Paris, The Not-Vacation Part

What's the opposite of vacation? The best the internet is giving me is "occupation," "work," or "continuation." I see what they're going for, but none of those really have the right feel to them. I'm voting for nightmare.

Our Paris vacation party consisted of me and Shannon as well as Shannon's sister and mother. About half way through the trip, while visiting the lovely Chateau Chenonceaux (such a perfect French word), Shannon's mom didn't see a step that was lurking in the middle of a little hallway. The resultant fall ended with a fractured elbow and two hairline fractures in her pelvis. And there, in the hallway at Chenonceaux, is where our vacation ended. The helpful and kind staff at the Chateau kept us company while we waited for the ambulance to come take her to the hospital in the bustling metropolis of Amboise (note: not a metropolis) to see the extent of the damage. After the x-rays confirmed the damage, and that she needed surgery to put her elbow back together, we got to start facing the first of many questions that we had not previous considered when planning our trip.

1. Where is the best place for 3 people to get a room on short notice in Amboise, France?
2. How do you say "elbow," "surgery," "screws," and a whole host of other similar words in French?
2a. If you're me, how do you say anything in French?
3. What do you do when your best French speaker is now hospitalized?
4. How do you get insurance forms printed while in Amboise, France? Is there a Kinkos?
5. Is the surgery going to be tomorrow? (Answer: no.) How about the next day? (Answer: yes. No, wait, never mind, no.) How about the next day? (Answer: Yes. We think. Probably. Call in the morning to find out. Ok, it turns out, yes, it did happen on day 3.)
6. How is the French medical system? (Pretty good.)
7. How much English does the hospital staff speak? (Very little.)
8. How do you make a phone call from an American cell phone in France to a phone in France?
9. Should Kim go home as planned on Wednesday, even though the surgery hasn't happened yet? (Yes.) If so, how does she get back to Paris? (Lots of different trains.)
10. Can we return the rental car 3 days late and do a different location? (Yes, they were very nice, though those extra three days apparently cost more than the first 4.)
11. Is it possible to have surgery in the morning, get released from the hospital in Amboise at 5:30pm and drive to the airport in Paris all in one day? (Yes) Will this be fun? (Not by the end.) Will it rain? (Indeed.) Will the freeway be closed? (Of course!) Will the gas station be closed? (Clearly.) Will your phone battery die? (Nearly.) Can you stop at the temple along the way? (Yes!) Will you get to drive through the longest urban motorway tunnel in the world? (Yes. It's over 6.5 miles long.) Will you take the wrong exit when the tunnel forks halfway through requiring you to go back through the tunnel a second time (and pay the toll a second time)? (Undoubtedly. It was just that sort of day.)
12. How do you navigate Charles de Gaulle International Airport with someone who can barely walk and needs a wheelchair? How do you say wheelchair in French? (It doesn't matter, once you get to the airport they all speak English and Francois will take care of everything.)

Getting from the hospital in Amboise to airport gate 16 hours later was perhaps the most exhausting thing I have ever done. I suppose once the trip is sufficiently in the rear-view mirror (not yet) this will all seem a wonderful character building experience. Check back in a year and we'll see how I feel. But I guess we proved that we can survive unexpected challenges in a foreign land.

It wouldn't be a trip to the hospital in France if the ER isn't on strike. (But they were still there working. I'm not sure how this all fits together.

Is the fact that this cemetery is right across the street from the hospital a good sign?

This macaron was very tasty. The decor in our emergency hotel room was .... less tasty.

Continuing the theme of "pastries you do want to eat in places you don't want to eat them": A religieuse in a hospital room. It's like a big, round, double-decker eclair. (And for the record, I was only two vowels short of spelling it right on the first try.)

Paris, the Vacation Part

If going to Paris (PARIS!) isn't enough of a reason to re-resurrect the blog, I don't know what is.

Shannon and I went to France for 10-ish days last month, and I here I am to report on it. (The number of days is a little fuzzy. Is it how long I was away from home? How long I was in France? Do I have to adjust for time zones?) You don't want a long list of everywhere you went along with the number of steps I took each day. You just want some pictures. So here are my ten favorite pictures, in rough chronological order, from the trip with a brief blurb.

The walls of Sainte Chapelle are, essentially made of entirely of glass. Hypothetically there are a whole bunch of bible stories in there, but you'd have to be 50 feet tall and much better at remembering all the stories in Chronicles. This is your first, and last, reminder that I'm not a photographer and took all of these with my phone, and the sun is where ever it is in all the photos.

A baguette in the park, and a couple of French kids. From the start, I insisted that I wasn't going to make many demands on the trip, but that I wanted to eat baguettes in the park.

The obligatory Notre Dame selfie, for proof that I was actually there, or at least that my photoshop skills have improved. (They haven't.) Since the fire, this is as close as you can get to the Notre Dame, which looks pretty good from this angle.

Not quite so good from this angle.

The Memorial of the Martyrs of the Deportation is across the street from Notre Dame and is for those who were shipped off to Nazi death camps. The memorial is all underground, which makes for poor photography. I thought it was a very well done memorial. Above the exit it says, "Forgive, do not forget ...."

I ate lunch on the street in Paris. It turns out that when you actually do this, the tables are (I am not kidding) about 2 inches from each other, the tables are tiny, your neighbors are possibly smoking, and the foot traffic is about six inches away. It's not really charming or relaxing. But it was tasty.

Omaha beach. We had a great tour from Thomas who did an excellent job of making the tour about people, and not about nations.

When Blockburgers go on vacation, they always go to cemeteries. This one also at Omaha beach.

In France, everything must use spiral staircases. It's a law or something. These ones happen to be inside the Arc de Triomphe.

Sometimes when you're at the Palais de Chaillot checking out the Eiffel Tower a parade of baton twirlers comes by with their little 5 piece band in tow. You know, because those things just happen.

Who made this stupid 10 picture rule? The first place we stayed was just down the steps from Sacré-Cœur, and this was on the sidewalk just outside our door. (It's Sacré-Cœur, if you couldn't put that together.)

We went to Musee D'Orsay and saw art. Some Manet, some Monet, some Van Gogh, but I'm including this Renoir here because it's Shannon's favorite and is the one hanging in our bedroom.

Sometimes when all of your vacation plans have completely fallen apart, you find yourself at the train station in Amboise, France at 10pm buying baguettes from the baguette vending machine. You put in your Euro and the baguette comes "banging down the chute". (Shannon's words.)

We went to several castles. This is Chambord, the biggest (of the ones we went to). It's so large that by the time you're close enough to feel like you can see it properly, you're too close to take a picture of it. If you were to zoom in enough on the photo you could see people on the balcony on the third level. The main rooms must have at least 30 foot ceilings. Wikipedia puts the total height at 184 feet with 440 rooms and 282 fireplaces. In the center of the chateau there is a helical staircase.

Paris temple, night. We made it here 5 minutes before the visitors center was supposed to close, and stayed much longer that I thought we would on a day that turned out to be probably be the longest, most tiring day any of us have had in a long time. But I'm glad we got to see the temple.