We Left and Arrived

We left home. We stayed in Colorado for a weekend.

We left the US. We flew to Paris.

We settled-ish. We are in Europe! (More on our week in Paris in a minute.)

Our traveling day(s) were mostly drama-free. The girls, having only traveled by plane a short distance once before, were curious and happy in the airport. Plus, Denver is a fun one: terminal shuttle trains, windowed bridges that aircraft travel under, shops and restaurants selling tempting things. The plane was interesting too, of course. Initially, things were a bit dicey as Maggie got a window seat and Tessa got a “window” seat with no window in the airplane wall. I was able to distract her with the seat-back computer – lots of free games and horrible cartoons. And the food seemed magical to them: cheesy pasta in the air! An Oreo! A juice box! (The grown-ups’ chicken with olive tampenade was actually pretty good too.)

The kids slept fine, as kids can do. But they were obviously tired as we waited an hour in the customs queue. And when I say queue I mean a huge mass of people in one hall not bothering with waiting turns and all smashing toward the exit. With no bathrooms. Or air conditioning. Or English. For an hour. We survived. A bit crumpled, though.

We managed to stay awake most of our first day, besides a quick naplet on the train. We were not at our best, nor our cheerfullest, nor our smartest. But we got our chocolate croissants to fuel us and our metro passes to build confidence, and we made it just fine!

I’d say it’s now a week later and we are about to hit our stride. Of course we still had enormous fun and saw incredibles things in Paris. (Next post soon, I promise!) But the girls are now starting to sleep more normally and play together as they usually do and notice things around them, and we’re figuring out the system a bit more each day.

I think we’re going to be ok. Maybe even better than!