffel Tower!
This moment will always make me smile. She maybe stood here for a solid 4 minutes. Her first glimpse of her and she was in awe and so happy
We wandered around the gardens for a few minutes and had a photoshoot. The grandparents got cookies and water. Then, we decided to walk over early to our restaurant.
We actually found a nice outdoor restaurant and sat down for champagne. We clinked glasses and enjoyed the sunshine. Justin and G found us and looked incredibly tired.
We found our restaurant and G was having none of it.
The restaurant was nice but I don’t know if I would recommend. I enjoyed my salmon but it was called Le Soufflé and while everyone was complimentary I don’t think they loved their souffles. They seemed a bit soggy in parts. But it was nice and we walked back home.
The next morning I was up early. So early. Terrible sleeping habits lately but I finally just got up at… 5am? I sat on the couch and then told myself to not be a huge bum and go do something since there was no way I was going back to sleep.
I threw on my workout clothes and got myself outside.
It was worth it. The peace I felt wandering down to the Seine, seeing the calm waters, the overcast sky. It was so lovely.
I am not posting all the photos here but I did put a bunch of them in my IG highlights, and also my Shutterfly.. reminding myself to go back and look!
But this one was so cool with the bridge, the tower, and the boats with the calm water.
This one was magical because 12 hours earlier this was incredibly crowded and bustling with people and look at it now!
I headed home… I can’t remember if I brought coffee and pastries home but I certainly did at least 3 or 4 of the other days. The coffee was a hard one because France coffee is definitely different and not a favorite so they needed to explore and figure out their preferences before I got their order right!
We had a big day on our first full day (walking tour with Pascal and a boat tour for JJ and Gregg’s bday) which I will try to write down at some point.
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