April 5th, 2011 – Paris - la belle vie

We arrived in Paris yesterday by a wide assortment of vehicles – five different modes of transportation, capped by hauling all our luggage up five flights to our walk up apartment.  But we  started the morning in chilly overcast Stockholm and ended the day in warm sunny Paris so it was totally worth it.

We caught a ride into Stockholm in the morning with Frederick, caught the Arlanda express to the airport, flew to Paris via SAS in the most uncomfortable airplane seat I had ever had, caught the regional rail to Paris, transferred to the Metro, found our stop, walked four blocks and up the stairs to our Paris abode.  I impressed Katie by purchasing our regional rail tickets using my rusty survival level French, even asking if Katie got a discount because she was only 11. “Did you do that all in French?” she whispered, her eyes wide. “You are going to teach me right??”  I’ll try, but my French is pretty basic.  However even rudimentary French appears to be enough to impress people who don’t seem to expect Americans to have language skills.  “Your French est tres bon!” exclaims Nathalie, our landlord, because I introduce myself and Katie in French before switching to English.  I do remember “Je m’appelle Amy” from my days with Sister Judith at York Catholic high school. She would be so proud.

This morning we lingered at home with no real schedule to keep, finally walking to la Tour Eiffel, only a few blocks from our apartment.  It was fun to see how impressed Katie was with the structure, which is many time more beautiful in person, seemingly made of light and gossamer links, floating up into the sky.  With each glance at her, my heart sang.  I am amazed that after so much planning and dreaming about this trip that here we finally stood, at the foot of the Eiffel Tower. I feel free and happy, already embracing la belle vie.  After riding to the top for the view, we took lunch at a nearby pizzeria , where to each of my statements in French, the waiter insisted in answering in English. Oh well, I was trying, and will continue to try.  After a lingering lunch, we wandered back to the tower and sat in her shade reading  our books (well kindles) under a tree.  As the afternoon wore on and we began to feel a chill, we finally arose and took the metro home using our shiny new monthly passes with our photos on them.  We did our daily grocery shopping like locals, choosing a fresh baguette from the boulangerie, some fromage and jambon for our evening meal.  Katie was so proud to be walking down the street, bagette in hand.  She let me carry the toilette papier!

I think this is going  to be fun!!