I woke up this morning to the traffic sounds on the street below, and it finally sunk in we were actually in Paris. Yesterday was very long and hectic and I don't think I fully appreciated our situation until today.
As we were riding the Tube from London Heathrow airport into the city to St. Pancras station to catch our train to France I started laughing to myself. Nicholas had passed out on my lap, and I had a suitcase wedged between my legs to prevent it from rolling around as the train jostled back and forth. Laura looked at me from across the aisle (she had her own suitcase to contend with, as well as 30lbs of backpack) and asked me what I was laughing about, but I couldn't hear her because both my ears were plugged from my head cold and the descent into London on the airplane. I continued laughing, and told her I'd explain later. The explanation would involve the revelation (not a big one) that we should never attempt a travel day such as this again...
Sunday morning was relatively stress free as we checked out of the hotel and made a quick stop at the drugstore for cold medication before we dropped off the car in storage. After we got the car locked up, our cab arrived within a few minutes and we were off to the airport. Nicholas got to experience his first booster seat riding in the taxi and he liked it a lot. I guess he might graduate to something similar depending on how much he grows in the next four months.
We arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare, and got our luggage checked in, but took our carrier with us to be gate checked. The first leg of the flight to Iceland was uneventful. Nicholas watched a lot of movies on the iPad and managed to get about an hour of sleep before we landed. Neither Laura nor I got any sleep on this flight though. Nicholas woke up during our transfer in Keflavik, and was pretty grumpy. Our carrier was not available to us in Iceland, and we were told it would be available for pickup in London with the rest of our luggage... kind of sucked, but that's ok. Nicholas settled down about 10 minutes into the next flight, and fell asleep again for the 2.5 hours as we flew to London. When we arrived, he woke up in a fairly good mood, and he navigated the terminal with us on my shoulders.
We retrieved our two bags from the luggage carousel and went to the oversize luggage area to wait for our carrier... which didn't arrive. After checking with the baggage claims department, and showing them our claim slip for the carrier, we discovered it had been checked under the name "Congo", and was to be delivered to Glasgow... ??... awesome! So, we left our information with the claims department, and it should hopefully be delivered to us in Paris once they track it down... fingers crossed.
Left with the fact we had no carrier for Nicholas for the rest of our journey, he settled in to travelling on my shoulders for the remainder of the trip. As I mentioned earlier, he fell asleep again on the Tube ride into London, but after that was wide awake for the rest of the trip.
Despite the delay at Heathrow dealing with our lost carrier, we made it into London in time to catch our train on to Paris. The train ride was, believe it or not, more cramped than the airline flights, and the three of us had to wedge into 2 seats on a very full train. Luckily there was plenty of room for our luggage in the racks above the seats.
Once we arrived in Paris, Nicholas again took his spot on my shoulders and we worked our way towards the closest Metro station to figure out the details for our last ride of the journey. A quick ride on two lines of the Metro got us to the apartment. The host was waiting for us at the apartment, and after a quick tour we were left to get settled down... finally!
I went out and got got us some dinner from a cafe close by, and we all fell asleep around 9:30.
So... all in all, the trip went pretty well. The carrier was a setback, but we managed to make do without it. Hopefully it gets delivered here ok because it contains all of our second pairs of shoes.
...
This morning I woke up at about 9:30 and went and had my "cafe double" I had been looking forward to so much. I asked the waitress where the closest "supermarche" was, and went and picked up some staples for breakfast. Nicholas and Laura stayed at the apartment and both slept until around noon.
After waking up, Nicholas had some peanut butter toast, milk, and cereal for breakfast. After he finished, he mentioned his tummy hurt... which was quickly followed by a massive puking episode all over the couch and floor. After cleaning things up, and a 15 minute session figuring out how to wash the dirtied towels in the washer/dryer combination machine, he now seems fine. He just ate some more toast with jam and had some more milk. Hopefully it was simply a case of eating too much after the stressful day yesterday. This all occurred about 2 hours ago, and he seems ok.
I should finish up now, as it's 8am in Houston and time to get to work. I've purchased some Skype credits to make phone calls with while we're here, so we will contact you in the next couple of days to chat.
Hope all is well at home.
Love, Brendan Laura & Nicholas
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