Planes, Trains and Buses (not as catchy)

Nous sommes arrives!  The travel day consisted of all of Pierce's favorite things, all transportation related of course.  The 152 bus to the Blue Line, a flight to Paris then and RER train from CDG.   A relatively short walk to the apartment and we crash.  Well, by relative I mean 10 minutes, with the arch nemesis for all metro stations, Chatelet.  It's not enough that this particular stop connects with no less than 10 transport options, but they must also have 30 exits, most of which are closed due to construction work.  Needless to say even in the best of times, this metro stop and I are on bad terms.

My personal Chatelet issues aside, our trip was stress free.  File under the reasons why we travel internationally at Thanksgiving…..empty flights!  Which means, rows for everyone.  Suck it business class, we are reclining in all our own rows here in the cheap seats.  I say business class because this is the last equipment from AA that has yet to be upgraded.  We are talking no personal video devices here  people, dark ages.

Fortunately it is an overnight flight, so all we need is dinner and a glass of wine (me) beer (mitch) and French flight attendant who dotes on Pierce.   Unfortunately for the rest of the flight the first movie is Disney's Planes.  Wow!!!  exciting to no one, except Pierce.  Who, incidentally just watched this on the way back from the OC.

Fast forward …..easy flight, great apartment and we hit the road, after nap! I am military about a nap after the flight and mitch and pierce sleep peacefully for two full hours, me….not so much.  Le sigh.

We hit up Notre Dame for the windows and laugh at the tourists standing in line for the towers  Something Pierce has inherited from the both of us, we do not do lines.  Apres the Notre Dame excursion, Pierce is all about the Hotel de Ville carasole.  Just like old times, only now he is old enough to ride alone, no twirly whirly for us!  A visit to the Stravinsky fountain seals the deal on cool factor for Pierce.

A short stop at the store for provisions….mainly special edition beers and some breakfast stuff and we head back to the apartment.  An early dinner at the local falafel stop is next.  Seriously great stuff. Pierce cleans his plate and Mitch's.  Not ready to hit the bed, we venture the 10 meters to the nearest bar with Pierce in tow.  A big futbul match is on and Pierce is instantly engaged.  What the heck would we do if this kid was not into sports…..shudder!!!!

My personal challenge of the day is trying to engage to the locals in futbul talk.  I am hopeless and I never feel like more a fish out of water.  Can you imagine, me not being able to talk sports.  My downfall being I don't' know soccer in english, let alone French.  An attempt to steer the conversation to the NFL does not go over as planned.  Oh Well, there's still a language of sports and it wins over :)