Paris

So how is it here, in this great big beautiful city (that could not be more different than my home base at the farmette)? How was the travel? The arrival? First hours on this side of the ocean?

Well, in a sense, predictable, with a few unexpected stresses, greatly outnumbered by the joyful moments of watching Paris unfold before our eyes.

Chicago's airport, our departure point, wasn't chaotic. The young family ate a pizza supper...






... and then Snowdrop and I visited different corners of the airport, enjoying the views of the big planes (including ours).





This is why you shouldn't be apprehensive about travel (with kids or even without): the punches are never ones you would have anticipated, and you spend too much time fretting about matters that, in the end, aren't significant at all.

For example, I did not expect us to be strapped into our seats for the first two and a half hours because of strong turbulence. With kids, this is always a problem. No food, no movement, no bathrooms. And you don't know how long it will last. Five minutes? Five hours?

In the end, most of the 7.5 hour flight was very smooth, and I'm happy about that, but it surely got off to a bumpy start!













Finally, in our AirBnB apartment. On this street:






We chose it for its size and location. Period. I wanted to be within a short stroll to the Luxembourg Gardens and all those other Left Bank nooks I've grown to love.

The apartment does have a large set of rooms....






Three bedrooms for the five of us. (We would have settled for two, but three is very nice!) Sparrow gets to sleep in the bathroom. He is still noone's favorite sleeping buddy.






I don't even unpack. I go out immediately in search of lunch for us all. So many places are still closed this week for vacation, but there is a bread store/pastry shop just a couple of blocks down the road and it has everything that I'm looking for.






This girl joyously proclaims it to be the best baguette ever! I believe it. The croissants, too are delicious. Or is it that we will them to be so? Because we're so hungry and our love of these breads runs so deep?






While Sparrow takes a very very long nap, and parents doze off as well, Snowdrop and I set out to the tiny park that is just a four minute walk from here. Small but delicious. It has it all!






How this child has grown over the years! She'd rarely climbed wobbly ropes before. Now she goes in full speed and she doesn't care that there may be a bunch of older, more energetic climbers vying for the same. Sleep deprived? You wouldn't notice, looking at her.












After a while, I steer her to the  pastry section of the mega Food Halls of the Grand Epicerie.






I don't mean to offer her any macarons now, just before dinner, but the sales clerk wants to keep this little one smiling and so she gifts her one. I don't want to sound rude and say no!






We pick up some fruits and a bottle of rose for our fridge. And I am agreeable for another  small treat: on this beautiful, sunny day, you can't resist Berthillon ice cream. The French do not overload your ice cream cone (or cup).











Finally, dinner. I'd toyed with going to a "real" restaurant, but this is tricky in Paris with kids in the evenings, for any number of reasons and especially when everyone is terribly sleep deprived and potentially fragile.

In the end we go to the nearby Cafe de Flore on St Germain. And everyone is exceptionally good natured, and the food is just fine and we all leave smiling (and Sparrow tries, for the first time, sitting at the table without a high chair... he is that big!)






I'll leave you with this boy's happy grin (back home now). His verdict on Paris thus far? Well, I would say this: