...and Boy, are my Arms Tired.

The jet lag is a lot harder to overcome, flying east, than it is on the return trip. I'm not sure exactly why that is - but it's always a much longer struggle for me to figure out the time zone once we're in Europe than it is after returning home again.

That said... coming home took 20 hours of nonstop traveling, so it took some recovery time, too. Even though I wanted to get the last day in Paris written up and posted sooner, my brain and fingers just wouldn't cooperate. Between the horrible all-wrong day that I stumbled through immediately after getting home (ever try to have a cordial chat with your kid's school principal, following a painfully cute kindergarten Thanksgiving play, when you're so tired you're nervous about blinking for too long and your tights have just sprung a run?) and then the excesses of Thanksgiving at my father's, it took a while to get the systems realigned. And so...

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In theory, our last day in Paris would involve waking up early to get the most out of the day. In practice, we were all hitting our own respective walls of fatigue and overstimulation, so we had to accept "before noon" as being "early enough." I've always tried to adhere to a three-day rule of travel: go out and sight-see, do things, experience the vacation hard-core for three days, and then plan to take the fourth day off, something that involves a lot of sitting or lying down, preferably in the presence of a pool, ocean or masseuse. Repeat as necessary. But for this trip, the fourth day was also our last day abroad, so there was a sense that we needed to try and get as much done as we could.

So, we were, eventually, up and at 'em, and headed to the oldest part of Paris, near Notre Dame and the Palais du Justice. En route, my mother and sister indulged in some illegal activity, according to the sign:

I still don't know exactly what the sign was actually forbidding, but I thought it was probably safe to share the photo now that we're back in the US. I doubt hand-holding is an extraditable offense.

Our destination for the day was Saint Chapelle, this beyond-gorgeous medieval building. It's hard to get a decent photo from the outside, because it's quite massive, and quite close to the neighboring buildings.

What was most impressive - and a little sad - to me was the evidence of the building's inevitable crumbling over time, despite ongoing efforts toward restoration.

There are only two rooms open to the public, a large open upper chapel and a smaller lower chapel used for entry/exit as well as gift shop. I tell you what, my camera breathed an audible sigh of relief at only having two rooms to photograph. As it was, I think I probably strained a few camera muscles during the visit.

First, the Upper Chapel:

Even the stairs on the way back down to the Lower Chapel are picturesque:

And then, the Lower Chapel:

I can't think why I'd never been to Sainte Chapelle before; my only guess is that it's fairly small, and it's tucked away on the grounds of the Palais du Justice, which is still an active courthouse. You can take tours, but we've always opted to stick around outside, take a few photos, and then wander elsewhere. I imagine it's worth a tour, on its own, someday - it does figure prominently in Victor Hugo's Notre Dame du Paris (a.k.a., The Hunchback of Notre Dame), if I recall correctly - but we haven't gotten inside yet.

From there, we had a delightfully long lunch - and for those thinking of traveling to Paris, there is apparently an official city salad dressing, so be forewarned. It tastes a bit like Caesar dressing, often with a kick of horseradish, and they put it on any poor, unsuspecting raw vegetable they can find. It's not bad, but it does get a little old after a few days.

We talked about going to Les Invalides or the grounds of the Tuileries, but it was now mid- to late afternoon and places were closing for the day. My mother and sisters felt obligated to do some fashion-clothes-perfume type shopping while in Paris; I had no desire to look at clothes I can't wear now anyway and wanted to go back to pack my bags and nap for a while before dinner, so we parted for a few hours. But not before staring, baffled, at the window display for the friendly neighborhood exterminator:

Once more into the Metro, and back to the hotel...

A few hours later, we wound up at a seriously wonderful Italian restaurant (yes, I get the irony, Italian restaurant, Paris... but it was an easy walk from the hotel and we were starving) with the kind of food that leaves you perfectly willing to pick up the plate to lick every last taste, if only you weren't too full to do so.

The next day consisted entirely of traveling, from the 4:00a cab to the airport to the 45-minute wait for them to open the check-in counter to take our luggage, to the brief, crowded layover in Dublin (too short to actually experience the country at all, but the signs are in Gaelic and the accents are lovely, and I'm determined that the British Isles will be the site of our next international adventure), to the long delays in New York City... but eventually, we were able to get to our respective homes.

I should, in the next month or so, be able to get a hold of photos from my sisters' and mother's cameras, so I'll share some of those here (especially those that include me, just to prove to my kids that I was actually on the trip). And then this blog will sit, sad and lonely, until next time...

Au revoir!

Fewer (but More Famous) Dead People - OR - Approximately $10 Per Nipple

Day three, and we still had enough energy in the morning to plan on a full day's worth of activities. After breakfast - and French hotels do breakfast nicely, because it's very hard to have a bad start to the day when faced with a big old basket full of croissants and pain du chocolat - we headed out, and no matter how nice breakfast might have been, there was still time to pause and reflect on the delight that comes from knowing this is all available for sale mere steps away from the hotel:

After salivating, sighing, and generally acting like lovesick swains, we continued to the Metro, with a destination of the Panthéon.

En route, we accidentally stumbled upon a former residence of one of my collegiate archenemies:

Seriously, who needs Electrical Science, anyway? Certainly not I... though it took me three attempts before I stopped trying to pretend I might someday understand it, or at least competently fake understanding.

We also passed one of the ancient walls of Paris, built by Philippe Auguste in the 1300s.

This is cool enough in and of itself, but that coolness was only amplified by one of my ongoing reading projects recently. I read a review of Paris: A Secret History some time ago, and went out and bought a copy when my mother told me about this trip. I'm normally quite a fast reader, but this book is so fact-dense and narrative-intensive that it has taken me several months to get halfway through it. I find it immensely readable, very interesting and accessible, just not a quick-skim sort of experience. So by the time of our journey, I had read up to the Revolution of 1789, and therefore was considerably more aware of ancient, medieval and pre-Revolutionary events than of recent stuff. It's just delightful to have read about a landmark and then say, "Hey! I know about that! I read that such-and-such, and so-and-so..."

(Give me a break, I'm a stay-home mom with a limited social life, after several years of working comparatively high-level sorts of jobs. It's fun to feel smart and informed again.)

Sarah performed an impromptu experiment, in which she determined that, yes, the wall was, indeed, a formidable defense.

The Panthéon was originally built as a cathedral for Ste. Genvieve, patron saint of Paris (and someone about whom I also read, in my trusty history book). After the Revolution, France went all anti-religion for a while - going so far as to start their calendar over from Year I and rename all the months after non-religious references - and the Panthéon was messed with in various ways, finally being dedicated as a final resting place for a smattering of famous people, religious and otherwise, under the heading of "Hall of Great Men."

The architecture makes the word "impressive" seem inadequate, and the sheer scale of it all, plus the dimmed lighting, make decent photography difficult. But I was up for the challenge, and I'm pleased with my results. (And I do so love that we live in the age of digital photography; I took approximately 250 photos in one day - yes, really - and only kept the ones I liked. And I still have too many, but at least I didn't spend a ton on film developing to sort it all out...)

A few favorites:

And as for the famous dead people...

Pictured are Voltaire, Alexandre Dumas and Louis Braille. (I have great appreciation for the fact that Braille's grave does, indeed, contain Braille characters... but I find it a little cruel that there's no Braille elsewhere in the building, and the tomb is quite deeply buried within the crypt. It's nice to reward a blind person for finding the grave, but how's about we make it a little less impossible for them to get there in the first place?) Victor Hugo, both chemist Curies, and a number of others are in there, but the photographic oomph is low... the graves are all very similar, and only visible at oblique angles from doorways.

There was also, over the entrance/exit, a mystery: click to enlarge.

How do you suppose that got there? Not just got there, but got so firmly wound up. Not a ladder or scaffold in sight...

From there, we had lunch at a crêperie, which was arguably the best French meal we had all weekend. (We also had really good food the last night there, but it was at a little Italian place.)

And, of course, since we could see it, we had to take a picture or three:

Then it was back to the hotel, to rest and recharge a bit... because the day started out with grand intentions, but three days seems to be the maximum amount of high-intensity travel and sightseeing I can handle under any circumstances, much less pregnant and jet-lagged and with back problems. But no complaints about that, even some of the Metro stations are picturesque...

Cluny La Sorbonne

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Now, a better - or at least, more conscientious - blog author would end this post here, because the evening's entertainment was so vastly different from the morning that it really felt more like two separate days. But for one thing, I took great delight in the fact that our cultural, um, exposure was so varied within one day, and for another, I'm typing this from JFK airport while awaiting my last flight back to Boston, and it's already taking me forever to do all this copy-and-pasting and formatting without a mouse.

So... after some down-time, we got dressed nicely and headed out. To the sex district. Our hotel was only a few blocks from Pigalle, which bears quite the reputation - and deservedly so - but we were in the right direction and distance such that things stayed quiet and not terribly shocking near us. But if you were looking for shock, it was only a short walk away... and I would wager that no matter how worldly you are, you could find something to shock you there.

We had reservations for the 9:00 show at the Moulin Rouge. I haven't seen the movie with Nicole Kidman and Ewan MacGregor, so I have no idea how it might compare... but I can tell you that the in-person experience is pretty wild. Overpriced, sure, and it's a bit of a mystery exactly why there's so much toplessness (and why the men in the show are wearing so much more than the women), but generally a sensory experience that I can't regret forking over for. I estimated that, given the number of dancers, I paid about $10 per nipple, with more exposure to some than others. My mother's eyes were very big throughout the show. (No photography allowed past the coat check, which is probably better for the moral fortitude of my camera, but I do have one group photo taken by the Moulin Rouge staff... eventually, I'll scan it in.)

Afterward, it was a strange dinner at a BBQ place across the street (not to be confused with the type of bar-be-cue we had discussed at the Pere Lachaise cemetery the day before!) and then back to the hotel, to collapse and attempt to recharge for one more day in Paris...

72 Million Bodies

Saturday began at the bright, sparkling hour of... 11:00 a.m. (Did I mention the jet lag?) To balance, we were out until midnight or so on Friday - but still, there was a disproportionate amount of sleep involved, even for my mother... who is known far and wide for her ability to subsist on long blinks.

Sarah and I officially missed the hotel's breakfast, which was a buffet of simple cereal, yogurt, croissants (plain or chocolate) and various drinks, but Mom and Mary liberated a basket of breads and jams for us, so we weren't left to face the day without sustenance. The hotel also provides a free "picnic lunch," which means a pre-wrapped sandwich (tuna or chicken salad) and a bottle of water. Around 5:00 on Sunday afternoon, Mary and I sat, propped up against the wall overlooking the Seine, at the Place de St-Michel near Notre Dame and the Conciergerie, and inhaled our sandwiches. They were the best sandwiches in the history of sandwiches... or perhaps that view was tainted by starvation brought on by several hours of walking. In any case, it was one more reason to be quite pleased with our choice of accommodations.

Anyway, once vertical, we showered ourselves conscious. (In typical European fashion, the shower is a tiny, coffin-sized-but-vertical box, but here the water pressure is such that my hair is entirely conditioner-free within about 10 seconds flat. No mean feat, that, since I've got thick, long hair normally and it's only enhanced by the pregnancy.) And then off we went - our destination, the Père Lachaise Cemetery, permanent home of Oscar Wilde, Jim Morrison, Edith Piaf, and various other famous types.

It was, to say the least, picturesque...

Rumor has it - and by "rumor," I mean, the weird guy who appointed himself our tour guide for 20 minutes or so - that there are 72 million bodies within the cemetery walls. He pointed out a few things, explained a few others, and then vanished - but not before delighting us with a sing-songy, "Bar-be-cue, bar-be-cue, everybody bar-be-cue," to explain how many people can be housed in one smallish area... never having heard "cremation" referred to as "bar-be-cue" before, we were stunned enough that we didn't think to offer him a pourboire until he disappeared just as abruptly as he appeared.

Beyond the photos from above, I did have a few favorites...

This guy just amused me. I'm sure he's someone important and the statue is intended to be quite impressive...

...but without a blade, it looks a lot like he's saying, "Hey.... somebody stole my pointy thing! Help! Somebody stole my pointy thing! Quick! I think they went that way! Help!" Poor guy.

And this was an interesting combination, to me. From above, which was where we first saw it, it looks a lot like a soldier threatening the poor, innocent woman, with a child trying to distract him or call for help, down below:

But then, upon closer, ground-level inspection, it's actually a much more dignified soldier, with a child adding sentiment to a potentially austere monument. And the lady next door was apparently entirely unrelated, and just randomly happens to appear intimidated by his presence.

Another odd combination, occurring on the same grave:

This was a common motif among the graves and carvings, though it took me a while to notice it. Once I did - and realized the symbolism is not too obscure, because where other than a cemetery is there a stronger reminder that time flies? - then I saw it everywhere:

Apparently it is a tradition to place a kiss upon the grave of Oscar Wilde. That which I know about Oscar Wilde could comfortably fit into an espresso cup with room to spare, but, hey, if everyone else is doing it...

Note: My kids complain that there aren't enough photos of me when I go on vacation, since I'm the one holding my own camera. I know that there is at least one photo of me snuggling up to the gravestone, as well... once I get access to my companions' photos, I'll show up a bit more often here...


After several hours and hundreds of photos - seriously, I'm only posting a handful of the total I took here... and Sarah took so many her camera battery died. We're a clicky bunch, apparently - we escaped and headed toward the Left Bank. Sarah and Mom were considering climbing the tower of Notre Dame, but arrived about 15 minutes after the last group was allowed in. Mary and I peeked in at a bookstore and a street vendor or two, and then opted for the Sandwich of Wonderment, as mentioned above.

We then wandered back to the Eiffel Tower, with plans to take the elevator to the summit. I made it about 20 minutes into the two-hour-long line and my body announced, "Hey, guess what? We're done here." I just got tired, and sore, and overwhelmed, and had an intense need to get horizontal as soon as possible. So I left early, returned to the hotel and recharged my own batteries for a bit. The others had a lovely time at the top of the tower, and I'm sure photos will eventually surface.

There it is again! I told you, I cannot stop taking pictures of this thing.

Day One: Jet Lag and Too Many Photos

If you watch closely, in the hallways and waiting areas of any major airport, you can discern three major classifications of travelers.

There are the business travelers, those for whom this is just an extension of the workday. As such, there is no magic, no excitement, just humdrum routine and a vague wish to be Somewhere Else. And, perhaps, a tinge of frustration, being surrounded by all of these vehicles that are designed to go to any number of Somewhere Elses, and instead knowing you're just on your way to or from another meeting.

Then there are the vacationers, whose perception of vacation is that it starts after you have finally arrived and checked in at your hotel. All of the in-between steps, from locking your front door to navigating the airport to entertaining oneself mid-flight, those are just annoyances, and often they blossom from annoyance into outright stress and misery. These are people who know they are soon to be Somewhere Else, and that soon cannot come quite soon enough.

And, last, there are the vacationers who consider the entire process, from the moment that front door closes at home, to be part of the adventure. They're not necessarily giddy or unruffled throughout the process, because mishaps and frustrations occur no matter what the mindset, but they're more interested in the moment and seem generally to be less stressed and harassed by the intervening steps between home and Somewhere Else.

We, we being sisters Kate, Sarah and Mary, and mother Pam, have always tried to fall into that third category of traveler. We none of us have flown so often that the experience of lift-off or the hours in the air have become routine, and we all try to remember that if you have to go through a certain process to get to your goal, you might as well figure out how that process is interesting, if not outright enjoyable.

I tell you what, it is a lot easier to place yourself into that category when the process goes as smoothly as it did on Thursday.

We met at JFK Airport in New York City - I was coming from Boston, meeting Mary, Sarah and Pam from upstate New York - and it was just one of those instances of cosmic perfection in terms of timing. I had to leave my house around 10:30 in the morning, to catch a city bus and then a Jet Blue flight to get me to the Air France desk, and they met at Pam's house and drove from there. I called as I was waiting to disembark from my flight, to find out their dinner plans, and they were just pulling into their parking spot. We reached the check-in desk within seconds of each other.

The overseas flight was delightfully uneventful. We were on a 777, which means that in our non-fancy-seats section, there were three seats, an aisle, four seats in the middle, another aisle, and then three more seats. We were placed in those middle four seats, which means we didn't end up in uncomfortable proximity to any strangers and I was able to seamlessly snag an aisle seat - a not unimportant maneuver, considering that I am five months pregnant and need uncomplicated access to the bathroom.

The only truly odd bit came to us courtesy of the little TVs attached to each seat. There was a good variety of channels, in both French and English, all pre-recorded so there were no concerns about losing the signal mid-show. And, as I've seen on other flights, as well, there was a map which pinpointed our current location and showed information about estimated time of arrival, time and temperature in the destination city, and so on. It would show, presumably for perspective, a smattering of other cities around the world, and there was a certain randomness there: New York, Boston and... Abilene, Texas? Really?

But, fine, great. Nothing worth noting... until we got over the ocean. We noticed it was still showing little dots with labels next to them, and soon we realized what they were:

Noteworthy Shipwrecks en Route

OK, that's a little weird. I couldn't decide if it was just morbid (especially because that was the only other item on the map: just cities and sites of mass watery graves) or if it was meant to be congratulatory, like, "Hey, good for you! You chose to fly instead of taking a horribly dangerous ocean liner!" (There were not, it is to be noted, similar map entries for sites of plane crashes.)

We were also seated across from a 20something couple who might have been on an engagement trip. She was wearing a diamond ring big enough to weigh down her arm, and in the airport they were fairly snuggly - bordering on inappropriately so - so one might assume that all was well between them. But upon boarding, the young man was delighted to discover that they had their little block of three seats to themselves, and announced, "Oh, good, we can keep this empty seat between us now!" He was consistently loud in a way that thoroughly illustrated the concept of the Ugly American, with obnoxious comments and an astonishing level of self-focus; he was never overtly offensive or insulting, just consistently annoying. And his choice of in-flight entertainment consisted of an alarming variety of skin magazines, which his fiancée seemed to blithely ignore.

Happily, they are not staying in our hotel.

Which, the hotel? Is just fine. It's called the Opera St. Georges, and is located within a short (but steep) walk of the Sacre Coeur and Pigalle... thus combining picturesque religious architecture with risqué-and-beyond forms of entertainment, all within a few short blocks. It's small, and simple - not a fancy place by any stretch of the imagination - but it offers free wireless Internet access, free breakfast buffet, free boxed lunches, clean bathrooms and doors that lock soundly. Just about perfect, for our needs.

Traditional French windows, big enough to let in lots of light and thick enough to block out most of the traffic sounds

We landed in Paris around 9:00 in the morning, and between one thing and another it was about 11:00 before we arrived at the hotel. I have vague memories of the drive... a series of strange sculptures, ranging from a multicolored disembodied hand giving the world a thumbs-up to a pair of pink-clad sumo wrestlers lifting a storage truck... trucks with odd labels and too-long phone numbers... rush hour traffic... lots of small but intense naplets...

The stated check-in time is 1:00 in the afternoon, but when I gave them my very best impression of a pregnant woman who is several steps beyond exhausted and more than a little pathetic, they very graciously allowed us to settle into our rooms a bit early. I had reached a point of beyond-tired such that sleep was imminent and inevitable... my only aspect of control in the situation was where that sleep would occur. Happily, I was able to stretch out in a bed, instead of curling up in the hotel lobby. Mary collapsed in her own bed, and the next few hours evaporated in that dead-to-the-world way that only severe jet lag can bring on.

Our hotel keys have these fantastic, thick tassels... thoroughly appropriate given the Red Light District locale. My mother can spin her tassels in opposite directions!

Sarah and my mother were feeling more energetic, and they took a walk around the neighborhood, climbing the hill to Sacre Coeur and finding a few bottles of Beaujolais Nouveau wine (my mother's stated reason for wanting to return to France, and for choosing this particular weekend: it's a wine that is only released once per year on a certain date in November, and she wanted to be nearby when that happened). They also found several dozen pâtisseries in the area, so once I regained consciousness I was greeted with a delightful array of croissants and chocolates.

We headed in to see La Tour Eiffel that evening, and took the requisite 4,000 photos from every conceivable angle. This is my third trip to Paris, and I still can't figure out just what is so compelling about the Tower... and I can't seem to stop myself from taking far too many photos of an already ridiculously over-photographed structure.

Of course this isn't all of the photos I took... I deliberately take a lot so that I can choose my favorites. But this isn't even all of my so-called favorites, there are a ridiculous number more in the Flickr set, and I'm sure I'll take even more before we leave. I just can't seem to help myself.

From there, we headed - at my request - to Le Bon Marche, a large department store which just happens to contain a satisfyingly extensive yarn shop. I had decided, like before, that my primary souvenirs from this trip would come in the form of yarn, to be made into sweaters and such after returning home.

There are probably better yarn shops in Paris... but I know where this one is, and am delighted by the novelty of a yarn shop inside a department store.

The walk was significantly farther than we anticipated, even with the help of a map, due (I think) to the intensity of our jet lag and unfamiliarity with the area. And so I picked out enough yarn to make scarves for my travel companions, as a way of saying, "Thanks for not killing me in Paris."

And then it was back to the hotel, for more of that really deep, dark jet-lag-enforced sleep. Bon soir!

Retour à Paris

Two years ago, there was a momentous coincidence of birthdays within our family: the eldest daughter turned 30, the middle one 21, and the last 16, all within the same year. We had to celebrate, and after a short period of research and brainstorming, we decided on Paris. Our mother graciously offered to join us, and within a week the plane tickets had been purchased (on the theory that once the tickets were reserved, we were far more likely to follow through on the trip, instead of just talking about it without actually going anywhere).

We went, and the adventures are documented down below.

A year later, we decided to travel again, this time just because we could. We chose Jamaica, and away we went... again, documenting the trip here, and racking up stories and a few bruises.

As 2009 rolled by, it was looking unlikely that it would feature another major travel escapade. For one thing, none of the daughters were employed full-time, and for another, there had been changes in health status, a few moves, and general spurts of chaos that interfered with things like leisure, just-for-fun sorts of travel.

But 2009 also marked our mother's 50th birthday, and of course we had to celebrate somehow. We considered a weekend on Cape Cod, but for a number of reasons it just wasn't right. And then, in late July, she stumbled upon an excellent deal, plane tickets and hotel and Metro passes for just over $500 per person. It was one of those "buy now or the deal expires" sorts of situations, so at 8:50p one summer night, none of them planned to go anywhere exciting this year... and by 9:00p, we had seats on a plane and beds in a hotel reserved.

And thus opens another chapter in our travel journal...

...is this thing on?

And, once again, we're headed eastward. This time, just a quick jaunt to Paris, just a long weekend on the Continent, you know... very cosmopolitan.

Mom had a birthday that needed celebrating this year, and so we're going to France for the uncorking of this year's Beaujolais Nouveau wine, and a bit of extra sight-seeing on the side for those of us who aren't wine-drinkers. Rumor has it that our hotel has Internet access, in which case I'll be posting from there... otherwise, I'll write while there and post once we're home again.

Stay tuned...

...and the Home of the Brave

She would practice, when no one else was around. When she was driving, or at home alone, in the rare moments when her children and husband had scattered to pursue their own interests.

She would sing the National Anthem, and dream of the day when the Red Sox would call her up and ask her to open a game.

Years passed, and she stopped singing with her band. She stopped singing professionally, though she was good enough to stand behind Michael Bolton and Celine Dion on the big stage. She went back to school, became a wife and mother and therapist all within a short span, and accepted the new direction her life was taking.

But she still practiced.

Her life became more and more stressful and difficult. Each of her children has a big, intense personality, and broke and healed her heart over and over again, the way children do. Her husband was changed by parenthood and the weight of responsibility, the way we are. Her father-in-law died, and her own father became undiagnosably ill. Her sister called, devastatedly hit with breast cancer and possible colon cancer. The stress built, and life grew more difficult, and it became harder and harder to find things to smile about.

And then, in August, that call came through.

Her brother-in-law works for the Jimmy Fund, a cancer research and fundraising organization, and they were looking for someone to sing the National Anthem at a Red Sox game. Someone who was local, and who had a relevant story, and most importantly someone who would sing well.

She fit all of those criteria. And so, sight unseen, song unheard, they invited her to sing.

The first game was rained out, creating a bitter last-minute disappointment. But they rescheduled the game, and invited the same people back to perform. And this time, her two friends, with whom she had been escaping for a monthly girls-only lunch for the past many years, started to plan. They neither of them could have attended the August game, but husbands could be placed in charge of children and tickets could be obtained, to allow them to attend the September rescheduled game. And, more importantly, to be there, in person, when their friend sang her dream.

Waiting for the song to start, her friends were impressed with how relaxed and happy she seemed. They remarked that they would sooner face a firing squad than sing in front of so many people, and that at the very least they would be pacing and nauseous and nervous. But she just waited, and smiled.

Then the time came, and the announcer explained that she was singing this song for her sister. The crowd went quiet.

She was amazing.*

Her friends were so proud, so thrilled, so grateful to be able to be there and share that day with her, albeit from arm's length away. It's a pride without a sense of ownership, a vicarious wonder at watching someone else experience a lifelong dream. It's safe to consider the day as being on par with the births of her children, in terms of important, shining, successes in her life.

It was a very good day. Bigger than words. An honor to observe.**

---

*Note: The sound quality is good but the video... not so much. You may want to watch with your eyes closed. Her brother-in-law was sneaky with a video camera in a sports facility, and bless his heart for doing it. There are clearer still photos, here.

**And another note, while we're at it: Carolyn and Jenny, I don't know how often you stop by here, but I wanted you both to know just how grateful I am for our friendship. You are both so special and wonderful, and I'm thrilled to be able to share in your lives. Thank you.

Swimming with the Fishes

Sarah and I have reached a draw in our butt-bruises contest: her bruises are far, far more impressive than mine are, and will likely remain a part of her life long after the sunburns fade. Mine are less scary, but I broke my tailbone, according to the resort’s nurse-on-site, so it’s like comparing apples to oranges, or something. We both have a lot of whimpering and squirming, but it’s all for a good cause.

Mary is considerably less bruised, seeing as how she did not leap off any cliffs in the recent past, but she makes up for it by being smugly smarter than us for not having leapt off any cliffs in the recent past. It all balances out in the end. (Hah, the end, get it? I slay me.)

The original theory was that we would have lots of time on Sunday morning, to have a leisurely breakfast, do a little snorkeling, get packed up, check out of the hotel and be on our way around the island to Ocho Rios, where we were scheduled to swim with dolphins. To quote the Jamaicans, “No problem.”

Of course I knit. But not very much.

Then the reality dawned: my mother and sisters, to balance out for their myriad gifts and brilliance, have, how do you say, a bit of a challenge with the concept of packing quickly. Less leisure, and less snorkeling, but we were in the car and on the (left side of the) road in good time. I got to drive this time, and I can say with confidence that the weirdness of driving on the left side of the road wears off much faster than the weirdness of riding on the left side of the car.

Did I mention the goats?

We arrived at Dolphin Cove in Ocho Rios after a wee bit of lostness – we drove right past it; it’s simply not well-marked. We had a bit of time before our appointment with the big fish, and Mary wanted to go snorkeling, so we headed into the ray area and got ready to snorkel. I got the mask, got the lifejacket, put everything in its proper place, got ready to place my face in the water… and promptly had a right and proper panic attack. Seriously, not a pretty thing; if they hadn’t let me go to the ladder and get out early, I’d have levitated. It was amazing; I had no idea I would panic like that. I can swim underwater, can put my face under, can even deal with sharing the water with creatures large enough to double as afghans on a cold winter’s night, but I could not – could not – put my face underwater while wearing the snorkel mask setup. I’ve never had quite that effective a freakout. So the girls and my mom snorkeled, and I paced and breathed slowly on the dock.

But then, swimming with dolphins? Awesome and fun. You’ll have to check back in a few weeks; I don’t have any photos, but the Dolphin Cove staff helpfully videotaped the whole thing and sold it back to us for a billion dollars, so once I get a copy of that I can probably post snippets of it. Sarah did not lose her bathing suit bottom, or her top… but she threatened to do both, at separate times.

Better pictures to follow... I was in the water with the dolphins, so we paid ridiculous amounts for the DVD made by the Dolphin Cove staff.

Speaking of which, have I mentioned that once again, I was the largest of a group of four women, and therefore was rendered effectively invisible for most of the trip? Sarah got two separate marriage proposals while we were in Jamaica; I’m not entirely certain they were kidding. I got to hold the camera.

Anyway, after that, we dried off. Then we drove to Kingston.

Hah, those five little words, they don’t sound too intimidating, do they? But we were driving through rain forest and mountains, on the left side of the road. On roads that were no more than 11 feet wide. Very exciting stuff, and my mother did a fantastic job driving. I’m certain I could have handled the driving, but I’m not certain I could have handled her anxiety while doing so… she’s not known to be the most calm of passengers under normal circumstances, and this was decidedly not normal. One of us would have ended up pitched over a cliff in rural Jamaica if I’d been behind the wheel, and I’m not quite sure who it would have been.

We made it to Kingston, a terrifying experience all by itself. The road that takes you to the outskirts of town is a wide, four-lane toll road; it dumps you off into a narrow, poorly lit inner city area in which prostitution and active, in-the-moment drug use happen on the sidewalk as you drive by. I haven’t spent a lot of time in my life being an obvious, physical minority, and it created senses of both self-consciousness and acute fear. I was very aware that we were four white women, in a nice (by comparison) car, with all of our possessions and money and identification in one place.

We made it to the airport, checked in the rental car, and asked the lot attendant to get us a taxi to bring us to our hotel. The Sheraton. “No,” he said.

Excuse me?

“There is no Sheraton here.”

Hmm.

I checked the printed confirmation page that my mother had carfeully carried throughout the trip. Sure enough: Kingston.

Kingston, ONTARIO.

Oh, my, yes.

It all worked out in the end. We weren’t able to get on an earlier flight, since our 6:40 a.m. flight was the next one to leave the island. But we found a room in the Hilton, the only chain hotel in Kingston with available rooms. It was overpriced but safe and not scary, and we made it back to the airport in plenty of time the next morning.

The flights home were thankfully uneventful, and I had a lovely reunion with my kids and husband.

And there were two feet of snow waiting in my front yard. Perhaps we came home a bit early…

…if You Know What I Mean.

I think that, with time, yesterday is going to rank up there as one of the best days of my life. Not the best, of course, having given birth and gotten married, but pretty freaking amazing.

We started the day with what has already become a routine: breakfast at the buffet, time wading and sitting out by the water. I’m still sunburned like crazy, so there’s no more lie-in-the-sun time for me, but I’m perfectly content with some good lie-near-the-sun time.

Then around 11:00 we met in the lobby for our scheduled trip into Montego Bay – MoBay, to locals – for parasailing. Which is an amazing, mind-blowing, quiet, peaceful, exciting, fun time, and I’d go again in a heartbeat if someone let me. It was gentle enough that Mary was able to do it; you get the big harness on and just sit on the deck, and they let the rope out slowly so you float up into the air. We were on a 400-foot line, which could have been anywhere from 20 to 2,000 feet for all my holy-crap brain was able to judge. Turns out my height perception is not very good. This figures prominently in my day later on.

The four of us spent an hour or so parasailing, and our tour guides were Bruce and Miguel. Bruce is a dancing man who wears shorts and nothing else – really, nothing else – to work. Miguel is quieter and owns at least one white t-shirt. The Jamaicans are, in vast majority, a friendly and helpful bunch. I’m sure some of that is because their primary source of revenue is tourism and only the French seem to be able to get away with a successful tourism industry founded on disdain and poor service. I’m sure it’s also because they live in an incredibly gorgeous place, so even if it’s a bit in disrepair and falling apart at certain seams, the ocean is always just a few miles away.

We went directly from the pier to the airport, to pick up the rental car. I haven’t yet had the pleasure of driving on the left side of the road, since my mother did the driving yesterday, but I tell you what: sitting on the left side without a steering wheel is weird, weird stuff. It’s almost like being in a Disney ride all over again, except without the sense that they won’t kill you midway through.

After my mother and Sarah got their massages on the beach, we packed up and piled into the car for a two-hour drive around to Negril, where Rick’s Café is located. Rick’s is famous for its laid-back bar scene, its Plantars Punch and Sex with Rick (a bit like sex on the beach, but so much better), and its cliffs. That you jump off. And land in the ocean.

Rather than letting ourselves get psyched up about it any more, spending too much time thinking and talking ourselves out of it, Sarah and I immediately stripped to our bathing suits and, well, jumped.

Sarah was almost smart enough to back out of it, graciously allowing Kate to go first.

Forty feet is a long, long way to fall. Four stories. You have time to think:

Oh.

My.

God.

I’m.

Still.

Falling.

Sarah answers the age-old question, "If your sister jumped off a cliff, would you do it to?" Affirmative.

And when you hit the water, it’s hard and cold and you are instantly ten feet under. You’re deep enough that the water actually looks blue, not like looking up from the bottom of a swimming pool where it’s clear because the blue color comes from the nice, safe, civilized pool liner. The first instinct is, “Ow.” Because you get a wedgie with your bathing suit so fierce that you’ve effectively removed the need to go to the dentist for the rest of the year, seeing as how you just flossed your back teeth from the bottom up. The second instinct is, “Up,” because it takes a while to find air again. Then you have to battle that ongoing “Ow” instinct to get to the narrow and steep ladder to get out of the water, but you have to smile and act like you don’t have an increasing agony spreading outward from your rear end because of the cameras and traveling companions.

The remainder of our trip will be punctuated by Sarah and me making whimpers and moans because we have dark purple bruises in various large areas from the back of the knee to the lower back. My tailbone is also sending out sharp pain, and I’m fairly sure I chipped it in some way. Ah, well. The price for awesomeness; I will not do it again, but I’m thrilled to bits that I made it all the way to Jamaica, survived a hair-raising and goat-intensive drive there (which quickly devolved into an ongoing game of inserting the word “goat” into proverbs and sayings, such as, “I regret that I have but one goat to give for my country,” “Carpe goat,” and “Another one bites the goat,” and then occasionally throwing in a pithy little, “If you know what I mean,” and somehow this was the height of hilarity for hours yesterday), and then threw myself off a cliff.

Would I do it again? All but that last bit, in a heartbeat. And even though I won’t be jumping off a cliff again, I made the right choice in the moment yesterday. No matter what my butt says.

I Have Found the Secret to Happiness

…and it is clean underwear.

At about 2:00 this afternoon, I got a wonderful phone call. “We haff found your bags, miss. We are driving them from Kingston to MoBay. You should get them around five o’clock.”

We didn’t get them until almost 7:00, but this is a small tree in the larger forest that is filled with clean clothes and toiletries.

Oh, my goodness, having more than two choices of clothing (one set purchased for approximately a billion dollars in the hotel gift shop) and toothpaste is a wonderful thing. As are readily available meals and drinks of all sorts, there for the asking as long as you have a snazzy yellow wristband.

I don't think we're in Kansas anymore... or Boston, either.

We ended up with a first floor room. In most circumstances, this would make me nervous – less safe from wandering nefarious people and aggressive crabs – but first off all, it’s really cool to be able to walk directly to the Caribbean, and secondly, the door weighs approximately six hundred pounds. Even the crabs aren’t that aggressive.

The day began with breakfast and a walk on the beach, and progressed to a flurry of reservations: massages on the beach – remember that massage tent I mentioned? – today, parasailing and cliff diving tomorrow (with copious amounts of rum consumption before the latter), and swimming with dolphins on Sunday. Expensive dolphins, and I’ll have to cram in a few extra overtime shifts to assuage the guilt of that, but it’s swimming with dolphins. On Easter. Halleluia.

From there, we had some beach time…

...some trips on a much-faster-than-it-looks catamaran…

...some sunburn (turns out, the tropical sun is different from the New Hampshire winter sun, and after 40 minutes of exposure I glow in the dark)…

It has been a vastly, infinitely better day than yesterday.

And my underwear is clean. Bliss.

It was a full moon that second night... apparently a full moon in Jamaica brings much better luck than the day-before-a-full-moon.

Welcome to Jamaica... Have a Long Day

Note: I didn't have Internet access in Jamaica, or to be precise wasn't willing to pay $10+ a day for the privilege when I was on vacation, but I did bring my laptop and kept a running "blog" in Word. I'll post one day at a time, so you can pretend along with me that I'm still there a bit longer, instead of back to work in less than 12 hours.

---

According to the hotel clock, it’s 8:44 p.m. According to my internal clock, it’s about midnight. Of tomorrow.

It’s been a very long day.

Any day in which you deliberately set the alarm for 4:00 a.m. is destined to be a long one, but one might expect a destination of Jamaica to cure a lot of the yawns and lethargy associated with the day. There comes a point, though, where enough hassle and ridiculousness balances out even the nicest carrot at the end of that string.

The angst started early. In theory, we were to have the alarm go off at 4:00, with a backup call from the front desk at 4:15, to allow us to hop up, get on our clothes, and climb into the shuttle to the airport. In reality, the alarm went off at 4:00, and some combination of my young and lovely sisters beat it into submission and promptly fell back asleep. I didn’t hear the alarm, but the resulting flurry must have registered on some level, because at 4:08 I sat up, grabbed my glasses, and squinted blearily at the clock. By 4:35 we were, indeed, all on the shuttle – a good thing, because the next shuttle didn’t leave until 5:30, which is cutting it a bit close for a 6:45 international flight. It required me scurrying down to the lobby ahead of the group, throwing my bag in the back and begging the driver to wait “just another minute.” He did.

We stood in long lines for security, as was expected, and made it to the gate with a comfortable margin. This turned out to be a rare and precious experience.

That first flight left about 25 minutes late. Since we were originally scheduled to have a 45-minute layover in Miami, the margin suddenly became too close for comfort. I paged a stewardess – sorry, airline customer service technician, or whatever the politically polite term is – who dragged herself to my side as though I had asked her to walk barefoot from Siberia, and asked what we should do, since our connection time was so tight and we were traveling with Mary, a young lady not known for her catlike speed and reflexes.

“Well, a lot of people have connections to make. Don’t worry about it,” was the helpful reply. When I explained that I was a lot more concerned about no one getting hurt in the process, she laughed at me. Literally, “Ha, ha, ha, ha,” and walked away. I was less than impressed.

Then they forgot to have a wheelchair waiting for us at the gate, so there was a delay waiting for that. We followed a helpful and very speedy man through the airport, fast enough that Mary got a slight case of windburn on her face, and made it to the gate just in time to watch them close and lock the door. Fabulous.

We were reassigned to another flight, and were told to hurry; it was now 10:55 and the flight took off at 11:30. In the five minutes it took to get new boarding passes, Mary and Sarah left to find a bathroom, and someone wandered off with the wheelchair. We couldn’t get another one – apparently they’re a hot commodity in Miami, I shudder to think of the black market – so I ended up carrying her on my back and running. You try running with someone on your back without jostling their head enough to bounce it down onto the ground and through the terminal. Especially down a moving escalator. Mary loved that part.

Midway to the new gate – which, of course, was back near the original gate, about a 10-minute walk from the second failed attempt – we managed to hitch a ride with a friendly neighborhood golf cart, and breathlessly made it to the gate by 11:15… only to be informed that, no, no, the flight doesn’t depart at 11:30, it merely starts boarding then.

I didn’t kill anyone today. I just want that stated for the record.

So we had a few minutes in Miami to sit and wait, which was probably a good thing. The flight to Kingston was uneventful, as long as you don’t consider my neighbor’s unbelievable foot odor to be an event, and if the day had ended there I’d be a much happier individual right now.

Instead, we still had yet one more plane to catch, because we’re spending the first three days of our vacation on the other side of the island, in Montego Bay. So the plan was to rush to baggage claim, grab our bags, hurry through customs and catch the next flight.

Instead, all we did was the first and last steps there. Because the airline – wait for it – Lost Our Luggage. Oh, I’m barely able to type it out, what with the wiggles of sheer delight.

Then we left through the wrong door, and had to go all the way back through the long security line again to get to the last plane.

I’m not sure at precisely which point my spirit broke, but it was sometime in there. I know this because once we were finally, frantically seated in the last plane of the day, we were asked to once again fill out immigration and customs forms. I was seated next to a pilot from the airline we’d been using all day – not to name names, but let’s just say that after this trip, I’ll never again offer money and time to anything rhyming with Schmamerican Schmairlines. He decided to helpfully pipe up and tell me how to fill out the form, not knowing it was my second time in the past few hours. First I snapped at him, and then I tried to recount the events of the day and I got all teary-eyed and choked up (very not me). I informed him, “I have had a truly terrible day, and you can’t help that. Please don’t try.” I have to give him credit for knowing when to shut up.

I can’t say the same for the three-year-old a few rows up. That child has lungs, and knows how to use them. Endlessly. At top volume. Those poor parents. There was a moment of hilarity after we got off the plane and were headed out: a young woman came sprinting past us toward Customs, just as the lung-intensive creature reached the large, high-ceilinged hallway perfectly designed to maximize volume and echoes. I expressed sympathy for both child and parents; Sarah thought that the woman who'd just run frantically past us was probably the mother. It's less funny in print, but in the moment it was a rare smile on a difficult day.

Finally, finally, we made it to Montego Bay, and the day stopped being so incredibly, inexcusably screwed up. We found our ride to the hotel, as promised, with minimal fuss, and were able to check in with one small blip, only noticeable because it was just one more thing in an already endless day, when they wanted to charge Mary adult rates but not let her wear the adult wristband for food and drink. My mother negotiated it, and we have a room.

It’s a small room, less ornate and well-appointed even than the one I shared with Willem and the kids in Florida, but it’s on the first floor, and if I open the sliding glass, I can be in the Caribbean Sea in 34 steps. There’s a massage tent just a few steps to the left. They have constantly-running slushie machines filled with pina coladas and strawberry daiquiris, and it turns out that I quite enjoy the taste of locally made Jamaican rum in said refreshments.

It will all be OK. In theory, they will get our luggage here on a subsequent flight and deliver it to the hotel. Even if that doesn’t happen, I found a wildly overpriced sun dress and flip-flops in the gift shop, and can wear clean clothes tomorrow. When I get a massage, and go wading, and just lie in the sun for a bit.

Tap, Tap... Is This Thing On?

Hey, guess what? We're escaping from the country once again!

This time, we're headed to Jamaica. Mon.

We're leaving Thursday morning. Eeeeeaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrlllllyyyyy Thursday morning. Staying in Montego Bay, on an all-inclusive resort. I fully recognize just how spoiled this makes us.

With a little luck, we'll have Internet access and be able to post from the trip. If not, I'll keep a journal on my computer and will post it after the fact.

Stay tuned...

Our Apartment

I forgot, I'd taken these photos on our way out the door on our last day in Paris... it's already starting to fade into memory, no longer feeling like "I was just there." Which is a little sad, but I'm still just so thrilled that we went. What a gift for us all.

Sigh.

Anyway. Our digs in Paris... small, but it certainly met our needs! It was called Citea la Villette, on the avenue Courentin Cariou, in the 19th arrondissement... which means it was in the northeast corner of the city, toward the end of Line 7 on the Metro.

Sigh.






Seeing as how we were in room 610 (which places us on what Americans would call the 7th floor), we had to use an elevator to get there. And in France, elevators close With Authority, and they don't need no stinkin' sensors to protect your pathetic touristy little arms and legs (and heads) from sudden closings. We learned how to scamper on and off with very little practice.


Okay.

Sigh.

I'll be off having some nostalgia. Anyone up for a quick trip to France?

My Shutter Finger is Tired

One last day of Paris photos... and we took a lot of them.

On Friday, we crammed a LOT in:
A morning revisit to the Louvre...




...an ascent of the bell towers of Notre Dame...





...and then a stroll through the church proper...



...a visit to the Crypte Archeologique under Notre Dame...


...a peek at the Conciergerie, an ancient prison...


...a wander along the Seine...



...and a visit to the Eiffel Tower (where, you'll notice, it rained, thereby rounding out our week such that the only day it didn't rain during our vacation was the day when we were too jet-lagged and incoherent to appreciate it)...






...but we did get a rainbow out of the deal.


And, c'est tout!

What's that? You're disappointed that there will be no more Paris photos? Yeah, me too. A little. Though a week of heavy-duty walking and exploring and seeing and absorbing and wrestling with an increasingly bulky wheelchair has effectively worn me out, and if we had stayed in Paris longer, I think the photos from yesterday would have involved a lot of naps and watching TV. You have to rest and refuel at some point, you know?

But instead of taking a day off in Paris, we came home. The flight was long - eight hours - and the landing was exciting, with potential smoke from the right engine and then getting towed to the actual gate, but we all survived intact so we're just going to pretend it was just mist from the New Jersey rain, okay?

Okay.

We were all heavily jet-lagged upon our return, enough to miss Route 24 in Jersey and to take the slightly longer way up - but that gave me the opportunity to call the lovely Lisa and warn her that we were in the neighborhood. She is the mother of a toddler and a newborn, so of course I would never be so sadistic as to pop in unannounced - it was bad enough for me to call during that 7:00-ish hour after dinner and before bedtime when chaos abounds, but she'll probably forgive me - but it was nice to be able to call and hear a familiar, non-French voice upon my return.

My mother and I stayed awake for the drive back to New York - which is particularly handy for her, seeing as how she was driving - and now I'm just finishing up with the copying and transferring of photos to her computer before I get on the road to head home for real. I have a few stops to make, so it'll take me a while... but I'll get hugs from my kids tonight.

I'm not quite done with this blog just yet - there will be film-photos, as yet to be developed, from the disposable and 35mm cameras that my mother and sisters brought with them. Once I get copies, I'll scan in a few and post.

In the meantime, I'll be over at my regularly scheduled blog. If you don't know its address, just drop me a quick line - kate2kids@gmail.com - and I'll happily share it.

Thinkers

At Versailles, there is a bust of Rene Descartes. Which reminds us of one of our favorite jokes:

Descartes walks into a bar. The bartender says, "Can I get you a drink?"
Descartes says, "I think not," and promptly disappears.

Thus, we took a moment to think with Descartes.

You'll Just Have to Wait...

...for pictures and stories from today. It's after midnight, we just barely got back from dinner. I'm super-ultra-mega tired. We saw Notre Dame today - do you have any idea how many stairs there are between me and the bell tower?

376. I counted on the way down.

But, good views, and I'm glad we did it. My feet aren't glad yet.

We also visited the Crypte Archelogique under Notre Dame, the Conciergerie prison, and the Eiffel Tower. And three different places for dinner before we ended up at the same place we ate last night - the first place ignored us for half an hour (apparently my ability to repel French waiters is growing), the second place had almost no food left, and by then we were starving so we just returned to last night's place and it was just as good tonight.

So, I'm tired. Will gather my thoughts and post tomorrow from my mother's house, if I'm able - otherwise, Sunday night, I'll be home.

I Threw My Sister off a Train

We took plenty of pictures today, at the Louvre and then at Versailles, but I don't feel like posting many... I'm tired and it's almost midnight again, and tomorrow is our last full day in Paris. So, bedtime soon.

But, the Louvre (not a lot of areas where you're allowed to take photos there, and boy are they militant about it):




And Versailles:



And proof that the sun did shine, at least once, while we were in Paris:



Gorgeous, both places. Of course.

And the train thing? One of the highlights of my life to date. We had to take a commuter train to Versailles, which are a bit different from the Metro trains - more expensive, smoother ride, two levels on each car. On the ride back, we sat on the lower level, and given Mary's tendency to sway in a stiff breeze, we need to keep her seated until the train comes to a complete stop. We're not big fans of prying her out from underneath the seat in front, you know?

So, we're not standing right there at the door the moment the train stops, but that hasn't been a problem. Except, this time, we had to maneuver some stairs - never an easy proposition for Mary, and then add to it the fact that a crazy lady (this is my professional opinion) was sitting next to the stairs and flatly refused to move her big bulky shoulder bag off the stairs, and it became quite the obstacle course, first for my mother carrying the wheelchair, then for Mary and me.

So we were rushing the best we could, and my mother and Sarah made it off the train without incident - and then the doors SLAMMED shut just as Mary was about to step off. We're in a country in which the elevators have neither visual nor pressure sensors to prevent foot-pinching and hand-crushing, so there's no reason to expect the doors of the train to be any gentler. At first, we were prepared to just go on to the next stop and then figure out a way to get back - these commuter trains run every half-hour, so just waiting for the next train wouldn't work - but then some random hero came along and pried the doors apart with his bare hands. This allowed me to pick up Mary under her arms and physically lift her out and onto the platform, then squeeze myself out the doors right behind.

We all started walking toward the exit, and I hadn't had lunch - that's another story - and was travel-weary with sore feet, so it took several minutes before I suddenly realized... "Mary," I said, "Did I just throw you off a train?"

She agreed that, yes, I did. And remarked that this was not normally the kind of situation around which there is any ambiguity.

So, that was fun. Especially since we all survived it without injury.

As for the no-lunch thing... first the waiter corrected my French when I inaccurately requested water, and then he didn't bring me my sandwich, marking the third time this week that only my meal was incorrect or flat-out missing. Clearly, being the largest one in the group leads them to believe I could stand to skip a few meals. Perhaps if I carried around a sign advertising my weight loss? Anyway, so, I had about four bites of Mary's sandwich then, and by 9:00 at night, when we finally were seated at a restaurant, I was ravenous.

But we ate, and ate well, and now I am calm and happy.

I Saw Dead People

We got off to a late start this morning... I can't decide if I'm sleeping late because of ongoing jet lag, increased physical activity every day, or a certain glee in knowing my children are waking someone else up at ungodly hours every morning. I miss my kids deeply, and I miss my husband like crazy, and 90% of my time I wish they were here with me. But from about 7:00-9:00 in the morning, I'm kind of enjoying my lack of parental responsibilities.

Once we were finally up and about, we planned to go to Versailles - but we didn't have the right Metro tickets and I was cranky and harassed and didn't want to wait the half hour for the next train to arrive, so we postponed that. Tomorrow, I think.

Instead, we went to the Catacombs, which involved a certain amount of arguing and near-tantrum-throwing between myself and a concerned, well-intentioned, misguided Frenchman who did not believe Mary was capable of getting herself through. And my comment that we would be happy to drag her by the hair if we needed to seemed largely unappreciated. But eventually we won our argument - Mary does a really, really good big-eyed pathetic woe-is-me look, I need to have her in the car if I'm ever pulled over for speeding - and headed down. 180-some steps down, over 500 meters on uneven surfaces underground, and 100-odd steps back up - Mary made it the whole way, and was a real trouper throughout. I'm pretty proud of her.


The Catacombs, you ask? Yes, they are just as creepy and macabre as one might expect. My mother is not sad to have missed that bit. But they're also impressive, and of course in my psychologist sort of way I can't help but wonder, what does it take for someone to conceive of such a project in the first place, and then why on earth could they not have stopped in a less excessive manner? There are literally millions of human remains organized into hallways and artwork; when I saw the word "millions" on the brochure at the entrance, I was skeptical, given the slight propensity for French enthusiasm. But, yes, really, millions. I didn't count - couldn't have if I'd wanted to - but it was endless, and the public isn't allowed into all of the areas. Crazy, really. Worth the time, just to see that the human mind really does have an endless capacity for obsessions when it wants to.


From there, we were off to Sacre Coeur, where there are les funiculaires, sort of an elevator/ski-lift contraption to take you to the top of the very steep Montmartre. Except it was out of order, so instead we got to ride on shuttle buses driven by individuals whose regard for human life is considerably less heightened than my own. Their need for speed was constant, and in fact was fulfilled - on busy, crowded city streets they were reaching 90 kph. I know because my eyes would get bigger with each passing mark on the spedometer. And then they would brake VERY ABRUPTLY at any given stop light. I know because I have two big, dark bruises on my thigh (no, I will not take a picture, and you are welcome) that precisely match two of the corners on the ticket-collection device. The very sharp, metal, rectangular, angry ticket-collection device.

Mary was brave (stupid? Nahh... brave) enough to relax on the return shuttle. She seriously did work hard today; she is not normally a napper. Especially under life-threatening circumstances.


But the church, and the view, are gorgeous. Again, worth the visit. Especially because the hill and the turns are so steep that you barely glimpse the view until, BANG, it's all there, laid out before you.







We had dinner at L'Hippo, a local chain-type establishment... nicer than Applebee's, think more along the lines of Legal Seafoods or Vinnie Testa's, those of you in the New England area. My sisters were enthralled by L'Hippo himself, so we went, even though they advertised "American style food." Well, it was not American-style, it was much better than that, and we overate terribly.

And now we're back at the apartment. Sarah had some serious, studious research to do on the computer tonight - she had to find a pattern for her new yarn - and so I didn't get on the computer until late. I swore I was going to bed early... and then my mom came back from Marseilles and asked me to upload her photos so she could empty her camera (with a shout-out to Calvin for the loan!), and how could I only look at one set of photos from the day?? This traveling with a digital camera is dangerous, sleepwise...

So, here's a few from my mother's trip southward... she did, indeed, rejoin us, instead of running away to the Mediterranean forever. I'm not actually sure why, now that I think of it.

Knitting in Paris

Yes, indeed, Sarah and I have spent much of our time in the Metro knitting. And, yes, Gretchen... mine is socks. Sarah's... I'm not really sure. Maybe legwarmers? Or very enthusiastic '80s-style slouch socks, which would have their own charm.

Anyway, I find it very interesting that apparently knitting is something done only behind closed doors in Paris. People on the subway - especially men - watch us warily, as though any minute we're going to stand up and stab our neighbor in four different orifices at once. Women are a little more relaxed about it, but still openly fascinated. And I think Sarah scarred a poor girl for life yesterday, by knitting a 10cmx10cm swatch of her new yarn (for which the onlooker smiled and watched intently) and then pulling it out to use in her intended project (for which the French girl was just appalled, as though Sarah had just sliced the head off a baby squirrel).

So, we're spreading a little culture to the town at the same time that the town gets its culture all over us. We're starting to think about bringing a hat (maybe a knitted one?) to pass around for donations after each knitting display, in the manner that people ride the subways and sing or play instruments and then ask for money.