The Latest on the Lowes

We started this blog to share the transformation of our 1926 fixer...but with time and the addition of kids it has become my way of documenting two childhoods...the triumphs, moments of hilarity, lessons learned and everything in between.

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Tres Manifique!


Yep, we made it back from Paris in one piece…although it took a whopping 49.5 hours door-to-door. No, that is not a typo. Chris and I ate our body weight in cheese and actually managed to LOSE weight, mainly because we walked all day, every day. I love a city with a great public transit system that you can explore without ever needing a car. If you want to see all the pics, you can click here. Otherwise read on for
some observations from the trip…

- The French kick our butts in several ways….namely they make far superior cheeses, their wines are divine, the know how to slow down and enjoy a good meal and more often than not do so outside, they are FAR more polite to one another than we Americans, they have a very cool public bike-share system, their health system is superior in every way but fiscal, and their Monoprix puts Target to shame
- The French are abyssmal, though, when it comes to airport customer service, pedestrian safety, providing changing tables/high chairs for babies and elevators for the handicapped. Their TV shows are also quite bizarre - game shows involving people doing the worm up an inflatable slide, wrestling in bubbles and woman doing horse tricks...but on men cantering around a tiny ring
- It is essential to read Talk to the Snail if you plan to spend any substantial time there - not only is it laugh-out-loud funny, you will have a far more pleasant trip when you know basic French ettiquette and why Americans are perceived as rude and boorish
- If you have one, bring a small child! Despite the lack of ammenities (see above), French people ADORE babies and will stop you on the street to peek in your stroller. Lily got more "Tres jolie!" comments than I could count. We were allowed to cut lines in the airport, given space in crowded metros, had the chef in a restaurant come out to meet her and a guard at the airport remove his gloves to shake her tiny hand. A baby is an amazing hospitality passport
- If you have a baby, give them baguettes. Lily would knaw on a chunk for a good 30 minutes, allowing us to eat while she was entertained. The baguette is a beautiful thing
- Guide books are good for general direction, but Paris is best discovered by simply walking around with no clear agenda, timetable or goal other than great food and beautiful surroundings
- If you must have a routine, a great one is to explore…return to your friendly Novotel for wine and cheese…and then head out again for dinner. When you're walking all day, this little extra meal is a real treat
- If you don't have a food dictionary with you, don't order sausage. Just take my word for it



Now why did it take so long to get home? Quite simply - Continental sucks. We left for the airport at 10am (1am Seattle time) Sunday morning. When we got there our flight was delayed….and delayed…and delayed until it was finally cancelled at 7pm that night. We understand that these things happen, but we were made to wait in an un-airconditioned terminal on a truly hot, muggy day. We also spoke to the pilot and it turns out the plane had NO electricity and they'd removed the instrument panel hours before…a clear indicator they could have cancelled much sooner. Then it was a lovely hour wait for a hotel voucher for a DISGUSTING one star hotel that you had to walk to as Taxis wouldn't go there. We had a TON of gear with us and I literally begged the customer service desk to help me find an alternate hotel we could cab to (I was clear I would pay for the hotel myself), but they refused (I should mention Lily and I were both crying at this point) and then they chastised me for having so much luggage (have you ever travelled with a baby?). I later learned they stored the bags of a similarly trapped French family. Nice. So we hauled ALL our gear to said flea bag, waited another 45 minutes to check in and finally got into our room at 10:30pm….only to find the heater was on FULL BLAST. Oh, and there was over an hour wait for the restaurant. We wound up dining on rolls and cheese squares, our faith in humanity slightly restored by the kind Spanish woman who gave me two of her diapers and the French man who, with his kids, kindly helped us carry our bags.

The next day we got to the airport bright and early and good thing - they'd booked Chris and I from Paris to Houston and Lily from Houston to Seattle. Huh. So Chris and I are going to go without her to Houston and she's going to go without us to Seattle? This time we wisely skipped the customer service desk and went straight to baggage check where they let us cut to the front (again, the baby bonus) and sorted us out. Of course the Houston flight was - you guessed it - delayed. So we sat until 4pm (thankfully this time in air conditioning) and finally borded. The flight crew was lovely - they even found extra diapers for Lily as I was running out - and our only mishap was a diaper blow out of epic proportion and turbulence so bad the Spanish gal in front of us yelled "Que Pasa?"…which was actually pretty funny.

Of course once in Houston we missed our connection due to the delay so we got to sit there for another few hours. Prior to waiting, though, we had to pass through customs and then security…where I was asked to remove Lily's wee shoes. These are really more sock holders than shoes and are essentially leather slippers. Yeah, a real threat to national security. We finally boarded at 9:30, arrived in Seattle close to 1am and after an interminable wait for our luggage (YES! IT MADE IT!) we got home at 2:30 am. God bless Tom Trombley for being our airport angel and actually staying up that late on a school night.

Through it all, Lily was a trooper and has earned her title of Star Travel Baby.