After pack out we went directly to our hotel where my wonderful mother in law was with our beautiful daughter who we hadn’t seen all day. No offense at all, and totally respect you and your choice but I’m not sure how you working mom’s do it, I missed her so much! We laid out our suitcases and other luggage in our suite. It was such a great choice to get a suite, I’m so thankful we did that. Aydan could sleep in the room while we worked on packing and repacking the suitcases or just hang out with friends as if we were in a little apartment. I felt at home. Plus, housekeeping came daily-huge plus!
Some dear friends threw us a going away party on Saturday. It was a perfect party. We have been so blessed with our friends in Washington. Being able to say good bye at such a nice, fun event was the perfect ending to our time there.
The rest of the weekend we spent with some good friends who came down from Richmond, my mother in law and my brother who got a three day weekend.
Monday morning we woke up with heavy but excited hearts ready for our big adventure. We had lunch with my brother and mother in law, went to the bank hoping to get some checks (didn’t work) then back to the hotel for nap time while the boys finished cleaning the house. The hotel was sweet enough to let us stay there until Aydan was done with her afternoon nap. She woke just in time to take Connie to the airport. We stowed the luggage at the hotel and jumped in my brother’s car (ours had just been taken that morning for shipment) and to the airport we went.
After a tearful good bye we set out for dinner with the Shins. We love that family! Dog Fish Head was to be the meeting place. Where else would we go? After a wonderful dinner and another tearful good bye we set out to the airport. Saying good bye to my brother was not easy. Too many good byes that day.
We were flying Air France. I would recommend them. They were great and very safe, you won’t see one of their planes breaking apart in midflight… We pull up with our 6 very full suitcases, 3 carry ones, 2 personal items, a stroller, a car seat and it’s base. They decide that one of our carry ons is to heavy for a carry on, and needed to be checked. I didn’t know they actually weighted carry ons!? I’ve seen what ppl have put up in those compartments… anyway we had to pay $200 for an extra baggage fee… lesson: check the weight restrictions for your carry ons, AF does check their weight. Once all our stuff was loaded and the base of the car seat and the seat for the stroller were bagged up we left to security. Once through we found our gate and made some last phone calls to grandparents and parents. Read: more sad good byes. We boarded soon after. Aydan had her own seat. It was 9:30 PM by this time, we were all very tired. We gave Aydan her bottle, covered her car seat with a blanket, I took an Ambien and the next thing we all know it’s 45 mins until landing in Paris! Red eye with baby who has her own seat across the Atlantic is the only way to go. Well, she did wake up once, we fed her another bottle, nursed her, changed her diaper and she was back down in 30 mins. What a great baby.
We land in Paris, headed to the baggage claim, through customs and to the baggage holders for the night. We leave them everything but the stroller, car seat and one bag. Good work us. We find a taxi and head into Paris. We check into our hotel and start walking up the Seine towards the Louvre. Aydan was super cute the entire time she was awake. She sat up in her stroller checking out the whole big world that is Paris. We walked and walked and walked. At one point we crossed over the river and walked back towards the Eiffel Tower until we found a cute cafe and ate our Persian lunch outside. Aydan had her first french fry. I said it was ok only because it was two days before her first birthday and we were in France after all. After lunch we continued walking and Aydan fell asleep. Keeping with the theme, we kept walking. Paris is such a beautiful city full of life and culture and old buildings. Every building probably has some crazy story. We stopped at the l’Hotel des Invalides’ gardens. Napoleon is buried there. If we had more time I would have loved to go inside. Since we didn’t have much time we coninuted on to the Eiffel Tower. Once there we woke up Aydan to get her picture. Poor baby. Then we crossed the river and back towards the hotel. It started to rain so we walked quickly but took some side streets that seemed interesting. Finally making our way back to the hotel just before the down pour where we collaped, exhasted and hungry. Aydan had fallen back to sleep. Patrick braved the rain to a bakery and brought us back some amazing sandwiches, wine and other breads and cheeses. We all ate her dinner, then gave Aydan a bath and she went right to sleep for the whole night. We woke up the next morning had another amazing French meal and headed to the air port where we began our last leg of our journey.
Here is a link to our Paris pictures. Please excuses the excess pictures of our daughter… she just amazes us that’s all.
https://picasaweb.google.com/knconnally/Paris?authkey=Gv1sRgCJuxzvTG-sO6Og&feat=directlink
A Diplomat's Wife 