About my life in Armenia, about being a mom and an activist, working for women's rights.
The challenges and benefits of raising a family in a post-soviet republic.
Finding a place, my place and calling it HOME.

24.6.14

Adventures in Paris: Day one

Yes, finally we are taking that long-awaited family vacation with the whole bunch.




Paris is the first destination! Lots of planning needed when you are travelling with a 3, 9, 11 and a 13 year old, to keep everyone almost satisfied. The flight Yerevan-Paris was great. Kids slept most of the time and my 3yr old was so mesmerised with the whole plane flying thing that he was stuck on the little window almost the whole time, with a series of questions: "why is this not faster? i see clouds dropped on earth, what if fire comes out of the wings, why is the black sea, blue?" and many more.




The older ones were in their ipods/ipads listening to music and reading. So i got to rest a little and even sleep for an hour. So things get easier i guess after your youngest reaches 3 or maybe you get so used to all the stress and changes that you don't even notice how challenging sometimes it can be.

Planning is the number one thing you need to be good at when you have kids. From all the
details, the items in the baggages, medications, emergency phones, favorite toys, things to see, snacks, extra cloths, emergency items and entertainment quick easy games stored in your head for the unpredicted waiting times (like during the long lines in front of passport control or while waiting to finish formalities for the rented car).

So we arrived safely, with no major incidents to Paris.

Some funny things:) - The car we rented was a van but with european standards, meaning a little small for 6 people, but we managed to fit everyone and the 3 bags and the 4 backpacks. The employee gave us a key(which we figured out later, that did not have a key on it, more like a remote control) why doesn't Europe tell the rest of us(coming from developing countries)   when they have new inventions for car keys? So it took us some time to figure out how to start the car:) and get adapted to the eco driving system (when the car in the middle of the highway traffic gives you suddenly the impression that it is stopping completely - then you understand it is for saving energy)
So after an hour of driving through the highways and in the small streets of Alfortville, we almost thought that things weren't so bad for a first day of our adventure, when suddenly, my 2 year old asked innocently: "mom, where is my bed?" and we all went silent! the portable bed was left at the airport and nobody among the 6 of us, remembered to pick it up. There was no way, we were going back! so he ended up sleeping in between the two of us.

It was almost 6, when we arrived to our destination in Alfortville where we were going to spend our 2-3 days in Paris. We met up with our Friend G. and we took our first supper in an open parisian café "chez Pauline". We survived our first challenge of keeping 4 kids busy and less loud in the café, full of mostly adults, having wine and discussing adult things, not very happy with children making noises.


At the Bookstore


At Chez Pauline café


The second fun thing done was a visit to a big bookstore. My 3 year old, very much impressed by the amount of books and no one around to tell him "chi kareli" was touching almost all the books that were accessible, happy while his dad was lying on the colourful pillows spread around! As for my two older ones, they were completely lost in the music section.

At the end of the day, we finally found our way back home and collapsed on the beds, happy with this first day of adventures.

Great end of day one! 

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