Travels abroad Pt. 2: Paris, Day 1

This is a flashback post - catching up on the summer before it ends!

Our journey to Europe began early on my birthday, May 24th.  When we initially started planning, I had thought we'd leave on the 25th to give me a day to pack after school ended on the 23rd. But when we decided to add the pilgrimage to Lourdes, and I began figuring the logistics, it really made sense to leave a day earlier to have time to see Paris - my birthday treat, although we didn't actually arrive until Sunday morning.  At the time of booking the flights back in the winter this seemed maybe a little reckless, but doable. I perhaps didn't calculate how crazy the last week of school is. And this year I had to not only finish grades, plan end of year activities, and prepare for the 8th grade commencement, but also to pack up my classroom to move out and to deal with house buying negotiations. My longest night of sleep those last few weeks of May was maybe 5 hours. Four hours of sleep became my goal the last 2 weeks. I think I lay down around 3 am the night before we left and then got up at 4 to head to the airport for our flight to Chicago.

But do you know how good it felt to sit down on that plane and know everything was done? So good! A great birthday present!  Grades in, stuff packed, room cleaned, celebrations complete, goodbyes said.  I was too tired and too excited to feel too sad at all the leave taking from school friends (that set in later). 

For the most part, considering all the connections, our travel went smoothly - the two youngest girls and I met up with my husband in Chicago, transitioned to the international travel zone, and had time for a stop in the lounge before boarding.  No delays, no baggage issues. International flights are so lovely and long and leisurely. The meals and snacks - free champagne! - are so much better than domestic flights. I watched a movie about old Irish ladies making a pilgrimage to Lourdes before falling asleep. 

The only flight issue was when I woke up in the middle of the night/flight feeling sick, got up to go to the bathroom, and then passed out in the aisle. I'm sure I terrified the passengers who were back there. The flight attendants helped me to a seat, where I passed out again. I just couldn't wake up. I remember hearing voices that sounded far away and trying to open my eyes or say something, but it was like I was detached from my body. Was it the mini bottle of champagne? Or was it the exhaustion of the weeks before? Or was it just dehydration? Whatever the cause, they found my husband, I recovered enough to walk back to my seat, sipped some apple juice, and slept on and off until we arrived. Between the fluids and the sleep, I recovered, and we were ready to start our exploration of Paris!

First stop: Luggage locker near Airbnb to drop off bags. Second stop: a patisserie for cafe au lait and sweets.  We were staying in the 16th Arrondissement near a boulevard with plenty of choices for delicious food and coffee.  Reinvigorated, we strolled to the Seine and walked along the river to the Eiffel tower where we took tons of photos but did not pay to go up, partly because of the cost and the line and because we had a schedule.  We meandered back to our neighborhood to check in to the Airbnb and meet up with our sons - one coming from Boston and one from Germany.  

With the family gathered and another coffee and sandwiches consumed, we headed by foot to the center of the city to arrive at Notre Dame in time for their 6 pm Mass.  Our route took us by the Eiffel Tower again, the Rodin Museum, the Hotel des Invalides, past the Bon Marche, where we peeked in because the girls were interested in shopping, which is why we also took a diversion through a street market where we nearly bought some things and would have been tempted more if our luggage weren't so full. 

We also strolled through the Luxembourg gardens and admired the families playing tennis, taking pony rides, and floating boats through the pool. A jazz concert was taking place under some trees. There was so much to see in this park - statues and fountains and little food truck spots for treats. We could have spent more time here, and if we were ever to visit again, I might look for accommodations near this park. Since our time was limited, even though I had ambitions to get as far at the Pantheon, our plan was to attend 6 pm Mass at Notre Dame, so we headed across the Seine to the Ile de Paris. 

Attending Mass is the key to entering the big cathedrals on every tourist's to see list.  We did not have to have reservations or wait in line, but walked right in the center doors. We were pretty far in the back, but small TVs mounted on columns throughout the sanctuary projected what was happening on the altar. Tourists continued to mill along the side aisles as Mass was offered, but I was so tired the tourists weren't a distraction. Rather, all my energy was focused between trying to recall my high school French to follow the Mass and trying to stay awake.

When we visited in college, I thought my husband might propose here...

When Mass ended we lingered for a short time to explore the rest of the cathedral. The drawback of attending late Mass was not having much time to wander, pray, and admire the renovations and the original amazing structure since it was about to close.  We took what time we could, navigating the crowds, before the cathedral closed and we were waved out. 

The last time I visited Paris was New Year's of 1994, when I visited my now husband who was studying abroad in Rome during our junior year of college. We were just dating then, but I remembered walking along the Seine after visiting Notre Dame - or maybe just before - thinking, Now! This would the perfect time to ask me to marry you! In my memory we were sort of waltzing along the promenade, which would have been either silly and annoying to passersby or sweetly romantic.  There were certainly not as many tourists on the sidewalk, and the idea of having a reservation to visit any of the highlights of Europe was unheard of. Perhaps the biggest difference in the last 30 years to these timeless cities is the huge increase in tourists. It is understandable that many cities have seen protests about the tourism. In fact the day after our visit to the Louvre, it closed because of a strike by workers overwhelmed by tourists.

But at this point, we were mostly concerned about food. Our first dinner was a delightful, casual affair at a sidewalk bistro in Saint-Germain-des-Pres, where some of the more famous cafes are, like Les Deux Magots and Cafe Flore. We didn't feel the need to pay premium prices to sit where someone famous once sat, although we did walk by.  Our dinner was lovely regardless, and we tried to chose foods that weren't on every menu at home, like escargot, although bistro burgers were what the boys wanted. 

The Louvre was the centerpiece of our only full day in Paris, Monday. We had to pay extra to get tickets through a third party because those were something I neglected to book in advance, and in fact, my biggest mistake in planning was not reserving Louvre and Musee D'Orsay tickets. In 1994, we did not get to visit the Musee D'Orsay because it was closed on January 1, and again on this trip, we did not get to visit the museum renowned for its collection of Impressionist works.  This time there were no openings available - every slot was booked for the 2 and half days we were in Paris.  In the end, it would have perhaps been trying to squeeze in too much in one visit, and instead we made a visit the Petit Palais, which was a wonderful free museum. 

But I'm getting ahead of the story - After dinner, we returned to our apartment by foot in order to see more of the city.  Everyone was exhausted, but my middle son and I went back by the Eiffel tower to see it illuminated at sunset, which was almost 10 pm.  We admired the glittering tower and those gathered at the park for a few minutes before returned to collapse in our little apartment for the evening.

Travels abroad and wedding updates - planning edition

To lift my spirits from the moving doldrums, I'll review our trip to Europe at the beginning of the summer for our son's wedding.

When our second son and his fiancée first mentioned the idea of a wedding in Rome, we initially thought they were joking. Surely, they didn't really want to have a little destination wedding instead of a big family wedding in Portland, Maine!  

But yes, they really did want that small wedding in the city where they met and their story began. An Italian wedding planner was hired by the mother of the bride (what is our relationship called? Something more than friends?) A date was picked that accommodated the teachers in the family, and the church, San Ignazio, was reserved. At the time, it was not on the tourist circuit, but the installation of a mirror to view the ceiling made it TikTok famous at some point this year.  

Our part in the planning was to choose a site for the rehearsal dinner and to book accommodations and flights for our family.  My travel planning expertise kicked in. The rehearsal dinner choice was simple - the restaurant where my husband frequented as a student, and where we celebrated this son's 21st first birthday when he was a student and we traveled to Rome to see him (post about that trip here), where we hosted a dinner with a priest friend, and which is still in business. My husband conveniently had a work trip scheduled in late winter, so he dropped by the restaurant, Miscellanea, reserved the date, and picked a menu. What he did not do was set a price. Nor did I remind him that this is an important part of the process. Mickey assured my husband he would take care of him, and our previous dinners were delicious and reasonable. We were supposed to receive an email with all of that spelled out, but ah, never did! Closer to the date in May, we sent our fourth son, who was currently studying in Rome, to stop by again to confirm the date and time, so we thought all was set. What we did not calculate was the abundance of wine and appetizers and pizza that would be served! To fast forward to the end of the story, the rehearsal dinner ended up costing about twice the amount we idealistically expected, but about the amount that we should have expected! 

Housing was a little more complicated. Thankfully, the mother of the bride nudged me to reserve early because the summer of 2025 was a Jubilee year, and Rome would be crowded (which it was). Thank goodness for that nudge! At first I thought I could find an Airbnb for our family, but when we added in my parents (who in the end did not come), and 2 sets of aunts and uncles, our numbers rose to 17.  Knowing that some in our party might cancel, I switched to looking for a hotel. This was not easy because there are so many choices in Rome, but I focused on the area near the church, so we could walk there. After looking at what seemed like hundreds of options, I settled on a little pensione that had different sized rooms that fit our needs perfectly, was located not too far from San Ignazio off Piazza Navona, and fit our budget - the Charming Navona. It was not a luxury stay, but it was clean, comfortable, quiet, and the rooms were just the right size. We needed rooms for three for our sons and daughters, a room for a family of 4 for the cousins coming from Germany, three rooms with queens, and one big enough for a porta-crib, and a room with twins for my mom and dad, because my dad has a sleep disorder and has to sleep in his own bed.  What luck! Charming Navona worked just right for us, and even had a small lounge area on each floor for gathering, although we usually gathered in the family suite on the top floor where the cousins were staying because it had a kitchenette and a small balcony (never mind that the balcony was accessed through the bathroom). It had a lovely view of Italian rooftop gardens.

Next item: airline tickets. For the adult kids, we gifted them a nice amount of cash for Christmas to buy their own airfare.  Since everyone had different schedules and options for traveling to other places in Europe - or not, that was the simplest way.  I booked the tickets for the son studying abroad, who had to stay an extra 2 weeks at the end of the semester, which gave him time to travel a little more in Europe, and for the 2 youngest girls, my husband and me. This was a little complicated because we had to figure out how much time we had for a European vacation and where we wanted to travel. Fortunately, I hadn't booked tickets yet when my husband found out about his new job and moved to South Bend.  I also had to wait to see when our middle daughter finished her track season as postseason competition extended to June. We figured she would not compete at NCAA nationals, but you never know...  

It also took us awhile to figure out if we would extend our stay and for how long and where we would travel if we did. That was the topic of a lot of fun conversations, but we finally settled on flying to Paris (a direct flight from Chicago, which eased the mind of our fearful flier, who is doing much better, btw), spending a couple days there, then making a short pilgrimage to Lourdes before heading to the Eternal City for the wedding weekend. We'd end our trip by spending a couple of days in Nuremberg with the cousins before flying back to Austin via Chicago.

These were all cities I had visited before, except Lourdes. It had been over 30 years since we had been to Paris, but only 3 since visiting Nuremberg. However, we wanted the girls to see how their cousins lived, and the older kids, except the oldest, had all visited the cousins when they were studying abroad, so the younger two could have that shared memory. Plus, there is something meaningful about visiting people in their homes that cements relationships. You learn more about people when you see where and how they live, which is one of the goals, I think, of travel abroad. I am a little sorry that the model of staying with a host family has become so much rarer for study abroad students. 

With the destinations selected, next came booking planes, trains, and hotels - no automobiles for us. Our 3rd and 4th sons were staying with us in Paris, so I found a cute Airbnb near the Eiffel Tower (Loft Effiel by LCC Agency) for six - it was perfect for us, close to a fabulous bakery and within walking distance of most Paris sites that you want to see during 2.5 day visit.  I added the name to remember for the future, although I don't anticipate a return to Paris any time soon. 

Then I booked train tickets to Lourdes (using a budget train, OUIGO, instead of the main trainline, RCNF, because those tix were pricey), and then an Airbnb in Lourdes for 5 (3rd son went to Venice to meet up with friends.) Le Chaleureux Lourdes Hyper Center I also recommend - it was a spacious apartment right on the Gave River that flows through the city, within walking distance of the domain, and with cute balcony to admire the view of the river and the Pyrenees mountains in the distance. I did not know that Lourdes was actually also a destination for flyfishing excursions, but the view of the mountains and river made me wish we had more time to explore the countryside.

Next, we booked plane tickets to Rome from Toulouse, the nearest regional airport, on Ryanair (cheaper than the train tix), and a hotel near the airport (Appart Hotel Odalys Toulouse) because our flight was super early in the morning. I have not much to say about Toulouse, other than that the train from Lourdes to Toulouse arrived late and the train station was far from the airport, so we had to take a tram and walk quite a ways. And then the hotel, which was nothing special but advertised a shuttle to the airport, was a little over a mile to the entrance of the airport, even though on the map it looked like only a half a mile. One of our travel mistakes was that the shuttle didn't run until 6 am, which was when our flight left. Since we had lugged our bags all over creation the night before, my husband refused to walk, so we called a cab - which was 60 Euro to take us all that one mile. It cost less than that to uber almost an hour from central Rome to the airport. Lesson learned - check distance and/or reserve an uber sooner for better prices. 

Finally, we booked cheap flights on EasyJet from Rome to Munich and then rented a car to get to Nuremberg, which was cheaper and faster than taking the train, since we were a party of four. Plus, my husband discovered on our last trip that it is fun to drive in Germany, and he was weary of public transportation!

So with the itinerary was set and reservations were made, we, eventually, packed our bags. Traveling to Europe for a wedding requires slightly different packing strategies, but we were able to figure out a way to fit all of the dress clothes and fancy shoes in a hanging bag that could still be used as a carry-on, except for on RyanAir and EasyJet, and made sure all of our carry-ons fit the size regulations of European airlines, and then scaled back, twice, what we thought we wanted to take - which ended up being plenty.  Shopping for wedding and rehearsal dresses took a little time as well - hence, no BackBayView updates for months!  

The next edition will have more updates about what we experienced and photos of the events.  This is the boring post with travel details for reference later. BUT I'm adding a few photos for interest!

 

Updates - Moving again

July 3rd.

Midsummer has come and gone. Many days have passed and many things have happened since the last time I wrote, and although I cannot chronicle them all, I find myself with a minute to look back and reminisce and to look forward as we embark on a new chapter.

I am also grieving the last chapter of our lives and anxious about the next and hope that writing for a minute might help clear my mind, as I can't seem to move out of the mental spiral I find myself in. 

The latest update is that we have packed up and left Texas and arrived in northern Indiana, where my husband has been living and working since the end of January. We stopped along the way to see both sets of grandparents and one set of cousins. The cousins have a big, beautiful, newly built house with a huge backyard and a pool that is making me question our decision to leave suburbia and return to urban life.  And another friend sent photos of their new farm in Pennsylvania. Then we spent a day at my parents' farm in southern Indiana.  Rural life was also looking attractive. 

So when we drove up to our new house that I had only seen online and in a Facetime call, my stomach dropped. My 19 year old, who was with me, said, "Oh Mom, I don't think this is your forever home." And I felt the same thing. My heart didn't leap up; it sank. We will have only a tiny backyard, which is actually a side yard since the house in on a corner, with a little patio, a small plot of grass, and a koi pond - bonus! The front and side yards are landscaped nicely, but in my mind the back yard was bigger, more of a sanctuary space. And in person, the house paint looks shabby, the front entrance needs an update, and the windows are ancient.

We looked at many houses, and my husband looked at this one in person. We put an offer in on one (not one of the two in the last post) and sacrificed the earnest money to make an offer on this one. The one we had an offer on was tiny and dark inside and needed a major renovation/addition to accommodate our family, but the price was great, it was in the neighborhood we liked, and it had a beautiful yard. The house we will sign for tomorrow was actually one I looked at on Zillow based on pictures from 10 years ago when it was sold last after it was renovated.  Dan Face-timed me when he walked through, and we both loved what we saw. It was so much better than what we had looked at before in terms of space and updates.  But I didn't look closely at windows and and bathroom fixtures, and for some reason, I thought the yard was oriented differently and was larger.

Then I also started fretting because the kitchen is in the back of the house and connects to a dining room and a small sitting room, but not to the living room. I like the detailing in the house - it's an older home with nice moldings and built-in bookshelves, and it has a sizeable basement and 4 bedrooms, plus a little office that can function as a guest room. There is much to like about it, but it is just not what I thought it was.

This is the peril of online shopping. Ask me why I didn't fly out to see it myself when it first came on the market? We had to decide quickly because there were two other offers on the house. And then I was so, so, so busy at the end of the school year, and I had just been out to visit to see the little house with the great yard that we had put an offer on two weeks before.  I had driven by this house, but didn't really pay attention to it, other than to note that it was the house I had seen online.  I trusted my husband's opinion, and I was feeling overwhelmed by the amount of work we would had to have done to transform the little house.

So there I am looking at buying a house I didn't really love. Was this just "cold feet" before a big purchase? My feet literally tingled with anxiety.  

I spent hours that first night here researching real estate deals gone bad. What happens when a buyer backs out at the last minute?  They lose the earnest money. They could be sued. But what happens when someone buys a house then decides it isn't right for the family?  They could lose thousands in the process of selling and buying a different place. Moving is expensive - the fees, the commissions, the insurance, packing costs, the moving company, new curtains and rugs, and the replenishing of all the groceries and cleaning supplies and stupid things like toilet bowl brushes and trash cans that you give and throw away and have to purchase again on the other end, etc. 

And then there is the emotional cost. Our family is mourning friendships, neighbors, our fun house and million dollar view, our parish and school, my students, the Texas rivers, Austin hikes, and even the things we didn't do yet- we never went to the Schlitterbahn! Why, I even spent a ridiculous amount of time moaning about a bag of old ND t-shirts I gave away to Goodwill at the last minute because they might have had sentimental value. Meanwhile I crammed into the car a ridiculous amount of junk with no value, including 5 old laptops, discarded by the kids when they updated, that we never sent to the e-waste place, because I wasn't sure if the kids had scrubbed the hard drives. 

Why was I mourning old t-shirts? Because I feared that in the bag was a little Notre Dame t-shirt that my husband had worn as a child and then our boys wore when they were little.  I'd been saving the bag to give my sister-in-law, whom we were going to see, for her littlest son. Silly thing to feel sad about, but it represented bigger losses -  the loss of childhood, the loss of connections to the past, and my lack of preparation for leaving. I packed in a rush and didn't give myself time to sort through old things, so in a moment of distress about how much stuff was sitting around, I told my daughter to take the bag along with multiple other bags of stuff that we didn't need to the donation center.

How did we have so much stuff? We just did this 4 years ago. Why didn't I get rid of more? I threw away huge loads of junk, gave away huge loads of junk, and still had loads of junk packed into boxes and shoved into the car. We had boxes of papers we hadn't opened since we left California - some of them hadn't been opened even before that move. They are full of papers from my husband's job and from our children's art and from my class notes. All stuff that is either now irrelevant, online, or just a memento that no one really wants to treasure forever - scribbles from pre-school years, pictures from fourth grade, papers from 9th... I held on to much more from our older kids than the younger ones, so there is an irregular distribution of mementoes.

I also held onto other old t-shirts with the idea of making t-shirt quilts, but here again I don't have an even number for each kid. I stopped keeping them because I realized it was a futile gesture that wasn't ever going to get finished. I haven't even made photo-books for the last 10 years. 

All this unnecessary stuff! All these unfinished projects! 

And now here we are living in a temporary 4 bedroom furnished apartment which is just fine without most of our stuff. (I do have those dead laptops still!)  We closed on the new house Tuesday despite my anxieties, but we are giving the owner a month rent back while he relocates (part of the reason he took our offer).  

Actually, after our walk-through, I felt better about the house. It is a good size for us - not too big when it is just my husband, our daughter, and I, but big enough to accommodate a sizable group when the kids come home or friends visit. We are going to renovate the bathrooms right away, paint a couple rooms, and get new windows and screens for the sun room this fall. Other new windows and updates like exterior paint and adding a front portico, can wait till next spring.  Our daughter is excited about picking out wallpaper, an area rug, and new furniture for her room. We're all excited about outfitting the game room in the basement - but that may take place over time, too. 

After a couple of days of getting used to adjusted expectations, I feel better about the house, but I'm not sure it's our forever house, and I'm giving up on the idea that such a thing exists as I observe our aging relatives moving out of their "forever homes" into smaller places. There's a part of me that wishes we had committed to renting for a year to get a feel for the area and what our next chapter will look like. That was sort of the idea with the little house - buy it to live in for a bit until we decided what we wanted in a future home.  But part of the problem is that what I want shifts all the time - one minute small, sustainable, and tidy is appealing, the next minute, wide open spaces are what I crave. 

I haven't forgotten (and neither has my husband) the anxiety I felt about our Texas house, which was such a shift from where we were before. Big, expensive, contemporary.  I lost a lot of sleep about making such a big commitment, but we were happy there. The kids loved it. The neighbors were great. After having a fraught relationship with the pool in Coronado, I ended up loving the Texas pool, which we swam in every day before we left. The neighbors came over to swim almost every day, too! The game room and bar and movie theater at our Texas house bothered me when we were moving, but by the time we left, they were part of the fun. And now guess what we are putting in our new basement? A projector and either a pool table or ping pong table or something. The 19 yr old has requested a peloton or treadmill. And under the stairs is a little bar space - snack bar, that is. Perfect for making popcorn and serving up soda or hot chocolate!

If moving all these times has taught me anything, it's that we can make anything into a home. We tend to pendulum swing from smaller, urban houses to bigger, suburban houses each time we move.  I just want the kids to want to come and see us and to feel comfortable staying as long as they want/can, although I know our lives have shifted.  The 19 yr old said she feels like she doesn't belong anywhere, but she'll always have a home with us, wherever we are.  The platitudes about home being wherever we are together ring true. Soon we'll be putting out a new welcome mat and turning on the lights to welcome all!