A Last Minute Dash to Paris

Nothing says it’s time to blog again like a last-minute trip to Paris. 

We planned to avoid Paris like the plaque this year with the Olympics taking place. Until a blogging friend arrived in a Paris and said she was surprised by the “emptiness.” 

Suddenly, my heart beat a little faster! 

I had watched the opening ceremonies and parcoured along with the Phantom who jumped from rooftop to rooftop. When the flame lit the cauldron and the “hot air balloon” rose above Les Tuileries, I longed to see it. 

Earl had appointments scheduled for Monday and Tuesday, but it didn’t take much persuading to get him to reschedule. 

We purchased train tickets from Perpignan in the south of France to Paris. And after a gathering with friends Saturday night, we drove to Perpignan as the sun rose pink over the foothills of the Pyrenees. 

Earl and I had bought our tickets individually, with our senior advantage card for people 60 and over. His seat was in coach 3 and mine was in coach 13. We wandered through the train station looking for someone who could help us arrange seats together but the office was closed early on a Sunday morning. 

We settled for coffee and a croissant, plus a chocolatine for me, which apparently they call pain au chocolat in Perpignan, like the rest of France. 

As we took the escalator up to Voie E to board our train, a conductor stood waiting to see our tickets. I described our dilemma about the seats. 

She asked “do you want to be with me?” Pointing to the coach that Earl was seated in. 

“Bien sur!” I said. And she checked the schedule before telling us which seats were available for us to sit together. 

The TGV is fairly empty now, but we have several stops before Paris. 

As we roll along toward Paris, I looked out the window and to my delight, saw the Mediterranean! 

Next as we passed some salt flats, I saw flamingos feeding peacefully. This already feels like a magical trip. 

A June Whirlwind

I can't believe it's July already.
June was a blur of activity.
We hiked in Spain,

Me with Earl and Maurice as we crossed the Pyrenees

 bought a house in France,

It needs a little love, but it has a garden

 said goodbye to all of our friends in France before we left for the summer and spent a night in Paris,

Always love the dramatic sky in Paris

flew home to the States,

Always love spending time with Mom and Dad.

At the Gulf of Mexico with Earl

drove from Florida to Ohio

Dinner with two of our three kids

 then Ohio to Massachusetts.

This is actually a view in Vermont, I think. Massachusetts, Vermont and New Hampshire are all very close together here.

And here we are for most of the summer.
It's rural and I am sure to have lots of time to write, but less to write about.

Dreaming of France -- Traveling by Train

Please join this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it

Almost everyone headed to France, and other places too, land in Paris at Charles de Gaulle airport. If  you're going on to other places in France or in Europe, you may take the long trek from the air terminals to the train station. They're all connected.
We pulled our wheeled suitcases behind us and weaved around groups of people who stood still, wondering which way to go to find a taxi. The same walk will take people to the local trains that ferry them into the heart of Paris.
When we traveled with the kids, we caught a bus that took us to the train terminal. Now, it's just easier to walk.
Once we got there, we saw this list of trains leaving Paris.

The trains from Paris go everywhere!
We had an hour or so before our train to Aix en Provence left, so we headed up to a local boulangerie, which is right there in the train station.

This is a chain now, and the food doesn't compare to what you might get at a local boulangerie anywhere in Paris or smaller cities around France. But to us weary travelers, what an opportunity to settle down and enjoy a few pastries.

This is a chausson pommes -- apples folded under that lovely sugary crust.

And this is a tart sucre. A sugar tart. 

And these pastries say welcome to France. I wonder how long it will be before I get to try these kinds of pastries again. 

Thanks for playing along with Dreaming of France. Please leave a comment and visit each other's blogs, too, so you can get your fix of France dreams.

Long-Distance Parenting

Today, I had one of those days where I wonder if I had too many children. Not really, but I received two frantic phone calls from my kids.
First was Grace.

She's on a European adventure, and for the most part, she's on her own. She headed to Aix en Provence today to stay with my lovely friend Delana. Grace took the TGV (the very fast train) from Paris to Aix. She wrangled her big black suitcase from the Paris hotel to the train station then hoisted it up the steps. She had three hours or so until the train got into Aix en Provence. Then she would take a bus to the city and Delana would meet her there.
Apparently, Grace fell into a very deep slumber, something like Sleeping Beauty but without the brambles growing up around her.
When she awoke, she wasn't being kissed by a prince, but she realized that the train was pulling out of a station. Thinking she had missed her stop in Aix en Provence, she asked the people around her.
She had, in fact, missed her stop in Aix en Provence and had continued to sleep while the train stopped in Marseille and left there too!
I didn't think the train went any farther than Marseille, which, as you may know, is nestled right into the corner of the Mediterranean Sea. But apparently it kept going, as she realized when she woke up.
The TGV is not one of those trains that stops frequently. I've been on the TGV when it left Paris and didn't stop until Aix, or Avignon at the earliest.
For all I knew, the next stop could be Spain or Italy.
As we talked by cell phone, spending $1 per minute to ponder the possibilities, Delana called to see if she was on the bus.
So we hung up and I tried to take a nap.

This area looks close together, but you can see how close Italy and Spain are too.

Unlike my daughter who falls into a deep sleep easily, I've been up since 2 a.m. I taught class at 8 a.m. and have to teach again at 6 p.m., so I thought a nap was a necessity for me. But I lay in bed wondering what had happened to Grace. I kept incessantly checking Facebook, where I had posted her dilemma. Helpful friends in the U.K. and France were giving me tips or offering suggestions (Thanks, Anne and Corey!) Anne called the rail office to see where the train went. Corey, who lives in Provence, offered to pick her up in Aix or Marseille or Avignon.
Realizing I couldn't possible sleep, I called her back on that expensive cell line to see what had happened.
She had just exited the train at Toulon. The train people gave her a note that allowed her to return to Aix en Provence, where, she should be right about now. Fingers crossed.
As I gave  up napping, I sat with a book on the couch and my phone rang. Spencer is in Athens. Not that Athens, the one in Ohio. He has his first apartment which he moved into a few weeks ago.

He set up the electricity for the apartment before he moved in, and it was all working when we moved his furniture in. Apparently, though, he didn't bother opening the letters from the electric company which told him to pay a deposit.
So last week, just after he got internet set up in his apartment, the lights went off.
The electricity was turned off, which meant, he had no internet, no stove, no hot water, and no way to charge his cell phone, which also serves as his alarm clock.
It's been a bit of a challenge, but when he came home Saturday, I helped him set up his online account and make a payment to the electric company. We hoped he'd get electricity back today.
When he phoned, I figured he would tell me the power was back on.
Instead, he said, "The carbon monoxide detector is going off."
"What? Are you sure it isn't the smoke alarm?" I asked.
"It says carbon monoxide detector right on it," he replied.
Since it is plugged in, I thought maybe the electricity had come back on, but it hadn't.
We told Spencer to go outside and to call the maintenance guy to come right away.
He didn't call or text to update me, but when I texted him, he said it just needed a new battery rather than having actual carbon monoxide in his place.
Earl was home for lunch and we both looked at each other. What would come next?
Tucker just took our cat home with him the other day. Would he call to say the cat was lost?
We're ready for anything, and still wondering if we had too many kids.

Saturday Snapshot -- Holiday Trains

To participate in the Saturday Snapshot meme post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken then leave a direct link to your post on Alyce's blog At Home With Books. Photos can be old or new, and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see. How much detail you give in the caption is entirely up to you. Please don’t post random photos that you find online.

Our downtown library, voted the best in the country, puts up a holiday train display. Kids just stand and stare, unable to move on from the display.



Here are some close-up details.




And from the top as we climbed the stairs, we saw a waterfall on display too.


Hope you all have a marvelous Christmas, if you celebrate, and a peaceful New Year.