Chris went to a paintball tournament in Paris over my birthday weekend, so I decided to come along. I haven’t left the kids this long EVER and haven’t left even overnight since Marion was a little baby, so this was a little stressful for me. I got to the airport already missing the kids and then I saw this little exhibit. Sigh. Made my heart hurt.
After our long flight, we got to Paris and had to sit in the baggage claim for over two hours while some guys with big guns checked out an unattended bag which they decided to blow up. No, I am not kidding. They didn’t even evacuate us first. Super fun. Then we had trouble getting our rental car and finally went on our way trying to find the place we were staying out in the country north of France. After following our directions and still not being sure where the place was, we picked up a hitchhiker who was headed to a nearby town and went to Senlis. We found a bank and a beautiful church and explored a little.
Chris was already craving crepes.
We decided to check out the church since we still didn’t really know where we needed to go anyway.
This plaque was inside which I thought was a really beautiful tribute.
Exploring narrow alleys – one of my favorite things about Europe. Old stone buildings, beautiful architecture, and narrow alleys!
Back in the car we tried to find our way. Notice the sheep out the window. We were in the sticks.
And the road kept getting narrower and narrower…
When it got this narrow and sketchy I drew the line and we turned around. Or rather backed out, because you really couldn’t turn around.
Finally we found the place. We had actually driven past it about four times at this point. Sigh. They need to have addresses like Utah where it is easy to find where you are going. The large door was locked, so Chris checked him email and noticed we were supposed to check in at 4pm and it was only 3pm. He wandered off to find an internet connection so he could send a message to the owner while I fell asleep in the car because I had only had about three hours of sleep in the last day and a half…
Success! We finally got into our cute little chateau!
Complete with chickens! It was a really cute little place and a great place to stay.
They even covered the man holes with astro turf so it wouldn’t detract from the country setting.
After all this we drove back into Paris to go to our friends Andrea and Everton’s house. We met them when we lived in Vienna and now they live in Paris. It was so fun to go to their house and see them after all this time! And the sunset was beautiful, so we took some pictures while they put the kids to bed.
Here we all are! I hope I don’t have to wait another three years before seeing them again! Thanks for having us, it was so fun to see you two!!!
We got back to our chateau really late at night and the gate was locked. We could not figure out how to get in, so we parked our car in town and did what any responsible tourist would do – climbed the gate! Be careful of the spikes on the top of the fence! I am so getting to old for this.
Success again! We noticed that the gate was unlocked every other night when we came back late, so that was a huge relief! It was a very eventful and slightly frustrating, but still entertaining first day of vacation!
