Paris Day 0 and 1

Let me start at the very beginning, because I like to remember and I am better at remembering if it is written down.

Geoff had schedule this week off, ending on his birthday, a while ago. I made the deal with him that if he could get the house finished to the point that we could refinance (i.e. no visible construction), we could go on vacation. Otherwise, we needed to spend the week working on the house (boo). Well, progress was made, but not nearly enough but Geoff called the mortgage company to find out when the appraiser would come out to appraise (and see, or not see, visible construction) and due to our awesome credit scores, and our fat down payment, they can do an easy-peasy mac-and-cheesy refi, no appraisal necessary. Yahoo! 59 pages of documents later, we are on the road to refi and, thus, vacation.

Geoff wanted to go to Cancun. Boo. I don't think Mexico is super-safe right now and I was looking for something more exciting than a beach vacation. More culture, less laying around (which is not to say I don't LOVE the beach, I just wanted something different). Once I got Hazel on board with Paris, and pointed out the awesomeness of a direct flight, Geoff agreed that Paris was a great idea. Or he was worn down and wanted us to leave him alone.

We decided to rent an apartment for the week, so we would have a little more room and kitchen facilities and started looking around the internet (like a week before we left), but kept running into people changing the prices when we went to book (lame), or the apartment being rented already. Finally, the day before we left I booked an apartment and paid our deposit. Monday (aka the day we were leaving) morning I get an email saying it was good to go and to call the guy when we arrived and someone would meet us at the apartment. An hour-and-a-half later, I get an email saying they made a mistake and the apartment is gone. DOH! Luckily, they gave us another apartment for the same price and everything worked out. But, it made for a little extra anxiety as we were leaving.

Both Geoff and I worked on Monday, but Geoff was able to leave work around noon and I finished not much later (I did not make the drive to Sandy, I just worked from home). We finished our last minute packing and headed for the airport. Hooray!

Since Hazel is only 5, she is not yet allowed in Business class. We split the pain of Economy, Geoff took it on the way out and I did on the way home. I cannot wait until she is 6 and we can all enjoy the fabulous, spaciousness of Business class... Even though Hazel knew she would be sitting by dad and not mom, she still cried the first hour of the flight and then fell asleep for most of the rest of the flight. And they got bulkhead seats with plenty of legroom, so except for the food, it wasn't too bad.

The direct flight arrives in Paris at 11am. We went through passport control (I don't remember customs) and headed for our apartment.

On the RER, there was a travel musician. Some kid with a portable stereo and a microphone. There were like two other people on the train and us. He mostly just sang to Hazel, who loved it. LOVED!! If she grows up and falls in love with some doofus who sings on the street, I will blame the RER singer. I will hunt him down. On the RER.

And then we moved to the metro. At which point Hazel freaked out because it was stinky and she hated Paris and she missed Trixie and she wanted to go home. Super-fun! And the metro station we were going to switch at was closed (!!) and we had to change on the fly, with little sleep and not much knowledge of what we were doing. So, we accidentally left the metro station instead of switching trains and had to walk a bit (not too far, in theory). We knew generally where it was but the map we were using didn't show our tiny street going all the way. Thus we got lost but eventually found it.

Our apartment building even had a teeny-tiny elevator. Which Hazel loved, loved, loved. She also loved pushing the buttons to open the doors, and the light switches, and really, just about everything.
After settling in for a bit, and having a bit of a nap, we went to explore the city. With our ninja.
Hazel was still happy at this point. We grabbed some food at the market and stopped at a little playground not far from our apartment. Hazel snacked and played with kids (who spoke French!) and then we continued on. (How does a kid have enough energy to play at every single playground but then lose all of it the moment we have to walk somewhere?)
The ninja, Flora, saw pigeons in the square in front on Notre Dame. She was a bit leery.
Hazel got a wee bit emo. Plane sleep is adequate but not great. I like to switch to the new time zone ASAP, which means staying up until the new bedtime, but sometimes this is difficult if you are 5. Or 36.
We stopped to get a crepe with Nutella on our way home and Hazel fell asleep while the guy was making the crepe. Seriously, it was like 3 minutes. But she was out. O-U-T.

Of course, it was just a 15 minute power nap to get her carried most of the way home and then she was wide awake. The joys of moving time zones with a kid.

I think we had snacks, brushed teeth, read stories and went to bed. Nothing exciting.

Now it is late. More tomorrow (hopefully)