Monday (that's lundi for you Francophones), we dashed out of the Aéroport Charles de Gaulle on our 7-1/2-hour layover in Paris and grabbed lunch with a view of Seine River and the Eiffel Tower, the landmark my children most associate with Paris. We'd also hoped to stop at Notre Dame and the Rive Gauche but ran out of time due to work on the RER-C line that caused us to hop onto the Métro and make a few additional stops to get to this famous tower whose elevators entranced my sons.
Fortunately, my husband and I are familiar with the escargot-like layout of the arrondissements, as well as getting around Paris by Métro and RER. We first traveled to Paris together in 1991. In this pre-Internet, pre-cell phone age, we stayed with friends until we found a flat by looking at a bulletin board at the American Church and landing a place near the Guy Moquet métro stop in the 17th arrondissement. My husband flew home hastily when his mother died a few weeks later, and then I left after a month to begin a new job in Montana, as anticipated. Then we were married in 1995, a couple of months before we left for France. I had a year-long teaching fellowship at the Université de Bourgogne and we spent the following summer in Paris, subletting a friend's flat above a print shop where we could hear the presses begin each morning, again in an area not far from Place de Clichy and the Batignolles area. That all seems a lifetime ago.
Sharing the world, our beloved far-flung friends, and the places that are special to us with our sons filled my heart with more joy than I can express, a sense that the world and happiness is growing as we bring places (like Prague and Paris) and people (like Manou's Mark, Suzanne, and Lucie; Valérie, Guillaume, and their three children, Ivan, Louise, and Jules; Véra's sister and her Czech family, and the many friends of Mark from Great Britain, Portugal, and beyond) into our lives.
Even flying into Paris, I thought I detected an Eiffel Tower-like pattern in the trees near the bottom of this photo. Is this like seeing knights and dragons in the clouds after visiting medieval castles? Yes, I started doing that, too.
Construction on the train lines, routing us through Bir-Hakim on the Métro instead of the Champ-de-Mars on the RER-C line, didn't dampen my sons' spirits. They even spotted Orangina, Orangina-flavored gummy snacks, and Petit Ecolier cookies (best cookies every my oldest declared) in the vending machine below ground, sampling the latter two. The crêpes with chocolate, bananas, and strawberries, a corner staple in Paris, were delicious above ground, too.
We started the day in Prague, ate lunch here at the Eiffel Tower, and got into Boston around midnight, arriving home in New Hampshire at an exhausting 3:15 a.m. with the usual car problems to deal with, a 9 a.m. work meeting for my husband beckoning, a 9 a.m. allergist's appointment for my youngest, and an Eiffel Tower-sized pile of laundry. Voilà, ça vaut la peine!
it's so cute the way your boys snuggle up to each other:)
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