July 20, 2007

On our way to Paris

One of the perks of working at Intel is that every seven years, Scott gets a sabbatical. We have always planned to use the time off work to go to France. So we bought plane tickets and rented an apartment in Paris after Caleb was born. You may call us crazy, traveling to Europe with two small children and a newborn, but we just love to travel.

The cheapest plane tickets we could find meant we had to leave home about 5:30 am. No fun with three kids. Fortunately, Augusta drove us to the airport so we didn't have to worry about what to do with our car. Everything went great at check-in and we had enough time to have a leisurely breakfast of bagels and donuts from Beaverton Bakery. When we got through security and to the gate, we found that our flight would be delayed for at least an hour due to bad weather in Philadelphia, our connecting city. Fortunately the gate was close to a children's play area where the kids played and watched cartoons.

Glued to the TV

After the weather delay, we had another delay because one of the plane's tires was flat. It started out as a 45 minute delay and turned into a 90 minute delay. Then they announced another weather delay and that they would be re-booking people with connecting flights. Fortunately, Scott and the kids had been watching the plane tire being changed so they were very close to the front of the line for re-booking.

After waiting 30 minutes for the 3 passengers in front of him, Scott got to the front of the line. The agent offered Scott a complicated, multi-stop route to Paris that would get there about 6 hours late. Scott asked if it were possible to route us on another airline and suggested Lufthansa. The advantage of the Lufthansa route is that it flies non-stop from Portland to Frankfurt, has a one hour connecting flight to Paris and arrives only 2 hours late. Unfortunately we had to go out through security and check-in at the Lufthansa counter. Fortunately, the gate agent was very nice and gave us almost 40 dollars in meal vouchers, something the other passengers didn't get. It probably helped that at one point Brooke walked up to the gate counter and told Scott how hungry she was.

Our bags were (theoretically) sent directly to Lufthansa, so we only had to check-in and get our boarding passes from Lufthansa. They were very nice, but weren't able to get us seats together at that time. We figured they would have to work it out because a 6 year old and a 3 year old sitting by themselves wouldn't work very well. They promised us that they would try to fix it at the gate.

We were able to have a very nice lunch at Pizzacato, one of our favorite pizza restaurants. We had money (really vouchers) to burn so we bought brownies and cookies for dessert. After lunch we went through security and bought candy with the rest of our vouchers. Once at the gate, we were able to get new seat assignments. They had already fixed the assignments and just gave us new boarding cards. While we were waiting to board, we made friends with an Israeli couple who had fun talking to Tyler and Brooke about living in Israel. One funny thing was that their daughter wasn't traveling to Tel Aviv with them because she had just had a baby. We found out that the baby was 1 day older than Caleb! We were surprised when the lady was happy when Caleb started fussing, but she said he sounded just like her one month old grandson and it reminded her of him.

The ten hour flight to Frankfurt went very well. Brooke and Tyler were given small toys on the plane and Caleb got a Lufthansa pacifier clip. We were relieved that Caleb slept most of the flight. A couple sitting behind us said he was a miraculous baby. Brooke and Tyler behaved very well, but only slept about 4 hours. It didn't help that we flew over the Arctic Circle and so it never got dark outside. They didn't believe that it was really night time. We were pretty worried when we landed in Frankfurt because we only had ninety minutes for our connection. It took about 15 minutes for the airport staff to find our gate checked stroller and car seat. Then we had to go through passport control, customs, security and then to the very farthest gate in another terminal. Fortunately we were waved to the front of the security line because we were traveling with small children.

Sound asleep

Once in the terminal, Scott and Tyler ran to the gate to make sure they would hold the plane. Brooke, Tiffany and Caleb caught a ride on a cart and got to the gate a couple of minutes after Scott and Tyler. We boarded the plane immediately. The kids were each given gummy candy and chocolate plus another little toy. We were glad Lufthansa was so family friendly.

On the way to Paris

When we arrived in Paris, we found that our bags had not joined us. They didn't know yet whether they were in Portland, Philadelphia, Frankfurt or some other location. So we caught the RER train to Paris without our suitcases which actually made that part of the trip much easier. The train ticket machines were broken, so we were told we could ride the train for free.

Train to Paris

The train stopped pretty close to our apartment, but we had to walk a ways due to construction in the station. However, as a result we were able to go to a cell phone store and buy a SIM card so we could use Scott's phone in Paris. Then we had to wait about 15 minutes for the apartment rental agency to let us in to the apartment. Checking in seemed to take forever because we were so exhausted.

The apartment we rented is right in the middle of Paris. We learned our lesson last time we were in Paris when we stayed on the outskirts of the city. That meant we had 30-45 minute train rides into the city. Now we are just a couple minutes walk from a metro stop and have lots of restaurants and shopping nearby.

Apartment map

We spent the rest of the day alternating sleeping, shopping and wandering around getting our bearings. Our apartment is just down the street from Notre Dame. We were impressed by how beautiful it looks now that it has been cleaned.

Notre Dame

Posted by sjbowden at July 20, 2007 11:46 PM