Well, Well, Well...
I thought that all the crazy junk that happened last week was going to transition us into a much easier week, especially since our weekend was pretty good, but I didn't find that to the be the case.
Now, also let me say that our weekend WAS really good, but we did have a few hiccups along the way, too. First of all, Ashlynn came home on Thursday evening and said that she needed a violin by Monday. Well, okay...we actually had intended to buy one when we got here, but frankly, with all the crazy stuff I had going on, looking for a music shop had fallen to the bottom of my priority list. So, on Friday, I managed to look up the recommended music store on the school website. I wrote down the address, and then while I was sitting in the school parking lot waiting to pick up the kids, I decided I'd punch it into the GPS and see just how close it was to the school. The GPS showed it was only about fifteen minutes north of the school! For a fleeting moment, I ALMOST gathered enough courage to try to find this by myself. But, then I snapped back to reality and decided it would be best for all five of us if I just waited until Saturday. So...
On Saturday morning, we all slept in a bit, then got ready and headed out to find the music store. Since I had already punched in the address for the store, I knew all we had to do was find the "previous location" and head there. So, off we go. And, it couldn't have been a more beautiful day or a more beautiful drive! So, we got to our "destination," and there was no music store. We turned around and drove by where (according to our GPS) the music store was supposed to be. Again, no music store. Now what?
Well, we decided to drive BACK to our house and ask our neighbors about the music store that they go to. (It was in a different town, but we thought we would try it.) Just for kicks, though, we thought we'd try looking up the actual website of this crazy store to see if it had any driving directions on it. No driving directions, but we did find an address. And, the address we found didn't match the one that we had originally punched into the GPS! So, we decided to try one more time to find this place. Off we go again for a beautiful drive on a still beautiful day. This time, we managed to find the store!!
And, it was only one street over from where we were the first time. Good grief.
Anyway, we managed to go in, listen to a couple of violins and purchase the one we liked. The people were very nice and helpful and Ashlynn was thrilled, so we considered that trip a success!!
Then, we decided we were going to try to find the Media Markt (similar to Best Buy) to try to find a gadget that would help us transfer all the information from the hard drive of our fried desktop computer to our laptop. So...since my new phone is working and all, I felt so incredibly tech savvy, because it was now possible for me to look up the address of this Media Markt while we were on the way! Yay! So, I found the address and punched it in the GPS.
We made it easily to the town of Den Haag, and then we made it to Media Markt...or so the GPS said. Ironically, we never saw the actual Media Markt store. What we did find, though, was China Town. I didn't even know there was a China Town in the middle of Den Haag, but yessiree there is. Who knew? Anyway, there were people e.v.e.r.y.w.h.e.r.e. *AND* there was no where to pull over *OR* turn around or EVEN park. So, again, we weren't sure what to do, so we kept driving on through and eventually decided to head home. Fortunately, we decided to run by the grocery store on the way home, and there just happened to be a Dynabyte (similar to Radio Shack) close by. We ran in just to see if they might happen to have what we needed, and they DID!! SCORE!!
Maybe one day we'll actually find the Media Markt.
So, on Sunday, we went to church where we met a family from Hendersonville, Tennessee!! They were super nice, and it was so nice to hear another true southern accent! I also found out that while there is not a Bible Study Fellowship group that I can join here, there is a Community Bible Study group, which is very similar. I was thrilled to get this news!!
After church, we went home and got to talk to lots of people! It seemed as though just as we were hanging up with one person, another would call. It was SO great!!
Anyway, that night...in fact, it was after midnight, and I was skyping with my friend Dana, Chris and I heard a loud strange noise coming from the kids' rooms. I hung up and ran upstairs to find Chris and Ashlynn in her bathroom. We thought at first that she was throwing up. But, after she calmed down, she explained that she was coughing and she couldn't breathe, so she was calling for help. Anyway, I ended up sleeping with her the rest of the night (and the following night) just to make sure she was okay. So, the next morning I went in to the school to tell the nurse, just so she could keep an eye on her. She, of course, told me I needed to go ahead and get her in to a doctor, just to have her checked out. Then, she gave me a list of doctors with addresses and phone numbers.
So, I left the nurse's office and headed up to the guidance counselor's office, just so she could keep an eye on her *AND* to give her a head's up about it. (The entire fifth grade (and 14 teachers, including the principal!) is about to leave next week for a project trip for three nights, and I wanted her to know what was going on.) She told me the same thing about getting her in to see a doctor, but she recommended I go to an International Group in Den Haag. In fact, she said, "If I were you, I'd grab a buddy and try to drive down there to see how difficult it is to find, and then you'll be familiar with it when it's time to take her."
What?!
So, now what?
Fortunately, my new friend Mandy happened to come along with me, and she offered to ride along for the new adventure.
Not knowing what to do, we went to my car, and I began to call the list of doctors. One by one I was told(in broken english) that they were full. So, then I called the International place. Uuugh...I did NOT want to drive down there and then deal with the parking that I had heard was a nightmare.
I got through and got an appointment for the next afternoon. So, Mandy and I began our adventure trying to find this crazy place. I punched in the address in my GPS and began to drive. You can't even begin to understand how stressed out I was. My crazy GPS took us down all kinds of crazy streets, down the coast and behind trams. We finally found it, and I was SO incredibly proud of myself!!
BUT, then we couldn't find anywhere to park...that seems to be the case everywhere here. Anyway, we finally gave up after circling around a couple of times. I punched my home address into the GPS, and I thought I was in the right lane to begin the trek home, but the GPS decided to take me a different way that was equally as stressful, but now not even remotely familiar. Uuuugh.
We finally made it home, but I was so overwhelmed and confused I had NO idea what to do or where to go!
So, I called my Dutch friend Riemke. She truly is a lifesaver!
Okay, I know you're tired of reading this, and it is almost 11:00PM, and I'm tired, so hopefully, I'll give you the rest of the story tomorrow.
*yawn*
good-night
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Rough Week
Hello Friends...I know it has been a while since my last post, but I've been busy. Really busy. In fact, I sent my friend an email this morning, and then I decided to copy it and paste a lot of it onto my blog, because it kind of summarized my life since last Friday.
If you can imagine how crazy a life would be transitioning into a foreign country and then multiply it by 100, that MIGHT give you a glimpse of our week. Here is a brief account of what has transpired over the last six days...
1. We received our shipment on Friday...YAY! Although it was an overwhelming mess just trying to take inventory (and I realized about a quarter of the way through the list that I apparently wasn't understanding them as well as I thought I was, because I kept finding out that the numbers they were bringing up were numbers I had already crossed off the list!) as the four movers kept quickly bringing in box after box and asking,"Where?" Then, it was even more overwhelming trying to figure out how I wanted to "decorate" (as the movers put it), so that they could begin unpacking and putting together our large furniture items. After one of the movers *almost* broke Ashlynn's trundle bed, I decided that it would be best if I just unpacked everything myself and at my own leisure.
2. I have partially unpacked said shipment...there are boxes EVERYWHERE, and not all the boxes are unpacked, yet. Movers can't come pick up the boxes until everything is unpacked, because they'll only come out once. I haven't been home long enough to get anything done! Chris just informed me this evening that movers are coming tomorrow between 2:00 and 3:00 to pick up boxes. Great.
3. We picked up my new iPhone last week, but I couldn't set it up, because it has to be connected to iTunes before it will work. When we found out that our shipment was arriving on Friday, we decided to wait and sync up my phone on our iTunes account on our desktop computer. So, I had to wait a few more days to get my phone working...
4. Having made a special trip to an electronics store to buy a "special" plug to hook up our desktop computer, we got ready for the moment of truth, and then...a spark, smoke and the living room went dark. We blew up the computer.
5. Since we blew up the computer, we decided to hook up my phone by downloading iTunes to the laptop. My phone finally works, but I don't know if it will ever sync up to our old iTunes account, since we had to set up a new one. :-(
6. The day after we got my phone working, I realized that, for whatever reason, I am not able to send or receive emails. :-(
7. Then, the day before school started, I found out that my email account is denying ALL emails from our school, so I have missed ALL the emails from the school since we arrived, including the emails that informed us of who their teachers were AND the invitation to the brief elementary school parent rotation scheduled for the first day of school.
8. We went out shopping for school supplies and only got a partial supply, because we couldn't find everything we needed.
9. I dropped the kids off at school yesterday for their first day, and experienced, yet, ANOTHER first day of school where I had to carry Avery screaming into the school building. This time was MAGNIFIED, because it started in the parking lot where ALL of the other parents were standing with their smiling, excited children, and no matter what I did, I couldn't bribe Avery into the courtyard of the school, much less into the building. No one knows our story of how he has done this for the past FOUR years, and now I seem heartless. I had an appointment with the counselor at 1:00 today...thank goodness I met her the first day, and we've already talked several times, or else I might be concerned that she might need to call in the authorities! We came up with a game plan of me dropping him off at his classroom door, giving kisses and then I have to leave. Essentially, it's the same plan I've had for the last four years, except that at this school, it is different from other parents' plans, because drop-off occurs at the playground outside. She pulled him out of class this afternoon to gently inform him of the "new plan," and he seemed fine with it. We'll see in the morning.
Are you still with me, because I'm not done, yet...
10. I have now successfully managed to run into the garage not once but TWICE with my "new" van, because I am having to maneuver a "yacht" (which is STILL considerably smaller than my "old" van) into a small parallel parking place that has a wall with a metal step stool on one end and a large concrete pillar on the other. Oh, and the kids' three bikes are ALSO on one end of the parking place, because there is no where else to keep them. OH, and there is ALSO another car parked right across from my parking place. The first time I hit the van, just a couple of days ago, I backed into the metal stepstool. This morning when I hit the garage, I managed to sideswipe the concrete pillar, which scraped the paint off of the door and also broke my driver's side mirror. Uuugh...
11. This past week, I went to lunch with a "new" friend, sat outside, and I got stung by a wasp. For the record, I've NEVER been stung by a wasp before.
12. I've also met SO many people that I can't remember anyone's name, where they're from or even if they have a kid in one of my kid's classes. The people here are very friendly, but frankly, I haven't been feeling super sociable this week.
But...
I'm trying to remain focused on the fact that God CLEARLY brought us here, and I still have no idea why he sent US. I was reminded today of Nehemiah. He was called by God to go and rebuild the wall of Jerusalem. He was obedient, and he answered the call. He was also faced with lots of conflict along the way.
I have been expecting the conflict.
I just hope it moves on...quickly.
On a side note, Ashlynn and Aaron have had a great time at school. Ashlynn really likes her classes, and Aaron really likes his teacher. Aaron's teacher, Mr. Davison, is British, and he reminds me a ton of Bear Grylls on the Discovery Channel. :-)
If you can imagine how crazy a life would be transitioning into a foreign country and then multiply it by 100, that MIGHT give you a glimpse of our week. Here is a brief account of what has transpired over the last six days...
1. We received our shipment on Friday...YAY! Although it was an overwhelming mess just trying to take inventory (and I realized about a quarter of the way through the list that I apparently wasn't understanding them as well as I thought I was, because I kept finding out that the numbers they were bringing up were numbers I had already crossed off the list!) as the four movers kept quickly bringing in box after box and asking,"Where?" Then, it was even more overwhelming trying to figure out how I wanted to "decorate" (as the movers put it), so that they could begin unpacking and putting together our large furniture items. After one of the movers *almost* broke Ashlynn's trundle bed, I decided that it would be best if I just unpacked everything myself and at my own leisure.
2. I have partially unpacked said shipment...there are boxes EVERYWHERE, and not all the boxes are unpacked, yet. Movers can't come pick up the boxes until everything is unpacked, because they'll only come out once. I haven't been home long enough to get anything done! Chris just informed me this evening that movers are coming tomorrow between 2:00 and 3:00 to pick up boxes. Great.
3. We picked up my new iPhone last week, but I couldn't set it up, because it has to be connected to iTunes before it will work. When we found out that our shipment was arriving on Friday, we decided to wait and sync up my phone on our iTunes account on our desktop computer. So, I had to wait a few more days to get my phone working...
4. Having made a special trip to an electronics store to buy a "special" plug to hook up our desktop computer, we got ready for the moment of truth, and then...a spark, smoke and the living room went dark. We blew up the computer.
5. Since we blew up the computer, we decided to hook up my phone by downloading iTunes to the laptop. My phone finally works, but I don't know if it will ever sync up to our old iTunes account, since we had to set up a new one. :-(
6. The day after we got my phone working, I realized that, for whatever reason, I am not able to send or receive emails. :-(
7. Then, the day before school started, I found out that my email account is denying ALL emails from our school, so I have missed ALL the emails from the school since we arrived, including the emails that informed us of who their teachers were AND the invitation to the brief elementary school parent rotation scheduled for the first day of school.
8. We went out shopping for school supplies and only got a partial supply, because we couldn't find everything we needed.
9. I dropped the kids off at school yesterday for their first day, and experienced, yet, ANOTHER first day of school where I had to carry Avery screaming into the school building. This time was MAGNIFIED, because it started in the parking lot where ALL of the other parents were standing with their smiling, excited children, and no matter what I did, I couldn't bribe Avery into the courtyard of the school, much less into the building. No one knows our story of how he has done this for the past FOUR years, and now I seem heartless. I had an appointment with the counselor at 1:00 today...thank goodness I met her the first day, and we've already talked several times, or else I might be concerned that she might need to call in the authorities! We came up with a game plan of me dropping him off at his classroom door, giving kisses and then I have to leave. Essentially, it's the same plan I've had for the last four years, except that at this school, it is different from other parents' plans, because drop-off occurs at the playground outside. She pulled him out of class this afternoon to gently inform him of the "new plan," and he seemed fine with it. We'll see in the morning.
Are you still with me, because I'm not done, yet...
10. I have now successfully managed to run into the garage not once but TWICE with my "new" van, because I am having to maneuver a "yacht" (which is STILL considerably smaller than my "old" van) into a small parallel parking place that has a wall with a metal step stool on one end and a large concrete pillar on the other. Oh, and the kids' three bikes are ALSO on one end of the parking place, because there is no where else to keep them. OH, and there is ALSO another car parked right across from my parking place. The first time I hit the van, just a couple of days ago, I backed into the metal stepstool. This morning when I hit the garage, I managed to sideswipe the concrete pillar, which scraped the paint off of the door and also broke my driver's side mirror. Uuugh...
11. This past week, I went to lunch with a "new" friend, sat outside, and I got stung by a wasp. For the record, I've NEVER been stung by a wasp before.
12. I've also met SO many people that I can't remember anyone's name, where they're from or even if they have a kid in one of my kid's classes. The people here are very friendly, but frankly, I haven't been feeling super sociable this week.
But...
I'm trying to remain focused on the fact that God CLEARLY brought us here, and I still have no idea why he sent US. I was reminded today of Nehemiah. He was called by God to go and rebuild the wall of Jerusalem. He was obedient, and he answered the call. He was also faced with lots of conflict along the way.
I have been expecting the conflict.
I just hope it moves on...quickly.
On a side note, Ashlynn and Aaron have had a great time at school. Ashlynn really likes her classes, and Aaron really likes his teacher. Aaron's teacher, Mr. Davison, is British, and he reminds me a ton of Bear Grylls on the Discovery Channel. :-)
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Life in Holland
First of all, let me say that OUR FREIGHT IS DUE TO BE DELIVERED TOMORROW!! This is really huge, because we were told that it could take up to two months, and of course, we've heard horror stories from others who have been in our same shoes. This is also peak time, so we were also told to expect delays. Anyway, we've been here almost three weeks, and our shipment was packed on August 18, so it hasn't even been a month, yet! I'm shocked. Really. Let's just hope that the movers actually show up with the right stuff tomorrow. :-)
So, since we've been here, the weather has been less than beautiful. We were told that July and August are the beautiful, warm and dry summer months, but what we've found is that THIS July and August have been cloudy, cold and wet...much more like Tennessee winter months. Apparently, "summer" for Holland was in April, May and June. At least Chris got to enjoy the "summer" here while we got to "experience" the most tornadic and deadliest month of April on record in the United States. The weather here is MUCH different than in Tennessee. Here it is windy most of the time. It could be beautiful here one minute, then the clouds could roll in and bring a short monsoonal rain. Also, the temperature here has rarely even reached 75 degrees Fahrenheit. (That is fantastic when it is sunny, but that can be pretty chilly when it's cloudy and windy.) Today, the weather is cloudy and 66 degrees Fahrenheit, and it has rained off and on...in fact, it just started raining. Again.
We've been busy here at home. We've gotten registered with the country and the town hall, added me to the bank account, bought a van, attempted TWICE to purchase me a cell phone, visited (several times) the grocery store--Albert Heijn (pronounced "Hine"), visited the local beach, visited a church, visited IKEA, visited the kids' school twice AND a few other things here and there.
One of the highlights so far has been taking the kids to the school. It is fantastic, and I can't even begin to tell you how much support they offer! The kids had their "intake" interview with the school counselors on Tuesday. We were greeted and assigned to a "Parent Welcomer" who took us on a tour of the school and also took us to our designated appointments at the appropriate time. The kids loved it, and they immediately felt at home. Ashlynn is going to be in middle school this year, and she is excited. She will have eight classes, but she will only have four classes each day, and each class is 75 minutes long. They have a rotating schedule, though, that is hard to explain. Basically, every class meets at a different time during the day so that over a two week period, every class is a morning class at some point. (If you're really interested in how this works, send me an email, but I won't bore you with the details.) Ashlynn will have math, language arts, science, social studies, PE/Health, Instrument/Choir, Dutch, and an elective that she gets to choose. She will have four different electives throughout the year including home economics, dance/movement, drama, and computers. (I think there was another to choose from, but I can't remember what it was.) Anyway, she is pretty pumped about it. :-) She also gets to go on a Project Trip that is an overnight trip to a camp in east Holland. She'll get to go to a monkey park with all kinds of different species of monkies, and she'll see the Van Goh Museum, too. (I never knew that Van Goh was Dutch until we got here! Wow!) She is really excited about this, too!
The boys will have their tour of the elementary part of the school next Tuesday, and we will meet their teachers then. I can't wait for them to see the Science room! I remember going through it when Chris and I were here in February, and having been a science teacher, I was overwhelmed at ALL the stuff and cool items they had in that room!! I thought I had a pretty good collection of elementary science equipment, but mine was nothing compared to this! So, so fun.
And, for me...they have Monday Morning Connections which is kind of like a sorority pledge class of sorts. It is mostly new parents who are coming together to meet other parents and to learn how to really make the most of living in the Netherlands. I'm really excited and can't wait for this to get started! (For those of you who know me best, you know THIS is right up my alley.)
Well, I'm going to run, but I'll post more later. Hopefully, once our shipment arrives, we can quickly locate our USB port, and I'll be able to post PICTURES!! :-)
So, since we've been here, the weather has been less than beautiful. We were told that July and August are the beautiful, warm and dry summer months, but what we've found is that THIS July and August have been cloudy, cold and wet...much more like Tennessee winter months. Apparently, "summer" for Holland was in April, May and June. At least Chris got to enjoy the "summer" here while we got to "experience" the most tornadic and deadliest month of April on record in the United States. The weather here is MUCH different than in Tennessee. Here it is windy most of the time. It could be beautiful here one minute, then the clouds could roll in and bring a short monsoonal rain. Also, the temperature here has rarely even reached 75 degrees Fahrenheit. (That is fantastic when it is sunny, but that can be pretty chilly when it's cloudy and windy.) Today, the weather is cloudy and 66 degrees Fahrenheit, and it has rained off and on...in fact, it just started raining. Again.
We've been busy here at home. We've gotten registered with the country and the town hall, added me to the bank account, bought a van, attempted TWICE to purchase me a cell phone, visited (several times) the grocery store--Albert Heijn (pronounced "Hine"), visited the local beach, visited a church, visited IKEA, visited the kids' school twice AND a few other things here and there.
One of the highlights so far has been taking the kids to the school. It is fantastic, and I can't even begin to tell you how much support they offer! The kids had their "intake" interview with the school counselors on Tuesday. We were greeted and assigned to a "Parent Welcomer" who took us on a tour of the school and also took us to our designated appointments at the appropriate time. The kids loved it, and they immediately felt at home. Ashlynn is going to be in middle school this year, and she is excited. She will have eight classes, but she will only have four classes each day, and each class is 75 minutes long. They have a rotating schedule, though, that is hard to explain. Basically, every class meets at a different time during the day so that over a two week period, every class is a morning class at some point. (If you're really interested in how this works, send me an email, but I won't bore you with the details.) Ashlynn will have math, language arts, science, social studies, PE/Health, Instrument/Choir, Dutch, and an elective that she gets to choose. She will have four different electives throughout the year including home economics, dance/movement, drama, and computers. (I think there was another to choose from, but I can't remember what it was.) Anyway, she is pretty pumped about it. :-) She also gets to go on a Project Trip that is an overnight trip to a camp in east Holland. She'll get to go to a monkey park with all kinds of different species of monkies, and she'll see the Van Goh Museum, too. (I never knew that Van Goh was Dutch until we got here! Wow!) She is really excited about this, too!
The boys will have their tour of the elementary part of the school next Tuesday, and we will meet their teachers then. I can't wait for them to see the Science room! I remember going through it when Chris and I were here in February, and having been a science teacher, I was overwhelmed at ALL the stuff and cool items they had in that room!! I thought I had a pretty good collection of elementary science equipment, but mine was nothing compared to this! So, so fun.
And, for me...they have Monday Morning Connections which is kind of like a sorority pledge class of sorts. It is mostly new parents who are coming together to meet other parents and to learn how to really make the most of living in the Netherlands. I'm really excited and can't wait for this to get started! (For those of you who know me best, you know THIS is right up my alley.)
Well, I'm going to run, but I'll post more later. Hopefully, once our shipment arrives, we can quickly locate our USB port, and I'll be able to post PICTURES!! :-)
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Finally...Paris, Day 4
**Warning! Another LONG post!**
Wow, there is just not enough time in the day to get down all the details that I want to write about! There have been so many "blog worthy" stories over the last fourteen days that I'll just have to write about later on.
In the meantime, let's try to wrap up this crazy Paris trip, shall we?
So, we began Day 4 the same way that we had begun Days 1, 2 and 3...at McDonald's. By now, though, we were feeling like expert french McDonald's breakfast orderers. We even got the correct items that we ordered this time, too! Oh, Happy Day! :-)
So, we left McDonald's and headed for the Metro. We had collectively decided the night before that we all wanted to go to the Louvre to see the awe inspiring Mona Lisa painting. Let me say that we were warned (by several!) that the Louvre was not the most kid friendly place in Paris, and we probably should wait until the kids were older before we ventured here. But, the kids were excited about it, and we figured that we should take advantage of the opportunity, so off we went to the enormous Louvre Museum.
When we first walked in, we were greeted by L-O-T-S of naked statues...even more than at the Musee Rodin! Of course, the kids were having a hay-day with this. Chris and I were mortified by the crassness of our crazy unrefined offspring, so we tried to look quickly and make lightly of the nude figures. Didn't help. And, Avery's laughing voice seemed to reach every corner of the huge museum, despite our efforts to stop it. Finally, we made it to what seemed like a much more "family friendly" area. Aaah...now we could take time to stop, look at our map and try to find the fastest route possible to Mona Lisa.
Well, really all we had to do was follow the hoards of people, because apparently, we were ALL at the museum for the same reason. Once we finally came to the famous picture, we could barely see it over the mob of people that had gathered in front of it. Chris made his way up fairly close and managed to snap a couple of pictures with our camera. Then, he held up each of the kids so they could see, and Aaron even snapped some pictures on his iPod. I have to admit that seeing the Mona Lisa was pretty awesome, but it would have been way better if I could have seen it minus all the heads of the people in front of me...and quite frankly, it looked JUST like all the other prints that we saw in every gift shop surrounding the Louvre. FYI, I made sure to take another good look at her in the gift shop on the way out, just for good measure. :-)
After seeing the Mona Lisa, we considered our visit to the Louvre a complete success...in fact, anything else that we got to see was just "extra!" So, since the kids were still in a fairly good mood, we decided to try to go for the Egyptian artifact area. Now, the Egyptian artifact area was REALLY interesting...we saw the Sphynx, some mummies and several Egyptian coffins. But, I guess the kids thought, "Well, if you've seen one coffin, you've seen 'em all," because they were ready to go not long after we got into that section.
So, we decided to leave there and begin our search for food. We left the museum and headed down to the bottom floor "mall" area to find the Metro. However, on our way through the mall, we happily discovered a food court, of sorts. We decided to check this out and "go for it!" We went up the escalator, and guess what the first sign we saw was?
McDonald's.
Kids were thrilled.
We were not.
I decided that I did NOT want McDonald's, again! (In fact, I really couldn't care less if I ate at another one...ever.) Poor Chris decided to take one for the team and suffer through another McDee's meal, just because it would be faster and easier. But, I told him that I was going to go out on my own and find something else. So, with Chris' bank card in hand, I went through the food court looking for something very French. I found a cute little shop that had salads and quiche...right up my alley! So, I jumped in line and began to scan the menu. Crud...my two years of high school French proved to be useless. I couldn't make heads or tails out of that menu. I tried to listen to the people in front of me to figure out how the meal plan worked. As I watched, it seemed to me that one could order salads for one or more people, but you could also add your main dish to your salad. I was hoping the order taker was going to speak fluent English, and she did speak English...just not fluently, and she seemed quite irritated with the tourists in front of me. I ordered salad for one, and I thought I had ordered meal number 1, which included a main dish, too. But, apparently, I hadn't, because she flopped my salad onto a plate, threw my plate on a tray and never looked up again to ask what I preferred for my main dish. I thought I had missed the main dish boat. Sad and disappointed, I walked on up behind the line. I told myself that a salad would be plenty and that it was, in fact, a larger than normal salad. I stepped up to pay for my salad, and the money taker said, "Do you wish to have something else with this?" OH, I was thrilled! "Why, yes, can I get slice of quiche Loraine, too?" So, I paid and confidently carried my tray of salad AND quiche back to my family feeling like I had just conquered the world. :-)
We ate and then we left.
We Metroed over to Napoleon's Tomb, because this was something that Chris really wanted to see. This really turned out to be quite interesting, and inside the building where Napoleon's tomb actually is, is quite beautiful! We didn't stay very long here...long enough to see the inside of the building and take a stroll through the gardens.
On our way out of the Tomb, the kids found a little old French lady selling popsicles, so they sweet talked their Daddy into getting them a frosty treat. I was pretty glad we had gotten them, though, because the Metro was a pretty good little walk down the way, and it had begun to get hot...for Paris, anyway. The kids had already begun to complain about being tired and hot while we were going through Napoleon's gardens, so I think the popsicles ended up being a smart move.
Then, we Metroed over to our final Parisian stop...Notre Dame. Notre Dame is breathtakingly beautiful on the outside, and we had every intention of walking up the three hundred some odd steps, but by this time, Avery was dragging, and the other two really weren't that interested in seeing another "rooftop view of Paris"...especially one that they had to climb themselves. So, we got in the line to go through the Cathedral, and we decided to forego the climb. Let me just say that the inside of the Notre Dame Cathedral was absolutely gorgeous! It was huge, too! Not being Catholic, I was unsure of what some of the rooms were actually used for, but I was overwhelmed at the beauty of the inside. I do have to say, though, that I was reminded of the story of Jesus becoming mad and overturning the tables inside the temple when He saw there were people making money off of "religious" things. Inside the Cathedral were a couple of machines where you could put in a penny and stretch out a design (for a small fee), and I was also surprised to see a Nun seated at the exit holding out a bowl. Is this normal? Maybe it was for those who needed to tithe, I guess.
Anyway, after Notre Dame, we noticed a quaint little French cafe across the street right beside a gelato stand. So, once again, the kids got ice cream, but I sat down at the cafe to have a French coffee and chocolate dessert. Aaaah...why had I waited until the end of the trip to do this?! J'adore Paris!
After our coffee break, we embarked, again. But, on the way out, we noticed a sign for public toilets! I asked around to see who needed to go, and of course, all of the boys needed to go. So, off they went, and Ashlynn and I walked over to the side of Notre Dame. We happened to notice that there were a TON of pigeons around. Ashlynn loves animals, so she was drawn like a magnet to that area. As we got closer, we noticed that there were also TONS of people over there, and several kids were holding out their hands and feeding the birds. Ashlynn just watched and kept creeping closer to "the scene." As we were watching everything, we noticed an older gentleman with white hair sitting on the fountain in front of us. He had a blue bag that was filled with something. We noticed that he was giving the children some of what was in his bag, and the kids were feeding the birds. Ashlynn kept watching, and finally, the man kind of motioned for her to come over and take a handful of the bird seed. Ashlynn was thrilled, and she quickly walked over to get a scoop! She immediately held her hand up, and pretty soon, she had a pigeon on her arm eating the rice out of her hand! Before long, another one landed on her arm!
She. Was. Thrilled!
In fact, if you ask her what her favorite things about Paris were, she'll say, "the Eiffel Tower and feeding the birds!"
So fun.
After the boys came out of the bathroom, they watched everyone feed the birds. They thought it was neat that Ashlynn had gotten to do that, but they wanted no part of it.
Once the rice was gone, we were on our way, again. We decided to head back to our hotel room and then eat dinner at a place close by.
Not McDonald's.
The kids had already been forewarned.
So, after making a pit stop at the hotel, we walked down the street looking for a restaurant. There was an interesting looking French restaurant on the street that Chris really wanted to try, but after stopping and looking at the menu outside, I whispered to him that I hated to pay THOSE prices for food that the kids probably wouldn't eat. It didn't help that Avery was hanging on my leg wailing, "This is the worst food EVER! I don't want to eat HERE!" So, we kept walking.
We spotted the Indiana Cafe, which seemed fairly American, also. We checked out their menu and found out that they did have kids' meals, so we decided to eat there!
We walked in, and the hostess seated us in the VERY back corner of the restaurant. There were some tables around us, but they were all empty, so we had the back of the place all to ourselves. It was great! So, we ordered and ate, and we had a great time! The kids even got Ben and Jerry's ice cream that came WITH their kids' meals, too! What a great place!
Until...
We got up to leave. I scooted my chair out to stand up, and I turned around in my seat to get my purse that I had left hanging on the back of my chair.
It. Wasn't. There.
My heart sank.
I quickly looked at Chris and asked if he knew where it was. He said he didn't, and we all began to frantically search for it under and around the table.
I got up and quickly went over to our waitress and told her. She seemed a little surprised and, honestly, indifferent. She went to get her manager, and I told him. He asked if I had left it in the bathroom, which I had not. He seemed indifferent, too. He told Chris that they had that happen several times at the tables outside, but it had never happened inside the restaurant. We ended up leaving our name and hotel, and of course, they said if they found it, they'd call.
They never called.
Fortunately, we'd been given a tip NOT to carry anything valuable in a purse. So, we had made photocopies of our passports and opted to carry the copies instead of the real things. We left our passports, driver's licenses, keys, DS's, and iPods in the safe in the hotel room. UNfortunately, I happened to have Chris' iPhone, and, even worse, Aaron's iPod in my purse.
Chris was obviously upset about having his phone taken, but Aaron was devastated. Who could blame him?!
As we left the restaurant in a kind of dumbfounded stupor, we began to replay the events that had taken place. Not one of us saw anyone come over to the table. And, we were totally isolated in that restaurant (which is why I took my purse off to begin with), so we would have seen someone come by. The ONLY one over there was our waitress.
The WAITRESS!
Well, of course, it would have been our word against hers, so we decided not to go and accuse her. We did, however, decide to go and file a police report for insurance purposes. Chris ended up going to the police station to file the report, but they wouldn't accept it from him, because it wasn't his purse. They told him to have me come down, but they were busy at the moment, so I needed to come back at 11:00PM.
What?!
So, at 11:00, all five of us headed down to the police station.
It. Was. Crazy.
No one spoke fluent English. We don't speak fluent French. Good grief.
We FINALLY got the police report filled out. While we were waiting on a copy of the police report, I turned to Chris and just started laughing. I said, "Boy...we got to see ALL of Paris, including the hospital AND the police station. How's that for our first European vacation?"
Lesson learned? Always carry a copy of your passports and not the real thing *AND* NEVER trust your waiter or waitress.
Also, don't eat at the Indiana Cafe by the Grands Boulevard Metro stop.
Wow, there is just not enough time in the day to get down all the details that I want to write about! There have been so many "blog worthy" stories over the last fourteen days that I'll just have to write about later on.
In the meantime, let's try to wrap up this crazy Paris trip, shall we?
So, we began Day 4 the same way that we had begun Days 1, 2 and 3...at McDonald's. By now, though, we were feeling like expert french McDonald's breakfast orderers. We even got the correct items that we ordered this time, too! Oh, Happy Day! :-)
So, we left McDonald's and headed for the Metro. We had collectively decided the night before that we all wanted to go to the Louvre to see the awe inspiring Mona Lisa painting. Let me say that we were warned (by several!) that the Louvre was not the most kid friendly place in Paris, and we probably should wait until the kids were older before we ventured here. But, the kids were excited about it, and we figured that we should take advantage of the opportunity, so off we went to the enormous Louvre Museum.
When we first walked in, we were greeted by L-O-T-S of naked statues...even more than at the Musee Rodin! Of course, the kids were having a hay-day with this. Chris and I were mortified by the crassness of our crazy unrefined offspring, so we tried to look quickly and make lightly of the nude figures. Didn't help. And, Avery's laughing voice seemed to reach every corner of the huge museum, despite our efforts to stop it. Finally, we made it to what seemed like a much more "family friendly" area. Aaah...now we could take time to stop, look at our map and try to find the fastest route possible to Mona Lisa.
Well, really all we had to do was follow the hoards of people, because apparently, we were ALL at the museum for the same reason. Once we finally came to the famous picture, we could barely see it over the mob of people that had gathered in front of it. Chris made his way up fairly close and managed to snap a couple of pictures with our camera. Then, he held up each of the kids so they could see, and Aaron even snapped some pictures on his iPod. I have to admit that seeing the Mona Lisa was pretty awesome, but it would have been way better if I could have seen it minus all the heads of the people in front of me...and quite frankly, it looked JUST like all the other prints that we saw in every gift shop surrounding the Louvre. FYI, I made sure to take another good look at her in the gift shop on the way out, just for good measure. :-)
After seeing the Mona Lisa, we considered our visit to the Louvre a complete success...in fact, anything else that we got to see was just "extra!" So, since the kids were still in a fairly good mood, we decided to try to go for the Egyptian artifact area. Now, the Egyptian artifact area was REALLY interesting...we saw the Sphynx, some mummies and several Egyptian coffins. But, I guess the kids thought, "Well, if you've seen one coffin, you've seen 'em all," because they were ready to go not long after we got into that section.
So, we decided to leave there and begin our search for food. We left the museum and headed down to the bottom floor "mall" area to find the Metro. However, on our way through the mall, we happily discovered a food court, of sorts. We decided to check this out and "go for it!" We went up the escalator, and guess what the first sign we saw was?
McDonald's.
Kids were thrilled.
We were not.
I decided that I did NOT want McDonald's, again! (In fact, I really couldn't care less if I ate at another one...ever.) Poor Chris decided to take one for the team and suffer through another McDee's meal, just because it would be faster and easier. But, I told him that I was going to go out on my own and find something else. So, with Chris' bank card in hand, I went through the food court looking for something very French. I found a cute little shop that had salads and quiche...right up my alley! So, I jumped in line and began to scan the menu. Crud...my two years of high school French proved to be useless. I couldn't make heads or tails out of that menu. I tried to listen to the people in front of me to figure out how the meal plan worked. As I watched, it seemed to me that one could order salads for one or more people, but you could also add your main dish to your salad. I was hoping the order taker was going to speak fluent English, and she did speak English...just not fluently, and she seemed quite irritated with the tourists in front of me. I ordered salad for one, and I thought I had ordered meal number 1, which included a main dish, too. But, apparently, I hadn't, because she flopped my salad onto a plate, threw my plate on a tray and never looked up again to ask what I preferred for my main dish. I thought I had missed the main dish boat. Sad and disappointed, I walked on up behind the line. I told myself that a salad would be plenty and that it was, in fact, a larger than normal salad. I stepped up to pay for my salad, and the money taker said, "Do you wish to have something else with this?" OH, I was thrilled! "Why, yes, can I get slice of quiche Loraine, too?" So, I paid and confidently carried my tray of salad AND quiche back to my family feeling like I had just conquered the world. :-)
We ate and then we left.
We Metroed over to Napoleon's Tomb, because this was something that Chris really wanted to see. This really turned out to be quite interesting, and inside the building where Napoleon's tomb actually is, is quite beautiful! We didn't stay very long here...long enough to see the inside of the building and take a stroll through the gardens.
On our way out of the Tomb, the kids found a little old French lady selling popsicles, so they sweet talked their Daddy into getting them a frosty treat. I was pretty glad we had gotten them, though, because the Metro was a pretty good little walk down the way, and it had begun to get hot...for Paris, anyway. The kids had already begun to complain about being tired and hot while we were going through Napoleon's gardens, so I think the popsicles ended up being a smart move.
Then, we Metroed over to our final Parisian stop...Notre Dame. Notre Dame is breathtakingly beautiful on the outside, and we had every intention of walking up the three hundred some odd steps, but by this time, Avery was dragging, and the other two really weren't that interested in seeing another "rooftop view of Paris"...especially one that they had to climb themselves. So, we got in the line to go through the Cathedral, and we decided to forego the climb. Let me just say that the inside of the Notre Dame Cathedral was absolutely gorgeous! It was huge, too! Not being Catholic, I was unsure of what some of the rooms were actually used for, but I was overwhelmed at the beauty of the inside. I do have to say, though, that I was reminded of the story of Jesus becoming mad and overturning the tables inside the temple when He saw there were people making money off of "religious" things. Inside the Cathedral were a couple of machines where you could put in a penny and stretch out a design (for a small fee), and I was also surprised to see a Nun seated at the exit holding out a bowl. Is this normal? Maybe it was for those who needed to tithe, I guess.
Anyway, after Notre Dame, we noticed a quaint little French cafe across the street right beside a gelato stand. So, once again, the kids got ice cream, but I sat down at the cafe to have a French coffee and chocolate dessert. Aaaah...why had I waited until the end of the trip to do this?! J'adore Paris!
After our coffee break, we embarked, again. But, on the way out, we noticed a sign for public toilets! I asked around to see who needed to go, and of course, all of the boys needed to go. So, off they went, and Ashlynn and I walked over to the side of Notre Dame. We happened to notice that there were a TON of pigeons around. Ashlynn loves animals, so she was drawn like a magnet to that area. As we got closer, we noticed that there were also TONS of people over there, and several kids were holding out their hands and feeding the birds. Ashlynn just watched and kept creeping closer to "the scene." As we were watching everything, we noticed an older gentleman with white hair sitting on the fountain in front of us. He had a blue bag that was filled with something. We noticed that he was giving the children some of what was in his bag, and the kids were feeding the birds. Ashlynn kept watching, and finally, the man kind of motioned for her to come over and take a handful of the bird seed. Ashlynn was thrilled, and she quickly walked over to get a scoop! She immediately held her hand up, and pretty soon, she had a pigeon on her arm eating the rice out of her hand! Before long, another one landed on her arm!
She. Was. Thrilled!
In fact, if you ask her what her favorite things about Paris were, she'll say, "the Eiffel Tower and feeding the birds!"
So fun.
After the boys came out of the bathroom, they watched everyone feed the birds. They thought it was neat that Ashlynn had gotten to do that, but they wanted no part of it.
Once the rice was gone, we were on our way, again. We decided to head back to our hotel room and then eat dinner at a place close by.
Not McDonald's.
The kids had already been forewarned.
So, after making a pit stop at the hotel, we walked down the street looking for a restaurant. There was an interesting looking French restaurant on the street that Chris really wanted to try, but after stopping and looking at the menu outside, I whispered to him that I hated to pay THOSE prices for food that the kids probably wouldn't eat. It didn't help that Avery was hanging on my leg wailing, "This is the worst food EVER! I don't want to eat HERE!" So, we kept walking.
We spotted the Indiana Cafe, which seemed fairly American, also. We checked out their menu and found out that they did have kids' meals, so we decided to eat there!
We walked in, and the hostess seated us in the VERY back corner of the restaurant. There were some tables around us, but they were all empty, so we had the back of the place all to ourselves. It was great! So, we ordered and ate, and we had a great time! The kids even got Ben and Jerry's ice cream that came WITH their kids' meals, too! What a great place!
Until...
We got up to leave. I scooted my chair out to stand up, and I turned around in my seat to get my purse that I had left hanging on the back of my chair.
It. Wasn't. There.
My heart sank.
I quickly looked at Chris and asked if he knew where it was. He said he didn't, and we all began to frantically search for it under and around the table.
I got up and quickly went over to our waitress and told her. She seemed a little surprised and, honestly, indifferent. She went to get her manager, and I told him. He asked if I had left it in the bathroom, which I had not. He seemed indifferent, too. He told Chris that they had that happen several times at the tables outside, but it had never happened inside the restaurant. We ended up leaving our name and hotel, and of course, they said if they found it, they'd call.
They never called.
Fortunately, we'd been given a tip NOT to carry anything valuable in a purse. So, we had made photocopies of our passports and opted to carry the copies instead of the real things. We left our passports, driver's licenses, keys, DS's, and iPods in the safe in the hotel room. UNfortunately, I happened to have Chris' iPhone, and, even worse, Aaron's iPod in my purse.
Chris was obviously upset about having his phone taken, but Aaron was devastated. Who could blame him?!
As we left the restaurant in a kind of dumbfounded stupor, we began to replay the events that had taken place. Not one of us saw anyone come over to the table. And, we were totally isolated in that restaurant (which is why I took my purse off to begin with), so we would have seen someone come by. The ONLY one over there was our waitress.
The WAITRESS!
Well, of course, it would have been our word against hers, so we decided not to go and accuse her. We did, however, decide to go and file a police report for insurance purposes. Chris ended up going to the police station to file the report, but they wouldn't accept it from him, because it wasn't his purse. They told him to have me come down, but they were busy at the moment, so I needed to come back at 11:00PM.
What?!
So, at 11:00, all five of us headed down to the police station.
It. Was. Crazy.
No one spoke fluent English. We don't speak fluent French. Good grief.
We FINALLY got the police report filled out. While we were waiting on a copy of the police report, I turned to Chris and just started laughing. I said, "Boy...we got to see ALL of Paris, including the hospital AND the police station. How's that for our first European vacation?"
Lesson learned? Always carry a copy of your passports and not the real thing *AND* NEVER trust your waiter or waitress.
Also, don't eat at the Indiana Cafe by the Grands Boulevard Metro stop.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Paris--Day 2 Continued and Day 3
**WARNING-This is a VERY LONG post!! Proceed with caution...and a bag of popcorn!!**
The Thursday night that we were in Paris ended up being a much longer night than we had anticipated. After leaving McDonald's and getting back to the Hotel Citidines room, we got everyone ready for bed, which is no small feat, in itself. I think we finally had everyone in bed and asleep by 11:30, but at 12:30, Ashlynn was STILL coughing her head off! (And, did I mention that we had no air conditioner *AND* we couldn't open the windows, because of all of the honking and loud motorcycles and people being loud in the streets, so the warmer she got, the more she coughed.)
*Side note* Ashlynn had begun coughing (just a little) on the Thursday evening before we left to come to the Netherlands. I was a little worried that she was going to cough on the entire flight over, but fortunately, she did not. She did, however, start coughing the Sunday night after we arrived, and she literally hasn't stopped. We had filled up a *large* suitcase with all kinds of drugs that we took with us on our trip over. I even told Chris that I hoped the people in Customs didn't think we were dealers, because we literally could have opened a small pharmacy once we arrived here. We had Robitussin for adults, Robitussin for kids, Benadryl, Children's Tylenol, Children's Advil, Adult Tylenol, Adult Advil, Bug Bite Medicine, a nebulizer, boxes and boxes of liquid Albuterol for the nebulizer, asthma inhalers, and ALL kinds of other junk.
So, since Ashlynn had such a bad cough, we had already been experimenting with the different kinds of cough medicine and nebulizers. Up to that point, NOTHING had worked. Fortunately, the ONLY symptom she had was a horrible cough...no fever, no runny nose, not feeling badly. We just kept thinking, "Oh, she'll get better..." Well, finally on Thursday night (after she had coughed ALL day on Thursday), I told Chris that I thought maybe she might need to see a doctor. I was a little worried that maybe she had walking pneumonia, so I really wanted to just rule that out and make sure she was okay.
**ANOTHER Side Note** I had remembered our friend Riemke (she is our local Dutch contact, who is literally supposed to "hold our hands" through this transition. She is FANTASTIC, and I don't know what we'd do without her!!) saying that if we decided we needed to take her to the doctor that we probably should just take her to the emergency room at the hospital...not because she was in need of emergency care, but because we weren't legal residents here, just yet, and because lots of doctors are currently on "holiday" or as we call it in the States...vacation. She felt like I would be more comfortable talking with the Mamas at the kids' school and trying to get a recommendation for a doctor rather than just randomly trying to find one.
So, with all that said, I suggested to Chris that since her cough was so bad that we probably should have her checked out, and probably the best place to go was to the emergency room.
So...Chris went down to the front desk at 12:30AM and told the concierge about our situation. He did say that they could call a doctor (I guess to do a "house call" of sorts), but that would be terribly expensive and he really didn't recommend that. He suggested that Chris and Ashlynn ride in a taxi to the Children's Hospital, which was about 20 minutes away. So, that was what we decided to do. Before they left, I had told Chris to leave me some money so that I could take the boys across the street in the morning to get some beloved McDonald's for breakfast, because we just really weren't sure how long it would take or when they would return from the emergency room.
Well, after they left, I settled in and tried to get at least a little sleep while they were gone. At around 2:15AM, I was abruptly awakened by the sound of light knocking on our door. I jumped up, peeked out the peep hole and let them back in. I was shocked that they were already back!!
Chris said that from the time they walked in to the hospital, filled out all the paperwork and went back to see the doctor, only about ten minutes had gone by. Crazy fast! The doctor checked her out and quickly determined it was, in fact, only a virus, and she wrote out two prescriptions...one for cough and one for her sore throat (that she had due to her bad cough). When I asked Chris how much they charged, he quietly answered, "Nothing." Wow. Our experience with the Parisian children's hospital could not have been better.
So, the next morning, Chris set out to walk a couple of blocks over to visit the pharmacy and have the prescriptions filled. Again, he was only gone for about thirty minutes...total. He got ready to give her a dose of the cough medicine, and he apologized several times for the taste, because he wasn't sure how badly it was going to be. So, armed with several cups of water to wash it down, Ashlynn took the cough medicine. Immediately after she took it, she smiled and licked her lips. She said, "Mmmm...it tastes like chocolate!" After looking at the box, I noticed it was "caramel flavored." I tell ya...the French know how to do healthcare, apparently. :-)
Well, by this time, we had already put in a full day's work, and we hadn't even begun our Day 3 itinerary, yet!
Because of the night before, Friday went a little more slowly. And, as you might have guessed, our morning began with McDonald's. At least by this time, we were a little more comfortable with what to ask for. The problem, this time, was that Chris had ordered ten packs of pancakes (because the kids loved these so much), but apparently, they only had five packs. Who knows how many we were actually charged for, though?
Anyway, then we set out for the Metro, again, and we headed over to L'Arc de Triomphe down the Champs-Elysees. The Champs-Elysees is the most famous road in France (and maybe in Europe...I can't remember what they said about that), and it is quite the ritzy place. We didn't eat or drink anything there (although we DID see a McDonald's!), but we were told that a regular coffee with creme would cost 8 Euro. We paid 4 Euro at another French cafe for the same drink. Anyway, we did walk down the street and window shopped. I told Chris that I wanted him to pick me out something "really nice" at the Cartier store. He didn't.
So, we arrived at the cool Arc de Triomphe, and we got in line to buy tickets so we could climb up. The line wasn't bad there...maybe five minutes. After having our tickets torn, we began the trek up. Think climbing to the top of a lighthouse. There was one spiral stone staircase that seemed endless. Of course, Ashlynn and Aaron ran up ahead of us, but they had to keep slowing down to wait on "Granny." We finally made it to the top, and it was beautiful! We took several pictures there. We also got in trouble for eating...It may have been posted that there was no eating at the top, but I either didn't see it or couldn't read it. Anyway, after the lady tapped me and said, "Madame, s'il vous plait...no eating on the Arc," we quickly stuffed our granola bars in my purse and went on. (Although I did notice that she had to tell that to at least two other families while we were up there...maybe they should make the sign more visible.)
Anyway, after leaving the Arc, we had planned to go to the Musee Rodin where Avery's beloved statue of "The Thinker" is on display. (His favorite part in the movie "Night At the Museum 2" is where "The Thinker" comes alive. He, of course, has most of that movie memorized.) But, on the way to the Rodin, I decided it would be fun to make a pit stop in the Jardin des Tuileries. This literally translates into the "Garden of the Tuileries," and it is like Central Park in New York City. It was beautiful! There were huge circular ponds lined with chairs, lots of statues, tons of trees and lots of people just enjoying the atmosphere. There was also on the edge of the park a mini-amusement park complete with a log water ride and a ferris wheel. Ashlynn REALLY wanted to ride the ferris wheel, so she and Chris went on to ride that. In the meantime, the boys and I happened upon a sweet little playground with some really cool (and unfamiliar!) playground equipment. The boys decided they wanted to play in there! So, we went and experimented with all the cool and different stuff! There was one piece that looked like a huge tilted plate on a stick, and the plate would spin in a circle. The boys eventually climbed on this, and I spun them around and around. They LOVED it! There was also another piece that had bouncy toys that they could sit on and bounce around and up and down...kind of like riding a horse. One in particular had three different "seats" to bounce on. As the boys were on this, another little guy (about Aaron's age) came wandering over. I heard him ask Aaron if he spoke English. Aaron told him he did, and he quickly jumped on the vacant seat beside Aaron. Turns out, his name was Sebastian and he was from Texas. His family was there on vacation. I never did meet any of his family...he said his Dad and Uncle were "in the park" but "over there," and his Mom was apparently at the spa. "Oh," I thought. He also told the boys that his family had just come back from Disney World a couple of weeks earlier. Anyway, the boys played until Chris and Ashlynn came back. Ashlynn LOVED the ferris wheel, but they were thrilled to tell us about the cool "jumpy things" they had found! So, we walked over to the "jumpy things" which turned out to be individual kiddie sized trampolines. We paid 2 Euro per child and let them jump for five minutes. They had a ball!
After that, we walked back over to the mini-amusement park and had hot dogs for lunch. (We also found a bathroom, and decided to take advantage of that while we could.)
Then, it was on to the Musee Rodin! I had read in a book that the trick to taking kids to the Musee Rodin was to only go to the garden. "The Thinker" and most of Rodin's most famous scultures were found there, and then, the kids wouldn't get too terribly bored. That was a fantastic tip! It cost Chris and I 2 Euro (total!) to get in to the Rodin Garden. We immediately found "The Thinker," and Avery handed me the video camera (already prepped!), climbed up onto the steps of the statue and proceeded to reenact "The Thinker" scene from "Night At the Museum 2."
It. Was. Priceless!
The kids did enjoy the Rodin Garden, but I'm so glad we didn't pay for the entire museum.
We then hopped onto the Metro and headed back toward our Hotel, because we had planned to eat at...are you ready?
Hard Rock Cafe!!
It was fantastic!! Our waiter's name was James, and he was fabulous! He had been with the company for 23 years and had helped "open" lots of Hard Rock Cafes all around the world...including the one in Vegas. We were pleasantly surprised to find English menus, "American sized portions," and FREE REFILLS (which is unheard of in Europe!)! Food was good. Service was great!
Aaaah, Paris! :-)
The Thursday night that we were in Paris ended up being a much longer night than we had anticipated. After leaving McDonald's and getting back to the Hotel Citidines room, we got everyone ready for bed, which is no small feat, in itself. I think we finally had everyone in bed and asleep by 11:30, but at 12:30, Ashlynn was STILL coughing her head off! (And, did I mention that we had no air conditioner *AND* we couldn't open the windows, because of all of the honking and loud motorcycles and people being loud in the streets, so the warmer she got, the more she coughed.)
*Side note* Ashlynn had begun coughing (just a little) on the Thursday evening before we left to come to the Netherlands. I was a little worried that she was going to cough on the entire flight over, but fortunately, she did not. She did, however, start coughing the Sunday night after we arrived, and she literally hasn't stopped. We had filled up a *large* suitcase with all kinds of drugs that we took with us on our trip over. I even told Chris that I hoped the people in Customs didn't think we were dealers, because we literally could have opened a small pharmacy once we arrived here. We had Robitussin for adults, Robitussin for kids, Benadryl, Children's Tylenol, Children's Advil, Adult Tylenol, Adult Advil, Bug Bite Medicine, a nebulizer, boxes and boxes of liquid Albuterol for the nebulizer, asthma inhalers, and ALL kinds of other junk.
So, since Ashlynn had such a bad cough, we had already been experimenting with the different kinds of cough medicine and nebulizers. Up to that point, NOTHING had worked. Fortunately, the ONLY symptom she had was a horrible cough...no fever, no runny nose, not feeling badly. We just kept thinking, "Oh, she'll get better..." Well, finally on Thursday night (after she had coughed ALL day on Thursday), I told Chris that I thought maybe she might need to see a doctor. I was a little worried that maybe she had walking pneumonia, so I really wanted to just rule that out and make sure she was okay.
**ANOTHER Side Note** I had remembered our friend Riemke (she is our local Dutch contact, who is literally supposed to "hold our hands" through this transition. She is FANTASTIC, and I don't know what we'd do without her!!) saying that if we decided we needed to take her to the doctor that we probably should just take her to the emergency room at the hospital...not because she was in need of emergency care, but because we weren't legal residents here, just yet, and because lots of doctors are currently on "holiday" or as we call it in the States...vacation. She felt like I would be more comfortable talking with the Mamas at the kids' school and trying to get a recommendation for a doctor rather than just randomly trying to find one.
So, with all that said, I suggested to Chris that since her cough was so bad that we probably should have her checked out, and probably the best place to go was to the emergency room.
So...Chris went down to the front desk at 12:30AM and told the concierge about our situation. He did say that they could call a doctor (I guess to do a "house call" of sorts), but that would be terribly expensive and he really didn't recommend that. He suggested that Chris and Ashlynn ride in a taxi to the Children's Hospital, which was about 20 minutes away. So, that was what we decided to do. Before they left, I had told Chris to leave me some money so that I could take the boys across the street in the morning to get some beloved McDonald's for breakfast, because we just really weren't sure how long it would take or when they would return from the emergency room.
Well, after they left, I settled in and tried to get at least a little sleep while they were gone. At around 2:15AM, I was abruptly awakened by the sound of light knocking on our door. I jumped up, peeked out the peep hole and let them back in. I was shocked that they were already back!!
Chris said that from the time they walked in to the hospital, filled out all the paperwork and went back to see the doctor, only about ten minutes had gone by. Crazy fast! The doctor checked her out and quickly determined it was, in fact, only a virus, and she wrote out two prescriptions...one for cough and one for her sore throat (that she had due to her bad cough). When I asked Chris how much they charged, he quietly answered, "Nothing." Wow. Our experience with the Parisian children's hospital could not have been better.
So, the next morning, Chris set out to walk a couple of blocks over to visit the pharmacy and have the prescriptions filled. Again, he was only gone for about thirty minutes...total. He got ready to give her a dose of the cough medicine, and he apologized several times for the taste, because he wasn't sure how badly it was going to be. So, armed with several cups of water to wash it down, Ashlynn took the cough medicine. Immediately after she took it, she smiled and licked her lips. She said, "Mmmm...it tastes like chocolate!" After looking at the box, I noticed it was "caramel flavored." I tell ya...the French know how to do healthcare, apparently. :-)
Well, by this time, we had already put in a full day's work, and we hadn't even begun our Day 3 itinerary, yet!
Because of the night before, Friday went a little more slowly. And, as you might have guessed, our morning began with McDonald's. At least by this time, we were a little more comfortable with what to ask for. The problem, this time, was that Chris had ordered ten packs of pancakes (because the kids loved these so much), but apparently, they only had five packs. Who knows how many we were actually charged for, though?
Anyway, then we set out for the Metro, again, and we headed over to L'Arc de Triomphe down the Champs-Elysees. The Champs-Elysees is the most famous road in France (and maybe in Europe...I can't remember what they said about that), and it is quite the ritzy place. We didn't eat or drink anything there (although we DID see a McDonald's!), but we were told that a regular coffee with creme would cost 8 Euro. We paid 4 Euro at another French cafe for the same drink. Anyway, we did walk down the street and window shopped. I told Chris that I wanted him to pick me out something "really nice" at the Cartier store. He didn't.
So, we arrived at the cool Arc de Triomphe, and we got in line to buy tickets so we could climb up. The line wasn't bad there...maybe five minutes. After having our tickets torn, we began the trek up. Think climbing to the top of a lighthouse. There was one spiral stone staircase that seemed endless. Of course, Ashlynn and Aaron ran up ahead of us, but they had to keep slowing down to wait on "Granny." We finally made it to the top, and it was beautiful! We took several pictures there. We also got in trouble for eating...It may have been posted that there was no eating at the top, but I either didn't see it or couldn't read it. Anyway, after the lady tapped me and said, "Madame, s'il vous plait...no eating on the Arc," we quickly stuffed our granola bars in my purse and went on. (Although I did notice that she had to tell that to at least two other families while we were up there...maybe they should make the sign more visible.)
Anyway, after leaving the Arc, we had planned to go to the Musee Rodin where Avery's beloved statue of "The Thinker" is on display. (His favorite part in the movie "Night At the Museum 2" is where "The Thinker" comes alive. He, of course, has most of that movie memorized.) But, on the way to the Rodin, I decided it would be fun to make a pit stop in the Jardin des Tuileries. This literally translates into the "Garden of the Tuileries," and it is like Central Park in New York City. It was beautiful! There were huge circular ponds lined with chairs, lots of statues, tons of trees and lots of people just enjoying the atmosphere. There was also on the edge of the park a mini-amusement park complete with a log water ride and a ferris wheel. Ashlynn REALLY wanted to ride the ferris wheel, so she and Chris went on to ride that. In the meantime, the boys and I happened upon a sweet little playground with some really cool (and unfamiliar!) playground equipment. The boys decided they wanted to play in there! So, we went and experimented with all the cool and different stuff! There was one piece that looked like a huge tilted plate on a stick, and the plate would spin in a circle. The boys eventually climbed on this, and I spun them around and around. They LOVED it! There was also another piece that had bouncy toys that they could sit on and bounce around and up and down...kind of like riding a horse. One in particular had three different "seats" to bounce on. As the boys were on this, another little guy (about Aaron's age) came wandering over. I heard him ask Aaron if he spoke English. Aaron told him he did, and he quickly jumped on the vacant seat beside Aaron. Turns out, his name was Sebastian and he was from Texas. His family was there on vacation. I never did meet any of his family...he said his Dad and Uncle were "in the park" but "over there," and his Mom was apparently at the spa. "Oh," I thought. He also told the boys that his family had just come back from Disney World a couple of weeks earlier. Anyway, the boys played until Chris and Ashlynn came back. Ashlynn LOVED the ferris wheel, but they were thrilled to tell us about the cool "jumpy things" they had found! So, we walked over to the "jumpy things" which turned out to be individual kiddie sized trampolines. We paid 2 Euro per child and let them jump for five minutes. They had a ball!
After that, we walked back over to the mini-amusement park and had hot dogs for lunch. (We also found a bathroom, and decided to take advantage of that while we could.)
Then, it was on to the Musee Rodin! I had read in a book that the trick to taking kids to the Musee Rodin was to only go to the garden. "The Thinker" and most of Rodin's most famous scultures were found there, and then, the kids wouldn't get too terribly bored. That was a fantastic tip! It cost Chris and I 2 Euro (total!) to get in to the Rodin Garden. We immediately found "The Thinker," and Avery handed me the video camera (already prepped!), climbed up onto the steps of the statue and proceeded to reenact "The Thinker" scene from "Night At the Museum 2."
It. Was. Priceless!
The kids did enjoy the Rodin Garden, but I'm so glad we didn't pay for the entire museum.
We then hopped onto the Metro and headed back toward our Hotel, because we had planned to eat at...are you ready?
Hard Rock Cafe!!
It was fantastic!! Our waiter's name was James, and he was fabulous! He had been with the company for 23 years and had helped "open" lots of Hard Rock Cafes all around the world...including the one in Vegas. We were pleasantly surprised to find English menus, "American sized portions," and FREE REFILLS (which is unheard of in Europe!)! Food was good. Service was great!
Aaaah, Paris! :-)
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Paris Trip-Day 2
Sooo...on Thursday morning, bright and early, we weren't sure exactly where to go to find breakfast. We knew that most of the places close by to us weren't open, yet, and we hadn't ridden the Metro, yet, so we eventually reasoned that McDonald's was probably going to be our best bet. I mean, why not? We had only had it for lunch AND dinner the day before, but we were reasonably certain that our darlings were already having McDee's withdrawal. So, once again, we made the trek across the street for food. Now, the McDonald's in Paris had a cool little "easy order" kind of thing that had a touch screen where you could place your order in your own language. After about ten minutes of trying to figure out the machine and then going through each person to figure out what they wanted and then actually typing it in, we were sorely disappointed to find out that the "easy order" machine wouldn't accept Chris' Dutch bank card.
Good grief.
So, we proceeded up to the counter to try to begin the never ending battle of ordering food and wondering if you're going to actually get what you ordered. Honestly, I'm not really sure what we ordered that first morning. I think we ordered several breakfast combos, but we ended up with several packs of pancakes, a couple of egg mcmuffins of sorts, and several cups of juice that none of our pickies would drink. But, thankfully, they all three loved the pancakes!
So, with full bellies, we left to conquer Paris!
Oh, and I forgot to mention that while we were in the midst of driving with the crazies the night before, I discovered that the card in my camera was FULL! So, it was imperative that we go and immediately find a camera store to buy another card. So, the concierge directed us to the Virgin Superstore (as in Virgin Records!) and we bought another card. We took it out and placed it into the camera, but something was wrong with the card. SO....Chris took it back in to the store. The guy literally had to take apart a camera so he could "check" the card. After about ten minutes, he finally realized that we had indeed just purchased a faulty card, and he exchanged it. The second one worked.
We then began the next order of business...mastering the Metro. Now, most people that we had talked to about the Metro spoke very fondly of it, and we weren't too concerned about figuring it out; however, we had no idea about the Metro passes, how many days we needed them or if we needed zone 1-3 or 1-5. The lady at the Metro was very nice and spoke English fairly fluently...thank goodness. After about fifteen minutes of reading the Metro map, we decided we were ready! I'm SO glad we got to experience the Disney World busses back in October, because that was like a trial run to prepare us for the French Metro. The kids did great on this, and they got even better the more we rode it. So, in a matter of minutes, we arrived at our destination to get on the double-decker bus to tour Paris!
The bus tour was really great, and we got a great overview of the city and some historical background information, too. The tour lasted for about an hour and a half, and then it dropped us off at the *deep breath* EIFFEL TOWER!
And, let me just say that the Eiffel Tower is more breathtaking than I thought it would be. There was just something about seeing that iconic figure in person that was just plain overwhelming! The kids were just as overwhelmed as I was, and they couldn't wait to go up in it! Poor Ashlynn, though, had to go to the bathroom about midway through the bus tour, so by the time we actually got to the Tower, she was in dire need of the facilities! As we were getting in line to go up, I asked the man taking our tickets where the closest restroom was, and it was on the second level, which was where we were going. I assured Ashlynn it wouldn't be long and that all we had to do was just ride the elevator up, and then she could go potty. So we (and about 50 other people) crammed into the huge elevator and rode up to the second level. We jumped off and began to frantically search for the bathroom...no time for enjoying the beautiful scenery, just yet. Aaah...we found the restrooms! And, the line. I kid you not. We waited in a line for the bathroom for at least twenty-five minutes. Poor Ashlynn was a super trooper, though. She never complained, but became more excited as we inched toward the door. *Fun fact*... there were only three bathroom stalls for women on the ENTIRE second level, which is also the busiest level. So if you're headed to the Eiffel Tower any time soon, try to "go" before you go up, if possible.
Well, the views were amazing! When we got to the top (second-level top), it was pretty clear and sunny, so we got some pretty good pictures. The longer we stayed, the clouds began to roll in and then it started to drizzle. We ended up visiting both gift shops, eating some fantastically yummy ice cream and staying on the second level for at least an hour. It was awesome.
After walking around the tower at least twice and taking a bazillion pictures, we were finally ready to descend. When we got to the bottom, we began to look for the post office. I had read that if you mail items from the bottom of the Eiffel Tower, the postmark will be the Eiffel Tower, itself. So, we had purchased a couple of postcards from the gift shop and set out to find the post office at the bottom. My intent was to mail a bunch of cards, but I forgot to print off my addresses before the movers packed my computer, so sadly, we only sent cards to our parents.
After going up, walking around and coming back down, our McDonald's breakfast had long disappeared. We decided to hit one of the snack bar places at the bottom. We got each of the boys a HUGE hot dog. (One would have been plenty for both of them, but we didn't know that.) Ashlynn wanted a waffle...that she ended up not being nuts about. Chris and I basically ate what was leftover. :-)
Then, we decided we'd walk over to Trocadero to get some really good pictures of L'Eiffel Tower. So, we began to walk the block over, and it began to drizzle. Then, it began to rain. Then, it proceeded to pour. We ran under some trees, and a little guy came running over with a sack full of umbrellas.
Him: "Umbrella?"
Us: "How much?"
Him: "10 Euro."
Us: "No way!"
Him: "Okay...7 Euro."
Us: "No, thanks."
Him: "Okay...two for 10 Euro."
Us: "No,thanks."
Him: "How much you pay?"
Us: "3 Euro."
Him: "No."
And, off he runs to hit the next clump of trees with waiting tourists. In the meantime, it begins to be a monsoonal rain. And, it starts to rain through the trees. Here comes umbrella boy, again.
Him: "Umbrella?"
Us: We shrug.
Him: "4 Euro."
Us: "We'll take one."
We are crazy, gullible tourists...
Anyway, the rest of our evening consisted of going on a boat tour of Paris. The boat tour was incredibly relaxing. I didn't learn as much on that tour, but I did enjoy just riding and looking at all the buildings from a different angle. On a side note, this would have been beautiful at night.
We topped off our night with guess where?
McDonald's, of course.
Kids were thrilled.
We were not.
Good grief.
So, we proceeded up to the counter to try to begin the never ending battle of ordering food and wondering if you're going to actually get what you ordered. Honestly, I'm not really sure what we ordered that first morning. I think we ordered several breakfast combos, but we ended up with several packs of pancakes, a couple of egg mcmuffins of sorts, and several cups of juice that none of our pickies would drink. But, thankfully, they all three loved the pancakes!
So, with full bellies, we left to conquer Paris!
Oh, and I forgot to mention that while we were in the midst of driving with the crazies the night before, I discovered that the card in my camera was FULL! So, it was imperative that we go and immediately find a camera store to buy another card. So, the concierge directed us to the Virgin Superstore (as in Virgin Records!) and we bought another card. We took it out and placed it into the camera, but something was wrong with the card. SO....Chris took it back in to the store. The guy literally had to take apart a camera so he could "check" the card. After about ten minutes, he finally realized that we had indeed just purchased a faulty card, and he exchanged it. The second one worked.
We then began the next order of business...mastering the Metro. Now, most people that we had talked to about the Metro spoke very fondly of it, and we weren't too concerned about figuring it out; however, we had no idea about the Metro passes, how many days we needed them or if we needed zone 1-3 or 1-5. The lady at the Metro was very nice and spoke English fairly fluently...thank goodness. After about fifteen minutes of reading the Metro map, we decided we were ready! I'm SO glad we got to experience the Disney World busses back in October, because that was like a trial run to prepare us for the French Metro. The kids did great on this, and they got even better the more we rode it. So, in a matter of minutes, we arrived at our destination to get on the double-decker bus to tour Paris!
The bus tour was really great, and we got a great overview of the city and some historical background information, too. The tour lasted for about an hour and a half, and then it dropped us off at the *deep breath* EIFFEL TOWER!
And, let me just say that the Eiffel Tower is more breathtaking than I thought it would be. There was just something about seeing that iconic figure in person that was just plain overwhelming! The kids were just as overwhelmed as I was, and they couldn't wait to go up in it! Poor Ashlynn, though, had to go to the bathroom about midway through the bus tour, so by the time we actually got to the Tower, she was in dire need of the facilities! As we were getting in line to go up, I asked the man taking our tickets where the closest restroom was, and it was on the second level, which was where we were going. I assured Ashlynn it wouldn't be long and that all we had to do was just ride the elevator up, and then she could go potty. So we (and about 50 other people) crammed into the huge elevator and rode up to the second level. We jumped off and began to frantically search for the bathroom...no time for enjoying the beautiful scenery, just yet. Aaah...we found the restrooms! And, the line. I kid you not. We waited in a line for the bathroom for at least twenty-five minutes. Poor Ashlynn was a super trooper, though. She never complained, but became more excited as we inched toward the door. *Fun fact*... there were only three bathroom stalls for women on the ENTIRE second level, which is also the busiest level. So if you're headed to the Eiffel Tower any time soon, try to "go" before you go up, if possible.
Well, the views were amazing! When we got to the top (second-level top), it was pretty clear and sunny, so we got some pretty good pictures. The longer we stayed, the clouds began to roll in and then it started to drizzle. We ended up visiting both gift shops, eating some fantastically yummy ice cream and staying on the second level for at least an hour. It was awesome.
After walking around the tower at least twice and taking a bazillion pictures, we were finally ready to descend. When we got to the bottom, we began to look for the post office. I had read that if you mail items from the bottom of the Eiffel Tower, the postmark will be the Eiffel Tower, itself. So, we had purchased a couple of postcards from the gift shop and set out to find the post office at the bottom. My intent was to mail a bunch of cards, but I forgot to print off my addresses before the movers packed my computer, so sadly, we only sent cards to our parents.
After going up, walking around and coming back down, our McDonald's breakfast had long disappeared. We decided to hit one of the snack bar places at the bottom. We got each of the boys a HUGE hot dog. (One would have been plenty for both of them, but we didn't know that.) Ashlynn wanted a waffle...that she ended up not being nuts about. Chris and I basically ate what was leftover. :-)
Then, we decided we'd walk over to Trocadero to get some really good pictures of L'Eiffel Tower. So, we began to walk the block over, and it began to drizzle. Then, it began to rain. Then, it proceeded to pour. We ran under some trees, and a little guy came running over with a sack full of umbrellas.
Him: "Umbrella?"
Us: "How much?"
Him: "10 Euro."
Us: "No way!"
Him: "Okay...7 Euro."
Us: "No, thanks."
Him: "Okay...two for 10 Euro."
Us: "No,thanks."
Him: "How much you pay?"
Us: "3 Euro."
Him: "No."
And, off he runs to hit the next clump of trees with waiting tourists. In the meantime, it begins to be a monsoonal rain. And, it starts to rain through the trees. Here comes umbrella boy, again.
Him: "Umbrella?"
Us: We shrug.
Him: "4 Euro."
Us: "We'll take one."
We are crazy, gullible tourists...
Anyway, the rest of our evening consisted of going on a boat tour of Paris. The boat tour was incredibly relaxing. I didn't learn as much on that tour, but I did enjoy just riding and looking at all the buildings from a different angle. On a side note, this would have been beautiful at night.
We topped off our night with guess where?
McDonald's, of course.
Kids were thrilled.
We were not.
Monday, August 1, 2011
Day 1 of "Trip to Paris"
Well, it is now 10:45 AM on Tuesday morning.
What. A. Week. We've. Had.
Now, if I sat here and wrote down ALL the details of the things that have occurred since we arrived, I would be writing nonstop, and you would get tired of reading it. So, I'll try to summarize the highlights...
Let me begin with last Wednesday when we left to go to Paris. We had decided to drive ourselves to Paris (which was supposed to take five hours from our house) rather than take the "high speed train" (which was supposed to take less than three hours). Now, there were several reasons that we decided that this was the best route for us... 1. It was cheaper (the train costs roughly 80 euros per person, and with five people, that was pretty costly), 2. Since this was our first European vacation, we felt like we had more freedom to kind of figure things out, since we wouldn't have to be on a strict schedule. 3. This also would alleviate all of us having to drag all of our luggage from cab to train to cab to hotel and back. 4. This would give us a chance to see the countryside! :-)
Before we left the house, we made all the children go to the bathroom, and we had a "serious" talk about how in Europe, the bathrooms are few and far between-AND-you have to PAY to go potty! So, if we stop, everyone tries to go to the bathroom. No exceptions!
So, our first challenge was trying to fit all five of us and our luggage in a two-door, eleven year old BMW. Yes, I said a two-door. Downsizing from a nice, roomy minivan to a two-door coupe was no easy job, but we managed.
So, after loading the car with luggage and kids and setting the GPS, we finally began our trek at about 11:30 Wednesday morning. So, by our calculations, we should arrive by, say by 5:00, right? Sounds great!
Well, of course, the kids were starving, so we had to make a run by McDonald's in Leidschendam (about 15 minutes from our house). They had a great set up for kids, too! In the Happy Meal, they got chicken nuggets, fries, a drink, a dessert (cup of fruit) and a balloon on a stick, if they wanted one. We'll definitely come back here! Oh, and when I say "make a run," I don't mean in the drive-thru...there is not one. We had to physically get out, go in, order, sit down and eat. Who does that in America when traveling with kids?
So, after filling our bellies, we finally got going! Paris, France, Here We Come!!
We began the easy drive through the Netherlands and made our way to Belgium with no problem. And, let me just say that Belgium is beautiful! It is very green with lots of grazing cows. We drove along enjoying the scenery, and honestly, the kids did great in the back seat. They occupied themselves with DS's and iPods and a couple of little mini car games. We had told them that if they needed to go to the bathroom, they should give us PLENTY of warning, because it might take a while to find a bathroom. Sure enough, we were right. Now, I'm sure there are lots of places to go potty, if you are a local and you know where to go. But, since we couldn't read the signs, we finally figured out that if there is a fork and spoon sign, generally there are bathrooms close by. So, we had to stop twice in Belgium...at 2 euros a pop.
So far, so good! We kept going...went through Belgium and entered France. Again, France is beautiful, too! It is very, very flat with lots of farmland. We did notice that there were many more McDonald's in France than in Belgium. (We had been told that, generally, one can go to the restroom free of charge in most McDonald's, so we tried to look for those.) Anyway, we were making pretty good time when we started seeing signs for Paris, so we knew we were getting very close! We all were getting more excited by the minute!!
So, we finally entered downtown Paris, right on time, because it had taken us roughly five hours to get there! We were doing great!
Until, we came out of the tunnel to enter the "true downtown Paris."
Then, it was like a scene out of National Lampoon's European Vacation with the Griswolds.
For real.
There were cars EVERYWHERE!! No one followed traffic rules. If the light was red, they went through it. If you were in the left lane to go straight, you'd better watch out beside you, because the car behind you might go around you and then pull in front of you to turn left. People would cut you off without batting an eye. Oh, and the motorcycles could legally drive between the cars, so you really had to watch out for them! It was almost total gridlock. Talk about culture shock! All five of us were dumbfounded and quiet, just trying to take it all in. S-L-O-W-L-Y we inched our way to our hotel. What was almost a five hour trip turned into a SEVEN hour trip. Yes, it took us TWO hours to get through downtown Paris.
We had reservations at the Citadines Hotel, and our GPS had done a great job of getting us to it. But, we drove by it the first time, because it was not directly on the street. Once we finally located the tiny entrance, we couldn't find a parking place, so we had to circle the block...again. I'm certain the people standing outside the cafe down the street were laughing hysterically at us, because I'm pretty sure we passed them at least four times just circling the block. Finally, we decided to just pull up by the sidewalk and unload our stuff and try to quickly check in. Surely, the concierge could give us some advice on parking!
So, we all got out, unloaded and walked in. We got the key, and I took the kids upstairs to check in while Chris went back out to park the car in the hotel parking garage...thank goodness for that garage!!
Now, I will tell you that the hotel room looked like "normal" hotel room, for the most part. However, we kept tryig to turn the lights on, and they wouldn't come on. We couldn't figure out what was wrong. We looked around the room, and I noticed a strange looking "thing" beside the door that had two lights on it. It looked like it might be something that needed our hotel key, so I slid the key into it, and voila, we had lights!! So, I took it out. The lights stayed on for about 60 seconds and then went off again. I placed the key back in...again. Voila! Lights! So, I took it out...again. The lights stayed on for about 60 seconds and then went out...AGAIN! Finally, Aaron said, "Mama, maybe you have to leave the key in." Gee, I'm so glad we have our children to figure things out for us...what a smart kid. :-)
Anyway, we had managed to make it through Belgium, France, downtown Paris, to the hotel and into the room unscathed. I'd say that makes for a pretty great day!
And, how did we top off the day? Why, of course, at the McDonald's across the street from our hotel! :-)
Stay tuned for Day 2...
What. A. Week. We've. Had.
Now, if I sat here and wrote down ALL the details of the things that have occurred since we arrived, I would be writing nonstop, and you would get tired of reading it. So, I'll try to summarize the highlights...
Let me begin with last Wednesday when we left to go to Paris. We had decided to drive ourselves to Paris (which was supposed to take five hours from our house) rather than take the "high speed train" (which was supposed to take less than three hours). Now, there were several reasons that we decided that this was the best route for us... 1. It was cheaper (the train costs roughly 80 euros per person, and with five people, that was pretty costly), 2. Since this was our first European vacation, we felt like we had more freedom to kind of figure things out, since we wouldn't have to be on a strict schedule. 3. This also would alleviate all of us having to drag all of our luggage from cab to train to cab to hotel and back. 4. This would give us a chance to see the countryside! :-)
Before we left the house, we made all the children go to the bathroom, and we had a "serious" talk about how in Europe, the bathrooms are few and far between-AND-you have to PAY to go potty! So, if we stop, everyone tries to go to the bathroom. No exceptions!
So, our first challenge was trying to fit all five of us and our luggage in a two-door, eleven year old BMW. Yes, I said a two-door. Downsizing from a nice, roomy minivan to a two-door coupe was no easy job, but we managed.
So, after loading the car with luggage and kids and setting the GPS, we finally began our trek at about 11:30 Wednesday morning. So, by our calculations, we should arrive by, say by 5:00, right? Sounds great!
Well, of course, the kids were starving, so we had to make a run by McDonald's in Leidschendam (about 15 minutes from our house). They had a great set up for kids, too! In the Happy Meal, they got chicken nuggets, fries, a drink, a dessert (cup of fruit) and a balloon on a stick, if they wanted one. We'll definitely come back here! Oh, and when I say "make a run," I don't mean in the drive-thru...there is not one. We had to physically get out, go in, order, sit down and eat. Who does that in America when traveling with kids?
So, after filling our bellies, we finally got going! Paris, France, Here We Come!!
We began the easy drive through the Netherlands and made our way to Belgium with no problem. And, let me just say that Belgium is beautiful! It is very green with lots of grazing cows. We drove along enjoying the scenery, and honestly, the kids did great in the back seat. They occupied themselves with DS's and iPods and a couple of little mini car games. We had told them that if they needed to go to the bathroom, they should give us PLENTY of warning, because it might take a while to find a bathroom. Sure enough, we were right. Now, I'm sure there are lots of places to go potty, if you are a local and you know where to go. But, since we couldn't read the signs, we finally figured out that if there is a fork and spoon sign, generally there are bathrooms close by. So, we had to stop twice in Belgium...at 2 euros a pop.
So far, so good! We kept going...went through Belgium and entered France. Again, France is beautiful, too! It is very, very flat with lots of farmland. We did notice that there were many more McDonald's in France than in Belgium. (We had been told that, generally, one can go to the restroom free of charge in most McDonald's, so we tried to look for those.) Anyway, we were making pretty good time when we started seeing signs for Paris, so we knew we were getting very close! We all were getting more excited by the minute!!
So, we finally entered downtown Paris, right on time, because it had taken us roughly five hours to get there! We were doing great!
Until, we came out of the tunnel to enter the "true downtown Paris."
Then, it was like a scene out of National Lampoon's European Vacation with the Griswolds.
For real.
There were cars EVERYWHERE!! No one followed traffic rules. If the light was red, they went through it. If you were in the left lane to go straight, you'd better watch out beside you, because the car behind you might go around you and then pull in front of you to turn left. People would cut you off without batting an eye. Oh, and the motorcycles could legally drive between the cars, so you really had to watch out for them! It was almost total gridlock. Talk about culture shock! All five of us were dumbfounded and quiet, just trying to take it all in. S-L-O-W-L-Y we inched our way to our hotel. What was almost a five hour trip turned into a SEVEN hour trip. Yes, it took us TWO hours to get through downtown Paris.
We had reservations at the Citadines Hotel, and our GPS had done a great job of getting us to it. But, we drove by it the first time, because it was not directly on the street. Once we finally located the tiny entrance, we couldn't find a parking place, so we had to circle the block...again. I'm certain the people standing outside the cafe down the street were laughing hysterically at us, because I'm pretty sure we passed them at least four times just circling the block. Finally, we decided to just pull up by the sidewalk and unload our stuff and try to quickly check in. Surely, the concierge could give us some advice on parking!
So, we all got out, unloaded and walked in. We got the key, and I took the kids upstairs to check in while Chris went back out to park the car in the hotel parking garage...thank goodness for that garage!!
Now, I will tell you that the hotel room looked like "normal" hotel room, for the most part. However, we kept tryig to turn the lights on, and they wouldn't come on. We couldn't figure out what was wrong. We looked around the room, and I noticed a strange looking "thing" beside the door that had two lights on it. It looked like it might be something that needed our hotel key, so I slid the key into it, and voila, we had lights!! So, I took it out. The lights stayed on for about 60 seconds and then went off again. I placed the key back in...again. Voila! Lights! So, I took it out...again. The lights stayed on for about 60 seconds and then went out...AGAIN! Finally, Aaron said, "Mama, maybe you have to leave the key in." Gee, I'm so glad we have our children to figure things out for us...what a smart kid. :-)
Anyway, we had managed to make it through Belgium, France, downtown Paris, to the hotel and into the room unscathed. I'd say that makes for a pretty great day!
And, how did we top off the day? Why, of course, at the McDonald's across the street from our hotel! :-)
Stay tuned for Day 2...
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