\tWe just got home from 4 days in Paris. We decided to go there because we thought it would be easy. We thought it wouldn\u0092t be crowded. We dared to even think it would be relaxing. I don\u0092t know that it was any of those things.<\/p>\n
\tLet\u0092s just say it was a learning experience.<\/p>\n
\tWe learned you cannot turn your back on Kaitlyn for a second anymore. She thinks she\u0092s so grown up and doesn\u0092t wait for you. She got lost in a museum. Thankfully not the Louvre. And thankfully just long enough to scare us all. A lot. Unfortunately, not long enough for us to learn the lesson well because she got lost again a few days later in a store. <\/p>\n
\tWe learned you have to be pretty careful getting on and off the metro. Kaitlyn got smacked in the face by some guy getting off the metro. It was an accident and it took her till the next stop to realize she needed to cry about it. He did apologize, but he also did hit her hard enough to knock around an already loose tooth enough for some blood. <\/p>\n
\tWe learned that Cobblestones, huge drainage ruts and golf carts are a very bad combination. There was no blood but a huge scare at Versailles when Kaitlyn fell off the back of a golf cart. I\u0092m guessing Marie Antoinette did not have the same problem. She wasn\u0092t hurt but we were all very shaken. Kaitlyn already wasn\u0092t especially enjoying her tour of the palace (we thought she would have) and the fall didn\u0092t do anything to improve her outlook on it.<\/p>\n
\tWe learned that one really should read the information on a train platform before getting on the train. Going to Versailles, we hopped on a train as it was about to pull away only to realize once we were on it and it was moving that it was the wrong train. At least we made this realization before it got even to the next stop. Leaving Versailles, we sat on a train for 45 minutes while every other train in the station left because we \u0093thought\u0094 we\u0092d gotten on the one slated to leave first. Apparently, we didn\u0092t. <\/p>\n
\tWe learned that it doesn\u0092t grow old telling people you meet waiting for a train to finally leave that we live in France. <\/p>\n
\tWe learned that sometimes an American meal isn\u0092t everything you imagine it will be. The Hard Rock Cafe wasn\u0092t as good as some we\u0092ve been to, but I should have just ordered what I really wanted even if it was really bad for me. (nachos… yum) Kaitlyn got a shirt from there, so for her it was a successful evening. We later learned that reading about a restaurant in a tour book doesn\u0092t mean you can eat there. Hoping for another chance at an American meal, we headed to the Planet Hollywood only to find out it no longer exists in Paris. Sadly, we found it out when we were rather hungry and pressed for time before having to catch our train home. Well, we were only pressed for time because we had to include a stop at the Disney Store in our day. Kaitlyn got to pick today\u0092s activities: the Eiffel Tower and the Disney Store. <\/p>\n
\tI think I finally learned how to really blend in on the metro. If I go back to Paris, I\u0092m going to buy a paperback book in French to take with me. I\u0092ll sit and pretend to read it on the metro. While listening to my iPod. That seems to be what all the French people do. Or maybe it\u0092s just what people pretending they belong do. Either way, I\u0092m in.<\/p>\n
\tThe most important lesson didn\u0092t come until our last breakfast at the hotel. (Which I\u0092m starting to learn is often really a waste, even if it does mean you can easily return to your room for a bathroom break before heading out) We met the family staying in the room above us. I resisted the urge to look at their feet and say \u0093hey… your feet aren\u0092t as big as elephants\u0092!\u0094 because they turned out to be nice people. An American mom traveling alone with her two boys while her husband is \u0093away.\u0094 They\u0092re stationed at a military base in Germany. I didn\u0092t ask where \u0093away\u0094 is. I realized that some people\u0092s problems are bigger than mine, when my problem is someone clomping around loudly over my head in a hotel room with a view of the Eiffel Tower where I\u0092m enjoying a long weekend with my family… and no one is \u0093away.\u0094 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We just got home from 4 days in Paris. We decided to go there because we thought it would be easy. We thought it wouldn\u0092t be crowded. We dared to even think it would be relaxing. I don\u0092t know that it was any of those things. Let\u0092s just say it was a learning experience. We […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/kaitlyn-marsue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/kaitlyn-marsue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/kaitlyn-marsue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kaitlyn-marsue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kaitlyn-marsue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/kaitlyn-marsue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/kaitlyn-marsue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kaitlyn-marsue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kaitlyn-marsue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}