The Bailey's European Christmas Family Vacation, Part Deux

Paris...It was wonderful to finally share the city with other people. I actually really enjoy traveling by myself, but big, memorable places like Paris need to shared. We took an early train from Lyon on the morning of the 1st to get to Paris. The TGV ride was uneventful, just crowded. We rode into the Gare de Lyon train station and then took the metro to our hotel. I really like the Paris Metro. I had heard bad stories about it being confusing, but I think it's awesome. The only downside was taking luggage through it. There are a lot of steps to get from one line to another and lugging heavy bags around is not ideal. But we made it to our hotel and we were very happy with it. We were able to find an awesome deal online with this small 3-star hotel that was in the 7 arrondisment and just a 5 minute walk from the Champs de Mars, which is the big green space in front of the Eiffel Tower. The rooms were small, but it's Europe. There were some glitches with extending the reservation a night, but everything worked out and we really enjoyed the stay.

Our hotel

The neighborhood was really nice. It was touristy, in the sense that everyone also had an English menu in the window, there were 2 or 3 other hotels on the other streets, and some tourist shops just 2 streets over. However, our hotel was on a quiet little street that was mostly residential. In fact, one of our favorite pastimes became looking at the real estate for sale or rent in the windows. You can actually buy your own castle in Paris less the a million euro. You can also rent a 12m2 (130 ft2) apartment in the 7th arrondisement for only 700 euros a month. So we were really perfectly situated to travel about the city, but also find food and stuff easily. We ate at 2 restaurants right around the hotel. One was an awesome Italian pizza place. We ate both our first and last meals there. The guy was really nice and spoke a little English. We also heard him speak Italian and some Arabic language. The food was fantastic and not overpriced, which surprised me for its location! It was super small, the 6 of us took up 1/3 of the restaurant.

The other was a traditional French restaurant/café. It was nice because we got to order from a traditional French menu. In most French restaurants, you can either order items à la carte or together from the traditional menu. For example, you can pay 15 euros for an appetizer and main dish, or a main dish and a dessert, or 20 euro for all 3. And then under each category you have the option of 4 or 5 things, which change daily. So we did that, and again, the food was good. Here, the lady only spoke enough English for everyone to order, so I translated for somethings. The best part of the evening came when we went to pay. Some places can't accept American cards because they have a magnetic strip instead of a chip, the way all of Europe does it. So as Dad went to pay, I explained to the lady that it was an American card and asked if it would work. She just laughed and said, “It better work. If not, somebody will have to wash the dishes,” motioning at Dad. I laughed and then translated for everyone what she said. She continued, however, to explain with hand motions that if he broke any of the dishes while washing them, he would get spanked. I started cracking up and shared with everyone, at which point she explained that the idea from was a kid's song, which she started singing in the middle of the restaurant. We didn't have any problems with the card, but we had a fantastic time, especially with her threatening to spank my dad.

The Christmas Market at the Trocadero

The first afternoon we saw a lot. I tried to warn people about underestimating how far we were walking, but I suppose everyone has to learn the hard way. Being so close to the Eiffel Tower, we started there. And since it was a holiday, it was mass chaos. The line to buy tickets to climb the stairs was snaked all through courtyard area under the Tower. We almost could not find the space to walk through. We crossed the Seine and took pictures from the Trocadero. Then walked up to the Arc de Triomphe, and since we were there, we started down the Champs Elysées. It's January in Paris and it was cold. And then it started raining. So we came back to the hotel and called it a night. Realize though, that all of this walking took about 4 hours, so it was getting late and dark. So we ate Chinese/Asian takeout from the shop down the road and warmed up at the hotel.

The next day, we started at Hotel de Ville and walked to Notre Dame. Then, we walked along the Seine to the Louvre, where we originally planned to spend the afternoon. However, the line was forever long so we decided to forgo that for a day. Instead, we walked past the Palais Royale (The Royal Palace), and up the Avenue de l'Opéra to the Palais Garnier Opera. We only saw the outside, but the detail all over the building is exquisite. We climbed to the top of Au Printemps to the outdoor terrace and got the aerial view of Paris. We got back to our hotel by way of the Madeleine (a church), which had a very interesting nativity scene set up, Place de la Concorde, and the Hotel des Invalides. Today, almost everyone had their first experience with having to pay to use the toilet. That is a big deal in the grand scheme of things. :)

Sisters in Paris!

The nativity scene at the Madeleine. It use computer screens for the faces of each of the characters. It was kind of strange, but the explanation they had posted was really fantastic. 

The third and final day was spent in the Louvre, which was good because it rained almost all day. We were smart and arrived at the museum about 20 minutes before it opened. We also learned that there is a direct entrance from the 1 metro line, so we didn't even have to wait outside. By getting there so early, we were able to cut our wait significantly and within 15 minutes after the museum opened, we had our tickets in hand. We literally spent all day in the Louvre. The place is ginormous!! We did have some problems at the end. They lost Dad's coat and he had to go back into the coat check to help them look for it. We still don't quite know what happened. Maybe the person gave him the wrong number, or they just moved the coat, but we found it! And again, everyone was really nice and helpful in fixing the problem.

In the Louvre

Early the next morning, everyone except Aaron left. Although, 2 people didn't make it on the flight and had to stay in a hotel close to the airport and fend for themselves. But even then, they had a good experience and everyone was helpful and friendly, even when there a language barrier. French people, even Parisians, are actually really nice, regardless of the stereotype. Aaron and I went to the airport anyway because we rented a car for the day to drive to the beaches at Normandy. The day was good, but long. It's 4 hours car drive one-way, and we got a late start. So we ended up getting the beaches around 3:30, with just over an hour and a half of sunlight left. We walked along Omaha beach and saw all of the monuments and signs. We also called Aaron's family, as his grandfather drove landing crafts on Omaha Beach on D-Day. We got to see a German bunker on a hill overlooking the beach and also saw the American cemetery before we headed back to Paris. It was a nice break from walking all day, although if not more mentally tiring, especially for Aaron who drove the whole way. But he did a great job!! We also stopped at the same McDonalds for lunch and dinner, because we are Americans...and there was really no place else to easily stop and eat at.

The memorial at Omaha Beach

The most interesting part of the night came when we got back to the airport to return the car. We were taking the RER back to Paris and when we got to the station it was almost empty and few security people were telling us that we had better run because the last train was getting ready to leave. It was still before 11, so we didn't think the last train would be that early, but whatever. We were cutting it so close that the machine wouldn't even let us buy tickets, so we just went to the platform. Where we waited for 15 minutes for the train to show up. And then we got on, and waited another 20 minutes to leave the station. Although security must have been telling everyone that the last train was leaving because we kept watching wave after wave of people with luggage run down the stairs so as to not miss the train. Sadly, we did watch one women get left behind. She was stepping onto the platform as the train closed it's doors. There was a French guy in front of us remarking out sad it was that she got left. I felt awful for her.

The last fun day in Paris was spent not doing much of anything. We found a movie theater that was showing The Hobbit in English, so we went and saw that. We also had sushi for dinner, which was really good. We did walk down to the Eiffel Tower that night to get some pictures, but overall the day was very calm. Aaron didn't get on the flight Sunday, so we got him a hotel near the airport and made plans for Monday. I, however, had to get back for classes, so I left Aaron in Paris to catch his flight on his own. I got back after 9 on Sunday night. Thankfully, everything for Mondays classes were ready, but the rest of the week was crazy.

Seeing everyone over vacation was amazing! We had such a fantastic time and I'm glad I got to share bits of my life here with people from back home. Although, seeing everyone made me really homesick at first. It's taken a few weeks, but I'm back into a routine. Except now, rather than counting down until Christmas, I'm counting down until I come home.

From Paris with love.

The Bailey's European Christmas Family Vacation, Part Un

Wow. Christmas vacation was over 2 weeks ago already and I am just now rested enough to start thinking and writing again. And I didn't even have to deal with the time change! My poor family.  I'm sure that many of you have spoken with my family or seen pictures online of what a fantastic time we had, so I'm sorry if this is all redundant. But I wanted to put in one place all of the awesome views of the mountains, funny stories, and things we will never let my dad live down. He seems to be the running thread in almost every funny story. It's a good way to share with everyone, but also so that we can remember all of the jokes and fun things we did.

The first weekend of my break was spent in solitude, getting the apartment ready for everyone to arrive. It was wonderfully quiet and a fantastic time for me to recharge before everyone got here. They arrived on the 24th at my apartment with basically no problem. They forgot to time stamp their train tickets, but luckily the conductor did not ask for tickets, so they didn't have to pay the fine. Then they almost got lost driving from Lyon to my apartment, but thankfully my dad had been stalking me via google earth, so he was able to recognize where they were and make the appropriate adjustments.

Christmas was fantastic with everyone here! Not only did I have my family here, but we got to skype with Aaron's family Christmas afternoon as well. It was nice. We did not have a traditional French Christmas dinner. I contemplated trying my hand at foie gras, but it didn't happen. However, we did have some traditional French stuffed pork loins with unknown ingredients in them. We later learned it was apples and camembert cheese. The other was salmon stuffed. We also had buche de noel, or Christmas log cakes for dessert. Just like I did at Thanksgiving, we did the cooking in the tiny kitchen in my apartment, which was a challenge, but it all worked out ok.

Hurray for buche de noel!

We spent a few days walking around Roussillon and just seeing the life I have here. I got to show my family the castle and old church in Roussillon. We walked to the train station and the close supermarket in Le Peage de Roussillon. It was nice to spend time in the apartment together, investigate odd French television, and watch Christmas movies. We eventually had to go grocery shopping, which was quite the experience. The overwhelming experience that I had walking into Carrefour for the first time is now shared by my entire family. Really, the place is huge!!

 We kept out food choices pretty normal and familiar, but tried some new things. Like the cheese. And the rabbit. And the brains. That's right...the brains. We bought a small thing of pork brains and Aaron tried his hand at frying them. They weren't bad., but not great. The rabbit was another Aaron creation and it was fantastic!!! Rabbit is a very common thing to find in the stores here. The one we bought was already cut up and packaged, like what you would buy at Wal-Mart, but most butcher counters also sell fresh whole rabbits, heads, eyes and all. As far as the cheese goes, I don't even remembered what we all tried. Different kinds of goudas, roquefort, mimolette, and others. When making uneducated decision about what cheese to buy, the easiest thing to do is just close your eyes and pick one.

Aaron frying brains

We did have 2 days where we did special things around Roussillon. One day, a teacher that I work with, B~ invited all of us to her house for lunch with her family. Their house was about a 30 minute drive south and up a a bit into the mountains. The view from their house was breathtaking!!! You can see the Alps and the valley down below. B~ and her husband both speak English fluently and their daughters are working on their English, so the conversation was a lot fun. One of the best moments of the lunch was when Dad tried to read one of the cheese containers. After studying it for several minutes, his conclusion, with a good amount of certainty, was that the cheese company was talking about the happy goats on a plateau whose milk is used for the cheese. The following conversation went something like this.

B~'s husband takes the package and says, “Sorry Tom. That's 100% wrong. 'Plateau' means tray, so it's just saying that you can use the container to serve the cheese. Nothing about goats, in spite of the picture of the goat on the container.”

B~ “Oh, now that's not true. Tom, of course you right. They only use happy goats for this cheese. (*singing now) The happy goats on the green plateau...”

At which point we all just laugh hysterically, not only at my dad's completely wrong translation, but also at B~'s singing and dancing in her chair about the happy goats. While I'm sure that story is not as funny in print, it is a lasting legacy of the trip. Every time we saw a goat, we had to make a comment. And we have even gone so far as to plan to call future farms (with or without goats) “Tom's Happy Goats on the Plateau.”

After lunch, we climbed a mountain, as Aaron would say. They took us to a village nearby called Tournon, which has the historic charm that so many French villages do. We walked a little through the downtown area and then climbed a rather large hill the overlooked the city. Again, from there we had a beautiful view of the Alps and the valley and vineyards below. We could see the factories of Roussillon and follow the Rhone River all the way down to Valence, the next big city to the south. We hiked with them for a few hours and ended our time together by drinking hot beverages in a café. We spent a wonderful afternoon with them and it was really one of the highlights of the trip.

View from B~'s house of the Alps

View of the Rhone, Tournon, and the Alps from the hill we hiked up

The 2nd special day we spent in Lyon. As with a visit to any big city, there was a lot of walking involved. We went to the indoor market to see all of the cool cheeses, meats, seafood, chocolate, wines, etc that there is here. In Lyon's cathedral, there is an astronomical clock that has been running since the 14th century. We stayed until the hour and got to see it chime. We climbed another mountain, so we could see the Basilica in Lyon. The church itself was undergoing some renovations, so we really didn't spend a lot of time inside. Plus they were getting to ready start mass. But outside, again, was a beautiful view of the Alps and it was clear enough that we could see Mont Blanc, the highest peak in all of Europe.

The next few days were spent doing laundry and getting read to leave for Paris. We had a pretty low-key New Years Eve, since we were leaving around 8 the next morning for Paris. That sums up the week we spent in Roussillon. Part 2 about Paris to come soon!

From Roussillon with love!