So on Christmas Eve we decided that we want to go to Paris the day after Christmas and we ended up booking a 4 bedroom apartment in the center of the city for the same price that 2 rooms in the hotel would cost us. The trip from Frankfurt to Paris by car is 5 hours according to google maps.
The plan was to leave our house at 6AM. In real life we left at 8AM and got to Paris around 2PM with one bathroom stop and one longer stop for lunch. When we got to the apartment it was huge but very Parisian in a way. Long hallways, big old windows that were very drafty, tiny kitchen, wood floors, toilet room and bath room which had no shower. We decided to go and check out Pantheon and the Latin Quarter. Well, Andrei went to the bathroom and locked the door behind himself and then we spent next 10-15 minutes trying to explain to him how to get himself out of the that bathroom. At one point Andrei really started loosing it, but thankfully there was no way for us to take the door down so we had to talk him through it. That was our welcome to Paris :)
After that we headed out, Chris said that he was going to pay for parking while the rest of us were waiting at the street corner (not that kind of street corner!). About 5-7 minutes later Chris is still at the parking station, kids are starting to loose it, I walked over to read the instructions which stated that we do not need to pay on holidays and weekends. So 30 minutes later we are finally heading out to Pantheon!!!
After a long metro ride and a walk we show up to Pantheon 10 minutes after the last admission. Oh, was that disappointing and then it got worse ... We were all really hungry (think starving) and after walking by a couple of place, Chris decided that we had traveled all this way to eat at Subway! Grudgingly, I agreed. Well, Subway is pretty much Subway whether you in suburbs of Pittsburgh,PA or in center of Paris. Thankfully, after that dinner we had some street-side crepes: Grandma with lemon and sugar like she's been dreaming of for last 48 years, Andrei as always with Nutella, Chris with cinnamon and sugar, Ilya didn't want one and Anton, well little Anton eat my ENTIRE sugar crepe. Chris managed to take it away from him for 2 bites. Then we finally started heading back to our apartment and in Paris subways what seems like the best way might not always be the best way. We had to change some trains and there was this one loooong walk where the people mover wasn't walking, part of it was uphill, and I can't even count how many stairs we had to go up and down. All of that with an exhausted grandma and 3 kids, one of whom is in the stroller that needs to be carried up and down. On the positive note, one set of stairs Chris came over to help (he was walking with his mom) and I handed him over the bag of macarons (precious cargo) and told him to go back to his mom and I'll deal with the stroller. Instead, he just followed me protecting the bag of macarons while Andrei and I were dealing with the stroller. By the time we reached the top of the stairs I was laughing so hard watching him walk up with essentially nothing meanwhile I am there torturing myself going up the stairs with that stroller. I know it doesn't sound that funny but it was hilarious or maybe I was just delusional at that point ...
It was a long day! We all went to bed by 9PM that night.
To be continued ....
 |
| Looking at Pantheon |
 | |
| Latin Quarter |
 |
| Living room with massive windows that allow a lot of cold in |
 |
| Andrei as always glued to his kindle |
 |
| Tiny kitchen |
Comments