Well, we made it. Day one was really all about survival and tear minimization. My biggest coup was actually getting the kids off the plane after six hours of media paradise. Before we even left the ground in Montreal, Foster informed me that he would prefer to skip Paris and just fly for a few days so he could catch up on all of the movie and television offerings playing on the seat back in front of him. This television nirvana resulted in far too little sleep for all three (particularly Nolan who did not close his eyes until we were taxiing to a stop in Paris).
I knew my challenge for the day would be to keep smiling and to try to be encouraging in the face of everyone's exhaustion. I could have helped my own cause by choosing a hotel a bit closer to the city center or researching some other transportation options. But, backpacker law insists that you always spend as little money as possible to get from point A to point B. So, we took the train into the heart of Paris.
Everyone was all smiles. Sitting on a train is fun. When we popped out into the city, that was fun too. When we had to hoist the packs and start walking, that was sad. Nolan decided that the pack he had deemed, "not too bad," back in Vermont was ridiculously heavy. Foster and Brianna looked at the map and tried to roughly calculate the miles to the hotel. I smiled and tried to remember my higher calling.
We lasted about 5 minutes before taking our first bench break in a park and determining that we were going the wrong direction. The kids were not amused. I smiled. We carried on in a similar fashion for about three miles - making our way from central Paris to the outskirts. We had the requisite "small world run-in" with a Vermonter who recognized us on the street near the Bastille. We paused for numerous rest breaks in parks. We stopped for water and a rowdy demonstration of some kind. We watched a running police man with a baton chase a driver down for littering (and made a mental note to keep close track of all loose paper and trash we carried). About one mile into our hotel trek, I found myself carrying two packs and smiling through gritted teeth. When our two-star Grand Hotel Voltaire finally appeared in the distance, it was like a mirage in the desert - shimmering (that may have been the tears) and beckoning, but leaving us unsure as to whether we could trust that it was really there.
After running two credit cards with no success, the kids had to empty their pockets of their bon voyage gift Euros (Thanks Grandma and Grandpa! Know that you kept your grandchildren off the streets of Paris for the night!) in order to pay for our room. When the lady at the reception handed me the key and pointed up five flights of stairs, I thought this would be the final straw - that there would be mutiny. Then she uttered the five magical words that saved my life, "Your free WIFI password is..." The clouds parted, the sun shone down upon us, and two kids heaved packs onto their backs and sprinted up the stairs. Nolan, however, was busy trying to sleep on the floor and still holding back tears because I had just taken away all of his money. This was no time to teach self-sufficiency. I balanced my load with one pack in the front and one in the back and gingerly picked my way up the staircase. I was doubled over and panting by the second floor. Sweat poured off me. I gritted my teeth and tried to smile - questioning my higher calling. Nolan breezed by me in pursuit of his siblings and his own WIFI connection. I decided I could probably just knock on somebody's door if I had a heart attack and my kids failed to notice for the next couple of hours.
When I arrived at the summit, I found everyone happily connected and oblivious to my suffering - a typical day in any parent's world I suppose. Petrified by the possibility of being defeated by jet lag, I gave everyone the 20 minute warning - 20 minutes to relax (no sleeping allowed), and then we would hit the town. At the first sign of Foster trying to doze, we headed out to see the city in whirlwind fashion.
We started with lunch in Pere Lachaise Cemetery where Nolan noted that there are a LOT of people in France named "Famille."
L'Arc de Triomphe, the Eiffel Tower, and a boat ride on the Seine rounded out day one. Nolan slept on a bench at the Eiffel Tower. Nolan and Foster slept through the boat ride. We all slept on the subway back to the hotel. In between naps, hopefully these kids will remember bits and pieces of Paris someday.
As we sat under the Eiffel Tower eating ice cream late in the day, we agreed that this was all just a little surreal. Less than 24 hours earlier we had been trying to figure out how to get to the airport from the side of the road in Montreal. Now we were finally in Paris. Brianna summed up the whirlwind pretty well when she said, "Today I almost forgot this trip is really about el Camino." For today, though, it was all about France...and Algeria. As we drifted off to sleep close to midnight, Foster tracked the World Cup games on his iPod. Algeria scored a goal to tie Russia, and the street below erupted into raucous celebrating - cheering, singing, dancing, and flares. We're not in Jericho anymore. Surreal.
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