Woke up at 8am. I packed the day before, but checked to pool and made up labels for all the cameras and batteries. Fiona did laundry to get ready for Corey. Lawson did all the bits to get his room ready. I popped off to Starbucks to pick the usual for me and the kids while they packed. Tiffany and Emmy came over to review the Oaktree slide show. Corey came at 1 and the Rowes came at two to take us to SFO. We checked in all the big stuff, 5 bags, and jaunted over to the lounge for tiny cheese plate (2) and chips and guacamole (3). I had a beer which was good. Then the plane was about the board so we walked down from the clubhouse and got right on the plane no waiting with the kids. As soon as the kids got to the seats in row 23 Fiona and I popped up to row 5&6. I had an OJ and some cranberry champagne thing. I’m now on a Brewdog beer called Lost? Meanwhile the kids instead of drinking their OJ decided to spill it all over themselves. We told the main cabin crew guy, Faisal, to give to upper class PJ’s to the kids since they were covered with OJ. I’m going to watch the Witcher season three the entire time I think? Not sure about he WiFi? Man you have to pay for WiFi even in the snooty section. Bummer. The food was good. A tired Lawson came and stole my breakfast for ‘Niamh’ since she ‘ordered’ the wrong thing. My breaky was two pancakes, bacon, and mashed potatoes. I got a fruit plate from the kid who preferred the wrong thing. Oh hum. At least I had a cinnamon roll, orange juice, and coffee.
We landed on time at 11:15, and out next flight out was at 2:45pm. I told people I was stopping at the first bathroom which meant that people blew by it including my own people. Customs was lame. I tried 3 times to scan my passport and the trick it to put it on the scanner until it stops. We finally got thru and shuffled over to terminal 4. They let us in at 1pm as it took forever to get our bags and another chunk on time I get to the terminal. I already told you the 10 minutes of me failing to scan my passport. Anywho, we got into the lounge and sat in the bar. Lawson fell asleep and I walked with Niamh to get a burger. I had a Guinness while I waited. It was more bitter than what I remember. We got her food and walked back, but I had to go back and get ketchup. They did not have a sauce containers, so I borrowed the little silver dish.
Sunday July 09, 2023
We where in zone 4 to go to Paris. It was an easy flight. I had been up more than 24 hours. We got to Paris around 6pm and it took forever to get our bags, but we did get them. We got a taxi and it took us 1 hour and 62€. We were dropped off at Eiffel Turenne. Dropped our bags and left for dinner at 8:15 . We ate at ‘Les Bons Garçons’ and the kids ordered a steak. A rare tune steak for Niamh and a well done Tuna steak for Lawson. They didn’t try it. Boo. I had a horrible beer. We walked to the Eiffel Tower at 9:00pm and took a sunset picture. We walked back and I took a shower. It is 10:30 or 1:30pm so have been up long enough.
Tuesday July 11, 2023
It’s a miracle. It is 11:11 PM and there is no Fiona or Niamh! Who knew! Anywho, I got up at 8am this morning and asked if we were ready to go, but my alarm went off at 8:30am. What is this jet lag stuff? A thing of myths a rumor, ha. Anywho, the kids were fast asleep and we had to get them up without breakfast, even through they we starving. We finally left the hotel at 10:15 to take the metro to our first excursion, Saint Chapel.
The kids were not impressed that we took the metro or that we stood inline. Nope. Little ungrateful…. Anywho we got in at 10 minutes to 11 and made it up to the second floor with amazing stained glass and the kids were hungry- lame.
We hand lunch across the street at Les Deux Palais were Lawson exclaimed that he would have lunch here since they had ravioli! Oh wait he didn’t eat it. Lame. I had a Croque-Monsieur , fries, and a salads with a homemade lemon iced tea. It was very good as we yelled at Lawson for not trying new things in foreign countries. Bah!!!
Anywho we meandered next to Notre Damn where it was closed but did have a nice viewing place to see the outside of the church. Yes Lawson another church with pretty windows that you can’t see.
It was a nice day so we buggered off to the Musée d’Orsay, and stood in line for a bit but managed to see some very good art on the 5th floor art by Van Gogh, Renoir, and Monet with hundreds of our tourist friends. The kids were not impressed but did sort of understand who these guys were, maybe? The highlight was the clock, but think I need to take a picture from the outside instead of the inside to see the Ferris wheel?
We then sauntered off to the park to have some ice cream and something fun to drink. I gad two new beers, and some Swiss chocolate with chocolate chips. While we were sitting many planes and helicopters fly over our heads. Like many. Like it started with red, white, blue, and then 10 sets of 4 if whatever fly above us in the Jardin Des Tuileries. After the snack and air show we popped over to the Arc de Triomphe via metro. Did I mention we got a three day pass when we started. I even got an extra ticket for a child we do not have. Thanks Paris!
Oh, but we stopped at McDonald’s on Champs Elysées that doesn’t exist on their app? Thanks Macdonald’s !!! But the kids split a nine piece MacNuggets and a large fry. Lol.
When we got down there was a ceremony of sort under the the arc which was nice. They sang the national anthem of France and there was flowers, and tourists to see it all. By then it was around dinner time and Fiona found a place called the Washington Poste which apparently sells quite large beers of which I had two. One of which was ‘the best’ aka Les Béte, and a Guinness. It was a liter of each and a margarita pizza.
Anywho it is close to midnight and there is no Fiona or Niamh. I woke up and took a shower and Lawson is curled up in all his clothes next door in room 205. Hope the girls made it back from the glittery Eiffel Tower!!!
It is 12:22 and the girls rolled in as I finished up this post. Hope they had fun!!!
Wednesday July 12, 2023
Yup rolled into a new day and making my update yo! Need some water and advil after this update- lol. Man I slept like crap, but I was up at 8:30am and woke up the kids. We left the hotel and walked to a nearby breakfast place called Kozy Bosquet which was very good. I had French Toast and fruit, and what arrived was not from your local Denny’s. Lol. It was sliced apples, blue berries, and chunks of strawberries and cream over a huge price of bread with syrup already on it with hazel nuts. I had an iced mocha. Lawson had the pancakes equivalent. Niamh ate the fruit but didn’t like the whip cream. Bah! Fiona had water since they ran out of croissants. Lame. I got Lawson a hot chocolate to go which he tried but then said was dark chocolate but was not bitter so have no idea why he didn’t like it. I finished his drink on the metro in the way to the Louvre Museum.
The kids posed for pictures ‘picking up’ the glass pyramid. We didn’t wait in the huge ass line, but strolled over to the water fountain and took a few more photos. I’m thinking we should watch ‘Angels and Demons’ which is a better book with the kids since it ‘shows’ all these iconic places that John Wick since we also hit up The Basilica of Sacré-Cœur de Montmartre, but not before we had lunch and visited the Museé de l’Orangerie with some huge ass Monet paintings.
We had lunch at Cafe Carrousel. I had a very sweet and malty beer which was not good, and a weird Croquet Monsieur since it was on a bed of lettuce with carrots? Anywho the Orange Museum was super. After the exhibition we took the metro and when we got off on the way to the church we found a love wall. The only love was from Lawson!
I walked up the X number of stairs while the family took the tram. I was able to beat them both up and down since the ticket machine was broken on both ends. Lol. We had a tropical slushy, vanilla magnum iced cream and a coke at the top of the Sacré-Cœur after listening to a guy play Bob Marley and having some people dance and cheer outside the ‘keep quiet’ signs in the church. I took some photos and took off my hat.
We had dinner at the pizza shop next to the hotel around 7. I had a small beer but then made up my own coffee concoction with hot chocolate, espresso, and an Americano. I had a Ceaser salad and didn’t eat the crispy breaded chicken, hard boiled egg, and cherry tomatoes.
We went at 10:30 to see the Eiffel Tower sparkle at 11pm. I took a shower at 11:30 and the door didn’t shut proper so ended up mopping the floor. I was in bed by 11:45.
Thursday July 13, 2023
I woke up at 2:30am and got out my sleeping mask from Virgin Airlines and rolled around. My alarm went off at 6:50. I got up the Fiona at 7:20 and the kids had locked the interior door. I ran downstairs and asked for another key but they guy couldn’t make up a new key so walked up to the second floor to open the door.
Lawson and I had breakfast at the hotel, and by breakfast I mean Lawson had 3/4 of a sausage. Yup. This is why I don’t get him breakfast. I had hot chocolate with two espresso shots in it, a chocolate rice cake thing, mini chocolate croissants, and a glass of orange juice. While we finished Fionaxand niamh went to the health store but it was shut so they went to a bigger grocery store a few yards away. Niamh got OJ that then carried around all day. Then we hustled off to the Eiffel Tower. We arrived at 8:30 and started our tour at 9am. We split into groups and got into the tower elevator at 9:45.
We got to the top around 10:30, and I bought some expensive ass champagne in plastic cups at the top. We stood in line to go down for a good 25 minutes and no one could find the end of the line since there were two lines and no direction.
We walked from the second floor to the first, and took the elevator from the first floor to the ground. We learned about bird man a tailor who tried to make a parachute but ended dead after jumping off the first floor. We also learned about some American lady who married the Eiffel Tower in 2007. Dumb.
Then we ate at a steakhouse, Le Beaujolais, where we spent way to much money and the guy asked for a tip. I didn’t want to since he charged us full price for a rum drink that Lawson had with no rum. Fiona gave me a dirty look and said they treated us nice, whatever that is their job and was the most expensive lunch to date at 165€. I did have huge ass croquet monsier and a Pilsner beer.
Then we walked to the river cruise and did that for an hour. We got right into the boat 5 minutes before it left which was excellent at 1:30 for a one hour cruise up the Seine. Both kids pretty much fell asleep. Some asshole behind me and Niamh was walking around on speaker phone live streaming with someone in Arabic. So I picked up our crap and sat closer to the front with Fiona and Lawson during the 30 minutes back.
The 30 minute walk back Lawson wanted a black hooded sweatshirt. We found a nice cheesy one that was 35€. I think we can do better or Fiona volunteered to make it. It is 4pm and Fiona is snoring and the kids are waking YouTube and playing games ‘resting’ while I’m finishing up the day.
Fiona is sick. Super. I go with the kids to get a decongestant and a couple of baguettes. The check out lady didn’t let us get a package of four kinder beuno bars that Lawson had been asking for daily. He grumped back to the hotel but he got a baguette so am not sure it was a complete loss. This was around 5pm but no one was hungry so finished up Dawny’s dream cars series. It was 8pm and my show was done. Fiona was asleep and Lawson didn’t want to leave for dinner for Niamh and I ventured out.
We landed in view of the Eiffel Tower at a place called Le Dôme which was very good. Our waiter, Zavier, has a cousin in Morgan Hill. Lol. I had a ham and cheese 3 egg omelette, 2 beers, a French coffee, and an Irish coffee with vanilla ice cream for desert. Niamh wanted to go shopping. Ah huh? The day before a giant holiday – right. So we got on the metro with new cars since our three day pass expired. I got a ticket and Niamh squeezed through since the machine didn’t take her pass again. My direction to Louis Vuitton was not correct since it was not taking us to the giant boulevard. So we got on the correct line and managed to go see the closed store with a bunch of roaming police. Yeah. I had to pee. Thanks Niamh for this adventure. We got back to the hotel and i took a shower but was too wired from all the coffee to fall asleep so watched YouTube till 1am.
Friday July 14, 2023
Happy Bastille Day. I get up at 8:30 and start packaging. Fiona does laundry across the street and we get damp clothing as we need to leave as the taxi is coming to pick us up at 11:15. Our plane is delayed 75 minutes. We have gone thru 2 lines and have to go thru security. At the lounge now about to leave to our third line. I have a bit more time now that we have arrived so let’s get into the details eh.
Man Charles de Gaulle airport Terminal 1 is like Hogwarts from Harry Potter with the movable stairs. The drive to the airport was as just as interesting as all the main streets to get out of Paris were closed so all these people kept stopping and taking to the police. Our driver was super aggressive and road lanes, crosswalks, traffic signals were a mere consideration not a rule. I feel he would have given the taxi drivers of New York a run for their money. It cost 70.20€ to get picked up and dropped off. We found a kiosk and tried to check in but Lawson was not a child? Have you met him? Yup. Child. We were in Hall 1 and asked for Turkish Airlines and a guy said go to Hall 2. We walked in a circle, no literally the building is round. No Turkish airlines. Hum. I asked a Delta person who said just keep walking it is in hall 3. Found it. First line. Bags checked but could only check in 1 bag per person. Bummer. Let’s keep walking.
Checked in. On the way from checking in our bag was an escalator that didn’t have stairs but still went up? It was bouncy. Lawson thought this was good fun. We of course knew it was good fun so asked him to stop since it was not a bounce house, but and escalator. As mentioned, when we went up it was like a scene out of Hogwarts in Harry Potter with movable stairs as there were these crisscross sloping tubes as we ourselves sloped to our next destination. The second lame line was passport control to leave the country. Second line done. Now where is the lounge? The 10th floor you say? Ok. We get in and I have an orange soda and a 7up with a plate of hummus, lettuce, dried fruit, and peanuts. I piled it high and Lawson was surprised? Hey man this was lunch eh? I can’t just do half a baguette for a meal. The kids found cookies so that was there lunch. We leave an hour before boarding as we still have to go through security. My bag gets pulled and so does Niamh’s but we make it through. More fast walkers later we arrived at the gate 18.
Lawson was tired as he thought it was 12 so kept walking. This was after a stern taking about staying together? Apparently that was optional for lawson as he wanted to go on his own fast walker but his time it sloped down? It was like skiing in an airport with out the skis but man did you still get got an sweaty. We waited. We boarded. Row 15 baby. 4 seats in the middle with 3 on each side. They feed us lunch. Pasta or chicken? Pasta. Man it was a soupy cheesy pasta. I stuck with eating everyone’s desert and a dinner roll, and picked as the pasta as it kept leaking at me. I’m rewatching Barry. I saw seasons 1 and 2 a few years ago and now want to see season 3 and 4. It is a very dark comedy. Each episode is 30 minutes long and go thru almost and entire first season while on our 3 hour plane ride. Niamh in her teenage way asked, ‘How much longer till we get there’. My classic reply, ‘When we land’.