Pay to pee

Aug 14

Up way too early, considering how late we stayed up. Breakfast at our hotel, next to a mother scolding a child because he started to cry when she left him to go to the buffet. It made me realize how many of the people we saw at Disneyland didn’t actually look all that happy. Some of them looked determined – as in were here to have a good time, and we WILL have a good time. Some of them look completely overwhelmed, and some of them just look tired.

We found our way to the train station and figured out where we needed to be. Then E needed a bathroom break- that cost .90 EUR. Fortunately I had the right coins, but she had to go alone because we couldn’t get the luggage through the gate. Then it turned out that our train was delayed by work on the tracks – it eventually came and it was lovely. Somehow, I had managed to book us on first class! Really comfortable seats, lots of leg room- the only disappointment to E was that there was no restaurant.

We had to change trains in Lille – because the train was late, we had about 7 minutes to change, instead of the hour we had originally scheduled. The real challenge was that we had to go to a different train station – it was only 10 minutes away, but we didn’t have that much time so we missed the train. We found the right office and went in to explain, and the lady was quite suspicious. First, she had to phone someone to make sure that our train was really late. Then she had to examine our train tickets and our passports. She booked us on the next train, but there were no seats in first class. I thought second class was fine, since that’s what I thought I wanted in the first place, but E felt hard done by and suggested that we sue the train company. That at least provided the smile for the day. When I phoned the car company, they found someone who spoke English and he told me that there was a charge for last minute schedule changes. I must have sounded fairly desperate by then because he told me to hold and then came back and said that he had been able to solve my problem and not to worry.

The waiting room was really nice. Quite a lot of people had dogs, and the lady sitting next to us had a cat in a backpack. There was a man talking to himself, and another one with his head back, snoring loudly, but no-one seemed remotely concerned. The most interesting thing was a machine that E discovered – you press a button for either English or French and it spits out a poem or a short story on a long piece of paper, something like an adding machine tape. Before we left, she had collected several stories and poems. I thought it was a great idea, but the content was strange…poetry by John Milton (1608-1674) is not what you expect in a train waiting room.
The train station had a lot of stairs, and as I was going up the stairs with my suitcase, a young man came along and seized it and carried it up for me without a word. As usual, in a difficult world, I am touched by the kindness of people who don’t even know me. A very nice gentleman texted me to tell me that he would pick us up, and then called me just before the train arrived to tell me where he was standing so I could find him easily. It was a luxury well worth pre arranging – a nice car, a nice driver who took my luggage, and off we went. As we drove through Paris towards our hotel, he not only pointed out sights that we shouldn’t miss, but opened the skylight so E could look up and see the tops of things.

Her first view of the Eiffel Tower seemed to be underwhelming – she thought it was one of those electricity things (her words, not mine).

The hotel is lovely, much nicer than I expected. The room is very small and we have to share a bed, but that’s not much of a problem. It has that wonderful European invention that allows you to turn off all of the lights from the bed, which has fascinated her for some time as she tried to figure out which switch works for which light. We sorted ourselves out, had a nap and then ventured out for dinner. One of the things that seems difficult when traveling with a child is that restaurants don’t open for dinner until 7, but child got hungry at 5. The staff here were wonderful and explained that I didn’t need to worry, there were lots of places to eat that weren’t restaurants. Cafes and brasseries for example, although I’m not clear what the difference is. She sent us off to a creperie.
This part of Paris was settled by immigrants from Brittany, which is famous for crepes so there are many opportunities to eat crepes nearby. The food was really good—a crepe with mozzarella, bacon and tomato for E, and one with goat cheese, bacon and apple for me. I finished up with a coffee, while she managed to eat another crepe, this time with Nutella in it. On the way home we found a grocery store, and stocked up on fruit and yogurt for me, and chocolate mousse for her, in case she got hungry later.

The hotel has a couple of lounges on the main floor, one with coffee and tea as well as wine, and one for reading and relaxing. Unlike the lobbies in American hotels, these were being used. In one there was a woman reading the newspaper, and in the other, a woman enjoying an espresso. We had tea, mostly because my companion was delighted with the Nespresso machine and wanted to try it out. Full and tired, we have gone to bed. I have tied her Mickey Mouse blanket into a reasonable facsimile of a dog, which she has named Mr. Potato, and she had gone to sleep so I can write.

Note that I know there are spelling errors, but for some reason my computer has decided to interpret several of the punctuation keys as diacritics, and Im (comes out at Ièm) not sure how to fix it.