Origins

It was around 2007 or so when I decided that I really and truly wanted to visit England. I’d always felt a strong affinity for the British Isles, so that played one factor in the decision. But by that time, a lot of my fiction work was heavily based in and/or influenced by the land’s history and geography, so I knew I just had to see it for myself.

I bought a paper map of England, mounted it to a piece of foam core, and started sticking pins in the places I wanted to see. This map hung prominently in my office for about two days before it eventually found its way to the bottom of a pile of garbage in the garage. I knew the trip wouldn’t be feasible for some time, but the seed was planted.

Fast forward to October 2016.

I went to the bank one day and handed the teller about thirteen bucks. In return she gave me a funny piece of colored paper. It had a lady on it and the number “10” plus an odd symbol that looked like curvy “L” with a line through it. I asked the teller, “What am I supposed to do with this?” She claimed it was “money” and that I could “spend it” to “buy things in London” if I ever “traveled there.” OK, boomer.

I slipped the funny piece of paper into Laura’s anniversary card that year and told her everything the teller told me. “We’re going to London?” she confirmed. “Yep!” And now my decade-long idea was real, since I involved another human brain in the project. The plan at the time was to go sometime during 2017, a year in which I eventually traveled many, many places, but not to England.

The year 2018 fared no better. Not wanting to just let this trip slip away as it had so many times already, we decided to turn it into a Christmas present to the kids. So on December 25, 2018, the whole thing got very real as we handed out funny pieces of colored paper to everyone. No backing out now.

Planning

As the astute reader may have noticed, this blog post title says says “Europe” and not just London or England. During 2018, as I thought about where we might go in and around London, I had a thought: there’s a train that can take you straight to Paris and back. It would be a shame to hang out just a few hours away from Paris and not take a peek at least.

But then I thought: “Well, I’m not going to just make that a day trip. That’d be like five hours wasted on a train. Might as well spend the night.” Which soon turned into, “Except there’s a lot to see in Paris, would we really want just two half days there?”

So in the end we came up with this high level plan:

Date	Location
Wed Oct 16	Fly to Paris
Thu Oct 17	Paris
Fri Oct 18	Paris
Sat Oct 19	Paris to London
Sun Oct 20	London
Mon Oct 21	London
Tue Oct 22	London
Wed Oct 23	Head West
Thu Oct 24	Cheddar Gorge
Fri Oct 25	Fly home from London

We spent a few days brainstorming ideas and several months building out a very detailed itinerary, a good chunk of which got tossed aside once our feet were on the ground and the reality of how public transportation works set in.

But enough set up! Let’s get this epic, seven-part blog series going…

Leaving

Of course, no trip of this magnitude begins without an extensive packing plan. I’m sure everyone experiences this phenomenon:

ME REGULARLY: *uses the same 3 things at home*

ME PACKING FOR VACATION: I wonder if I'll need 4 French horns or 5

— Michael November Name 🌶 (@Home_Halfway) October 9, 2019

Me, I tend to not spend too much time packing. In fact, it took me all of about half a minute to do so:

To help adjust to the time change and avoid spending our first day as the walking dead, we began to shift our days earlier by one hour for the four days before departure. This meant getting up at three o’clock in the morning and then doing nothing for many hours until it was time to pack the car and leave:

Our first flight took us from Austin to Charlotte, with a somewhat short layover. Short is good for not wanting to hang out in an airport doing nothing, but bad for the psyche when you feel anxious. Like you might miss the connection or worse, not have time to stop by Auntie Anne’s. Fortunately, everything went smoothly.

After waking up at three AM, the plan was to stay up until after dinner that night and then sleep six straight hours. We were set to land shortly before seven in the morning, so if we’d fooled our bodies into thinking it got most of a good night’s sleep, we’d be fine. It’s a long flight after all:

As fate would have it, I only got about an hour and a half of sleep. But I was fortunate. Everyone else got much, much less; barely more than a light nap. The flight landed irrespective of our preparedness, and we found the terminal helpfully connected to the local public transportation system.

As part of our planning this year, we watched a couple YouTube videos about how to use the Metro and RER lines: everything from buying tickets to travel etiquette (apparently they frown on train surfing). So while I knew where to find the tickets, the machines thwarted me right out of the gate when they refused to accept my credit card. Semi-alarmed (since I’d planned on using this credit card a lot during the trip) I switched to using the funny looking colored paper (which worked) and off we went.

We found the turnstiles right away and got hit with another problem: they wouldn’t read the tickets we’d just purchased two minutes ago. A gentleman behind me witnessed my multiple failed attempts, and swiped me through on his card. The rest of the family found an opening at the far right they could just walk right through. Rats. The first two things I tried on the trip ended up failing. This doesn’t bode well.

But once through, we were now and officially out of the airport and in Paris:

In spite of it being around 07:40 in the morning, it was still dark. I didn’t realize the sun didn’t come up until around 8:15. And since we were at the beginning of the line, there were very few people on the train. But after the twenty-or-so minute trip, the train ended up packed (it was, after all, morning rush hour) and when we emerged the sky was light. It felt like we’d been on there for hours.

As we emerged from underground, I snapped my very first above-ground photo of Paris. Notre Dame greeted us immediately which seemed like a very fitting start to the trip:

The metro station was only a few minutes’ walk from our hotel. As we approached the entrance, my mind began to assemble some words to use at the front desk. I had, after all, spent the last five months or so brushing up on years of French study. “Bonjour!” I would say brightly. “Pouvons-nous laisser nos bagages ici jusqu’à cet après-midi?” So simple.

When we got there, however, the door was locked. (It wasn’t until later we realized the difference between “push” and “pull”.) Another guest let us in, as they were waiting to check out themselves. When they did, they spoke in English. So did the person at the desk. And with that I chickened out. “Hello!” I said brightly. “Can we leave our luggage here until this afternoon?” So simple.

After dropping off the bags, we headed to our one and only one official event of the day. We had a hunch that despite all plans to counteract, we would still end up the walking dead and didn’t want to overbook the day. So to check off the “if nothing else we have to see the Eiffel Tower” box, that’s where our feet took us.

It’s a quick Metro ride from Notre Dame to the Eiffel Tower. But somehow we missed our stop and went too far. This was the first of maybe seventy-three travel mistakes I would make over the next eight days. After pondering the idea of getting back on and riding the other direction, we decided to walk.

First stop, however, was not the tower. It was breakfast at the Cafe Beaujolais, just a block or two from our intended stop. I ordered tea, which was delicious. Everyone else ordered coffees or sodas and various French-themed breakfast items.

While eating, this guy walked over and hung out with us a while.

But enough with the doggos and croissants! Let’s go see that big metal thing already!

This was my second time visiting the Eiffel Tower. Though decades ago, I still clearly remember my first impression of seeing it in person for the first time. The millions of photos and movies that I’d seen of it during my life had not prepared me for the immensity of the structure. I remember gazing up at just the first level some eighteen open stories above me and thinking, “Wooooow.”

It was still big this time, but just not as big as I remember. That feeling of being nearly overwhelmed just wasn’t there this time. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still an amazing structure. So I just dismissed this new feeling as: 1) I’m not in my twenties anymore and 2) it’s not my first time. Which means it’s official: I’m a fuddy duddy.

Although stairs are an option (at least for the first two levels), we took the lift.

It was cold and wet that day and we worried about what the top of the tower might feel like. Actually, it wasn’t too bad. I think views like these help take your mind off the weather:

Our total stay ended up being about ninety minutes, though we’d budgeted for three hours, as recommended by their web site. I think that recommendation is to help battle larger crowds and (perhaps) not pre-purchasing tickets. But given the fact that it was eleven o’clock on a cold, rainy, Thursday, we didn’t have to compete with too many others.

We took the lift down and our One Big Event for the day was already over.

Although breakfast wasn’t that far in our past, we stopped at another cafe to grab a quick snack, a warm beverage, and to rest our tired bodies. Although we’d only done “one thing” at this point, the reality is we’d now been up for twenty-seven straight hours, discounting the fitful naps on the plane ride over.

So we ditched our first shopping excursion and headed back to the hotel to check in and pass out. This is the street our hotel was on, just a block from the Seine and very close to that Notre Dame view you saw earlier.

After a few hours of napping, it was time to wake up — for dinner. Our family is notoriously bad at picking out places to eat. Knowing that, we preselected all eateries for the trip and added them to the itinerary to save us hours of doubt and grappling.

It was called “HD Diner” but only at this point, right before we left, I realized the HD stood for Happy Days. It was a 1950s, American themed place, that served exactly what you’d expect. And I began fulfilling the promise I made to myself of having one beer per day while on the trip.

After dinner we ran a couple errands and then found our way back to the hotel. I loved the narrow, winding, backstreets, every one of which looked like we’d stepped into a stereotypical postcard. The streets buzzed with activity, and the lights, sounds, and smells were exactly as I’d hoped and imagined.

Tired and yet still fulfilled by our light first day, we crashed for the night. Day Two held much more in store for us, and we needed all the recharging we could get. Stop back next week for more.