Well, we did clock in a bedtime yesterday before midnight. Lights out at 11:35p.m.! This repeated lateness is partly my fault: I haven't shortened my posts by much. Perhaps a 25% cut from my typical travel writings. That accounts for a bit of a delay in the evening, but not that much -- I usually am mostly done by then). And, too, there is the after dinner visit to Tivoli. Add an hour or two there. Special interruptions (the loud music Friday, the light show Saturday, the room switch Sunday, and packing Monday) are to blame for the rest. I'm really hoping that in Paris we will move up our bedtime. Before we get messed up again as we return to Reykjavik!
I am up before her. Last minute packing, tidying up the room. And Snowdrop is quick in the mornings: school for her started at 7:40. She is used to rushing. By 8:15 we are at breakfast. For our usuals.
(Snowdrop tells me this is her ideal breakfast. All that's missing is the fake bacon that she loves so much back home.)
(Honestly, I feel equally happy with mine: pastry, yogurt, fruit. The sacred trilogy. Plus milky coffee of course.)
(so long, Tivoli)
One last check of the room and unfortunately, a good bye to the black cat...
And we are off to the airport.
Time to think about the trip. The first thought I always have in leaving a place is whether I will come back. That's an older person's thought! At first, I kept some spare Danish cash -- always handy to have when you arrive in a foreign place. But in the end I spend it down to almost the last Danish Krone. I know Snowdrop is dying to come back. Her dream vacation would be en famille, to all the Nordic countries. She tells me she would be in charge of planning out Denmark. She would include a few days at the sea, a few in Copenhagen, which for her is Tivoli writ large. The hotel cannot be the Nimb -- that's a once in a lifetime splurge. But it has to be close to the Gardens!
I take her fantasizing as a compliment. Trips with me were always meant to be a springboard to a future of travel and excitement over finding yourself in a new place. When I am alone, I tend to return these days to places I love. With Snowdrop, I always want her to see something new . Her love of Denmark, triggered to be sure by the Tivoli Gardens, comes with a promise to herself that she will be back. This makes me happy! [She does also have a love of France -- I'm to blame for that of course. For the first time on this trip she comes just a little prepared. She has been doing a French language app every morning for months now. She wants to be fluent in the language. I'm glad of that as well!]
A short flight to Paris, a commuter train ride into town (cheaper, faster, better), and we alight in a city that is very, very warm. (Well, we already knew that: the train was without air conditioning and the windows were closed. The French are used to heat and I have to say, I prefer it to the bone chilling air conditioned spaces back home.) Today's high is 89F (or 32C). I suppose we are lucky: all sunshine and no rain. And, too, it will be even warmer by the weekend. We wont be in Paris by then. We'll be dripping in a bunch of very wet and cold days in Iceland.
Alighting from the underground station at Luxembourg is always makes me smile. We are in Paris. Right by the Luxembourg Gardens. How good is that!
And the walk to our hotel is downhill, which is great on the arrival and a little less great on the departure (uphill then!).
We're staying at the Baume. In my favorite room. Talk about a happy place -- this one is mine!
The staff here is so very wonderful and the room is always perfect and comfortable and spotless. With three large windows looking out on a quiet street. Snowdrop got a little gift from them -- a cosmetics case with some French products -- lip balm, cream, that sort of thing. She was thrilled!
Wait, we haven't eaten lunch and it's 4 p.m.! She claimed not to be hungry on the plane. Hmmm... Snowdrop, how would you like a nice ice cream cone, right now? Okay! And maybe cotton candy in the park? No protest there.
(hers)
(mine)
I have an agenda for tomorrow and an open mindset for the next day. This afternoon, we go to the Gardens. It's hot, but less so in the shade. And what fragrances! If you walk under the canopy of the linden trees, you are overwhelmed by the sweet, delicate scent of their blooms. For once they outperform the lovely chestnuts.
She very much wants to go to the large playground in the park. And the merry-go-round -- a bit sheepishly since she feels too old for it, even as it makes her happy. And the swings. It's funny to see her doing these small amusements after having done such big ones at Tivoli. But I do think that she misses her friends in these more playful venues. She wont say so and insists that being my traveling companion is the best, but there are places where grandmothers are no substitute for kids her age.
(I wait for her at the side, along with other parents, grandparents, nannies. She climbs and slides and zips on her own.)
We eat dinner at Les Editeurs. That's on the girl as well. I had booked a table at a favorite pizza place, thinking surely that she'd want a break from seafood, but no. She asked what was on the menu in "that red place,"(it has red leather-ish seats) and when I mentioned sea bass, she said -- let's go there. Fine with me!
And now it is evening. Sunset here is just shy of 10, so it is still light when we start thinking about bedtime. No excuses tonight! Let's try for sleep before 11. Or thereabouts.
with so much love...
