Gigi Visit and Paris- Day 4 and Trip Home

Interrupting the holiday season to finish up our last trip. 

We now had one more full day in Paris before we had to go home. We started out with a healthy breakfast of pastries and quiche.

Then we set out for the Catacombs. With no reservations. I'll let you in on a little secret here, Matt and I are not huge plan ahead people. We're trying to get better, but haven't quite learned our lesson. We missed out on the Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam because we waited too long to reserve a spot online, and we did the same thing this time with the Catacombs. We thought we'd still give it a go, and would try to get there around opening time for better luck. However, I misread the opening time, so by the time we got there the queue was a mile long. Lily was disappointed that we wouldn't be able to see the bones, but we promised that we would try to make another trip to see them.

Another point of interest we'd noted was the Rodin Museum, so we went there instead. We didn't think the kids would be very interested in the indoor museum, so we only visited the sculpture garden. They could be free to run around and play a bit, and the adults could enjoy the art. I think this was the best way to do it, because of course the kids did get a little rowdy at times.

First up was The Thinker.

Monkey see, monkey do

There was plenty to see in the gardens. Especially with our relaxed pace,  we may not have had time to see anything inside (nor would the kids have lasted that long).

It didn't take Miles long to notice that the statues were nude, and he had to point and giggle at the bums. My uncultured children, sigh.

It wasn't raining at the time, but there were plenty of muddy puddles to jump up and down in.

It really is amazing to me what sculptors can do with marble and bronze.

View of Les Invalides, which we saw on our bus tour the night before

We spent a fair amount of time wandering around, so on the way out we grabbed a snack at the cafe.

Now, the only thing we had really planned for the day was the Catacombs Rodin Museum. We've discovered that underplanning works best for our family. Especially with young kids, everything takes at least twice as long, so we don't want to be disappointed that we've missed out on something. And I like letting some things evolve naturally instead of trying to plan every site/meal/hour. So next we walked around a bit...

...and decided to go see Notre Dame.

Of course, the kids' favorite part was chasing the pigeons.

Then a man shoved some birdseed at us, and of course the pigeons swarmed around us. A few landed on Lily, and she flipped out. She was seriously terrified, and it took some time to calm her down. She told us that she now hates pigeons, and we thought it was time to move on.

We took a short walk to Pont Neuf, which is the oldest standing bridge that crosses the Seine in Paris.

The kids were fascinated with the locks on the bridge. It seemed like Miles wanted to look at every single one.

We stayed here for a while, and then realized that it had been some time since we had eaten. We took a quick metro ride to an area with more food choices, and found a tiny burger place. It had about four things on the menu, and we had the place to ourselves (probably because we eat early, even for some American standards). In such a small place with limited menu, I'd either expect the food to be great or terrible. Lucky for us, it was the former.

This was some kind of special, so not one of the 4 menu items

The kids were pretty excited to ride on a double decker train on the way back to the apartment, and of course we had to ride on top (terrible pictures, though).

Once we got settled in for the night, we packed up what we could in preparation for leaving the next day.

Going Home

In the morning, Matt and I brought a quick breakfast back to the apartment so we could eat before the taxi came to take us to the airport. I had gone this far without coming down with whatever the rest of the family had, but by the time we got to the airport I was feeling unwell. I knew I had to just suck it up and get through the traveling, and could rest once we got home. Unfortunately, it seemed like the universe wanted to make this trip difficult for me.

So we got in line to go through security, and the woman working the line stopped us because we had an umbrella stroller and pack n play. She tried to put both in the box that carry ons are supposed to fit in, and told us that because they didn't fit, we would have to check them. I can understand this with the pack n play, but we have always taken the stroller all the way through and checked it at the gate.  But fine, Matt went to the kiosk to check both items. Supposedly we should have been able to check these with no charge, but the kiosk wouldn't allow him to do this without paying 40Euro. We had owned both items since Miles was a baby, and they weren't worth 40Euro together. He tried to get in line to have a person check them in, but the people wouldn't let him get in line because he should be able to do it at the kiosk. He went back and forth a few times without getting anywhere, and all the while I'm holding a wriggly toddler and feeling increasingly achey.

Finally we decided that it wasn't worth the hassle, and we would just leave the stroller and pack n play in France. Matt found some security guards and told them, so we wouldn't be detained for abandoning our things. We finally went through security and made it to the gate. Of course, we had a layover too, so we had to go through another entire airport carrying Clara so we would be on time for the next flight. I'm pretty sure I went to bed as soon as we got home. The kids got to spend a little more time with their Gigi before she had to go home, and I stayed on the couch. I'm glad we were able to take Anna on a trip, otherwise it might not have been a very fun visit for her.

Once I was feeling better, I looked up the regulations on strollers for the particular airline we flew. And a small stroller (which this was) counts as one of the personal items for a young passenger. We shouldn't have had the issue at all, so I sent an online complaint to the airline. They followed up, and the situation was resolved much to our satisfaction (which is why I'm not calling them out by name). I'm currently shopping around for a new travel stroller, and some can even fold up to fit into a backpack! Anyway, I'm sharing this story so people know that something like this can happen while traveling with kids. The next time we fly, I'll definitely look up the regulations beforehand, and possibly print them out to avoid the stress. I'm not too worried about the pack n play because it we had already decided not to travel with it in the future.

So both of our travel days for this trip had stress and someone feeling poorly, but overall it was a fantastic time.