First stop: Paris

Ok, two months after we returned from out European vacation, I think it's time to blog about it! I think time probably smoothed out some of the wrinkles in the trip, but I'll share as many highlights as I remember.

Day 1
Our flight to Paris was uneventful, although it was questionable whether or not we'd all make the plane. Avery and I drove to Mamar's house to pick up Mamar and Caroline. Despite the fact that most of Linah's clothing was in the washing machine and NOT her suitcase when we arrived, we managed to get her all packed and ready to go just in time to leave. We made it to the airport and parked, but at check in, Mamar realized that she forgot her wallet! Hard to travel across the globe without any money or credit cards. I quickly gave her the keys, and she raced home to get her wallet. Meanwhile, Avery, Linah, and I had lunch and boarded the plane. We were thrilled when Mamar breathlessly appeared on the plane, right before the door closed. Whew!

We flew to Chicago, had a brief layover, then boarded the plane to Paris. We left in the late afternoon and would arrive in Paris at around 9:25am, which was 2:25am to us. Mamar and Linah were smart enough to take something to help them sleep, but Avery and I were up all night. We watched countless hours of in flight movies, read, and listened to our iPods. Not long before landing, we finally fell asleep.

Once in Paris, it took a couple of tries to find a cab to fit all of our luggage. (We may have all packed a little heavily.) We went to our hotel, where we were able to check in early. Our hotel, Hotel Richepanse (or Hotel Richie-pants as we lovingly called it), was in a great area near the Opera.



We dumped off our stuff, changed clothes, and went out to explore a little and find some lunch. This proved to be more of a challenge than we expected, since the French pretty much roll up the sidewalks on Sundays. Very few restaurants and almost no stores were open. But we did manage to find a restaurant not too far from our hotel. Now, vegetarian food isn't easy to come by in France, so we thought a salad would be our best bet. Boy, what an experience that was! I wish I could describe the dressing used...it seemed to be some combination of horseradish, cream, spicy mustard, and a little evil thrown in for good measure. We tried our best to push it around our plates and choke down a little. Those Parisians sure don't like it if you don't eat their food, so we got quite the glare and inquisition from our waiter. After that, it took us quite some time to get over our fear of salads. From that point on, we subsisted almost entirely on croissants. I didn't know it was possible to tire of pastries, but we did it!

After lunch, we walked around just a bit before we felt we couldn't go on any longer. We returned to our hotel to collapse in our beds and try to beat the jet lag.