Sunday, June 15

Postcard From Paris


It has taken seven years of dreaming, over 300,000 frequent flyer miles, booking our airline tickets eleven months ago, and many months of research and planning. We are really here!
Our Friday the 13th flight was smooth and uneventful. Henry was a fantastic traveller. Henry and I were absolutely indulged and pampered in first class. Wow... How can I ever go back to coach?! Henry told me, "I have never flown first class before". I tried to explain that it was a very special thing and we were very lucky. On the flight to Paris we were offered champagne, warm nuts, wine, many dinner options, hot fudge sundaes, after dinner cocktails, chocolates, etc. It was pretty extraordinary. It got even better when we were provided with Bose noise-canceling headsets. Did I mention that our seats fully reclined flat into beds?!
Wow... It was quite nice!
I must admit, even with all that pampering it was hard to be on a plane for 10 hours. We finally arrived at Charles DeGalle around 10 AM Paris time (1 AM in PDX). Getting through customs and through the airport was a bit overwhelming to our travel-weary bodies. We managed to purchase tickets for the train to Paris and finally arrived at our apartment shortly after Noon. In total it was about 17 hours of travel and we only had a few hours of sleep. As you might imagine we spent most of the day trying to nap and recover.
The weather has been a pleasant mix of Sun and clouds with comfortable temperatures. Our apartment is quite lovely. We are speaking some French, but it does not come easily.
Henry slept until 1 PM on Sunday. Our babysitter Meghan and her sister Abby found a lovely studio apartment in the Latin Quarter. They have been having fun enjoying the city. Today they spent the afternoon with Henry and I escorted Tyler across town for a special Father's Day massage at Holistic Paris. We had a wonderful long walk through Montmartre and across the city. We walked for nearly 5 hours. We had amazing gelato to keep us going. I had yogurt and mango flavors and Tyler had white chocolate. It was really good! Since Henry slept until 1 PM we decided to keep him out until 10 PM. We took an evening river cruise on the Seine. Amazingly it doesn't get dark until 10:30 so we didn't get to enjoy the city lit up.
Overall we are well and happy. I hope to post some nice photos soon. So far I haven't taken any winners.

1 comment:

manya said...

Wow, you're there already! Sounds like you're having a great time already. I'm sure it's no Mexico, though.

I was bumped up to first class once. I swore after that I would never fly coach again. Little did I know how expensive it is. Sad.