24 HOURS IN…
As noted in “EUROPEAN TOUR”, M & I went straight from University into the start-up life - code for “say good bye to travel”. For fifteen years, we had serious FOMO/YOLO before either of those were things. When the opportunity finally arrived, we embarked on an ongoing quest to make up for lost time by tackling every “before you die” Bucket List on the internet – with three kids in tow. First stop, Paris.
In keeping with a running theme of the HilarWithUs stories, our initial efforts as a family of world travellers ‘started out badly’.™ We had done tons of business travel. We can just apply that experience to leisure travel with children. Right?
Not so much. Our first 24 hours of adult travel went something like this:
To start, despite the endless accoutrements required by three children under the age of 7, M’s aversion to checked baggage was still very much in effect.[1] But while he had his compact briefcase/roller bag combo, the girls and I were a gong show. I am trying, and failing, to push C in a rickety collapsible stroller, while simultaneously pulling a suitcase; while the other two girls are trying, and failing, to simultaneously hold onto my shirt tails while pulling their suitcases. Things are toppling over. Things are dropping. Everything is going akimbo. Especially inside my brain.
M, meanwhile, is maintaining his normal (10x speed) airport pace – a requirement given that despite having a retinue of travel dead weight (us), he has timed our departure according to his scientifically derived process for minimizing airport time. This goes off the rails almost immediately as the ticket agent discovers that I have failed to include everyone’s middle name in the system. Many minutes, and 5x ticket change fees later we ragtag our way to security just before the cut off.
At security, while we chug our wattle bottles dry, we are stripped of about $1000 in contraband: miniature sunscreens that are maddeningly approximately 1ml over the allowable limit, the kid-friendly food...As the pile grows, M & I are in an escalating ‘marital’ as I realize what else I have erroneously packed. I vainly try to appeal to M to check the bags after all. Back and forth we go, until the security agent interrupts and says, “Normally I would never intervene, but…Dude you have a KNIFE in here.” Said knife being a cheese knife that was frankly no longer required now that we had had our fruit, salami and unfermented cheese all taken away from us.[2]
Next, we make our way to the gates where the flight attendant takes issue with the size of our carry-ons. We vainly try to cram them into the metal size check bin. Having successfully jammed approximately 1/3rdof the bag into the cage, we now can’t get it out without using a foot as a lever. “I am afraid you will have to check those bags.” But, because we are operating under business travel timelines, we will miss the flight if we go back to check the bags. Instead, we instruct the girls to pull out, and put on, their clothing. Finally, sneakers hanging around our necks, five sweaters and coats thick, sweat pouring off our temples as we dangerously overheat, we triumphantly high five ourselves on circumventing the rules. The flight attendants are unamused, but their bad for not having a rule about layering.[3]
We are aboard! Whereupon we begin to learn the impediments to travelling with three kids. Sitting in the central 4-pack of seats, I am a human pillow for three hyper kids who seem to be entirely made up of pointy joints. Predictably, the girls don’t fall asleep until approximately ten minutes before touch down, at which point they are fully comatose and impossible to reanimate.
At the airport, we don’t fit in a cab, so we take the metro where we are all falling asleep. I am forcibly keeping my eyelids open with my fingers, out of fear of waking up to find all our luggage, and possibly our children, stolen by the notorious pick pocketing “Gypsies” [sic] that my out-of-date (unPC) Fodors warned about. At the hotel, we are in a European sized room, with three trampolining kids who are overjoyed by the wall-to-wall beds.
Ultimately give up on addressing our jet lag, “refreshed”, we set out to discover the city, first stop the Museum of Natural History. Somewhere in the green houses of the Jardin des Plantes, I realize my brand new, bought for the trip, digital Nikon is no longer slung across my body. Stolen/lost? Where? When? I have no idea…I don’t even know my name at this point. I am so tired. As far as every staff member we talked to is concerned, my name is “imbécile”.
Next, we visit Notre Dame. The only thing I can tell you about Notre Dame is that it is blessedly cool, as is temperature cool. As I melted into a pew with a forty pound hot water bottle in the shape of a two year old glued to my front with mutual sweat, I would have almost been a convert if not for the other two children’s complete inability to use their “inside voices”.
From there, we tick the “Paris with kids” top ten, culminating in our last stop before catching a train to Avignon: hot chocolate at Angelina’s. This consists of a gallon jug of undiluted melted chocolate so thick you can stand a spoon in it, accompanied by three tiers of assorted sugary, buttery, chocolaty pastries. The experience takes longer than expected, so having stuffed our children like confectionary foie gras, we are now short on time to get to the station.
It would have been fine, except that we had to relearn (it had been a whole day since the last instance after all) that cabs won’t take a family of five. We resort again to the metro which means a return engagement of the rolling luggage parade, this time along cobble stones, through crazy intersections, up and down metro stairs. In the metro, M gets on the subway right as the doors close - leaving S & I behind on the train platform.[4] We have to do the movie scene where I run along the platform: “Wait for me at the next a station!!” I have no phone, so if we don’t manage to reassemble, it’s anyone’s guess how that would play out.
Miraculously arrived at the TGV station, it is packed, lines everywhere, signs everywhere. We can’t understand any of it. The only piece of intel we can absorb is the gigantic Hugo Cabret clock that shows we have less than five minutes to get aboard our train. We set out like an Amazing Race team towards the tracks, right past whatever ticket agents may/may not have been there and onto the train as it pulls out of the station.
As we muddle around trying to stow our luggage and find our seats, we are accosted by the train inspector that is a French version of the evil orphanage mistress in Annie. The French part being important as she has not an iota of English, and zero patience with my high school level Quebecois. What becomes apparent in our intercontinental pantomime is that the tickets we bought, are NOT tickets as far as she is concerned. They are, apparently, tickets that you lined up (at those long lines we raced past) to exchange for other, identical tickets. While the actual transcript of her tirade was lost on us, (but notably made mention of “les gens d’arms”), the gist amounted to: “Pay up”. The girls look on wide eyed. Not everyday someone screams at your parents – plus they probably understood more of the French than we did. We attempt to pay for new tickets (or tickets anew?), but one after another our credit and bank cards are declined. Turns out the bank, which we failed to notify of our travel plans, deemed it suspicious that we were in France (“Those people never go anywhere”). So, M has to hand over every last Euro in his wallet.
We are instructed that we had to stay in the dining car which has no seats - just stinking hot base board heaters that we attempt to sit on. We decide to risk the ire of the satanic marm and go in search of empty seats. I (of course) get immediately caught, screamed at anew for daring to sit in seats that I have now paid for twice over. Train inspector and I spend the next two hours engaged in a game of cat and mouse, until I finally find M and C. C is curiously wearing different clothes then before. I cast the silent parent-to-parent WTF eyebrows. “???” M, looking shaken: “Let’s just say the bathroom on this particular train car is no longer operational.” Angelina’s had returned to administer some TGV karma. We didn’t feel so bad.
We arrive in Avignon with no working phone, no working credit cards and no cash. But we had survived (barely) our first 36 hours. And the girls experienced the magic of being immersed in Monet’s waterlilies; watching people play music on a bridge over the Seine; racing the stairs to the top of the Eiffel tour; and, yes, being served liquid chocolate from a silver pitcher in a fancy dining room. These are gifts, not just as vague memories, but as the first steps to a lifetime of discovery through travel.
It also taught me to make bullet (train) proof travel plans - and itineraries that include nap time.
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[1] M is a Boss traveller. While I like to dine out on stories of getting on airplanes with my bike helmet on my head, or my ski boots around my neck (which some of you have witnessed) - this habit has meant we were off doing the activity we flew to do, while others waited for their lost luggage to show up. Trust the process.
[2] To be fair to me, I was trying for good parenting – it never pays to let anyone, especially me, get ‘Hangry’. A little charcuterie goes a long way.
[3] We now all have the process down pat. We proudly saw H and So off for months long travel with maxed out carry-ons, tested at exactly the allowable weight, with liquids in a quickly accessible 1 litre zip lock bag, empty water bottle ready to for the filling station, and international phone service ready too go, books/movies/podcasts downloaded, and eye mask and ear plugs so they can sleep. They learned from the best.
[4] I am frequently left behind on the far side of closing doors and traffic lights. Its a problem.