Last (American) Meal in France

Since May 3 when Taylor left us in Nice, it was travel day to Paris on Sunday, then four days in Paris, a Thursday travel day to Caen and Bayeux, and Friday at D-Day beaches, then Saturday at Mont St. Michel, a travel day back to Caen on Sunday and today, we go back to Paris to go to London. 

And yes, I planned it this way.

Add to all of this a late train, a hotel disaster, a broken down rental car and reservations screw up and it’s made for a hell of a trip. 

I do this in my life a lot, but so far in this trip, I had resisted the urge to stretch myself too thin. At home, I’ll plan everything down to the minute sometimes with no room for error. If one thing goes wrong, the dominos fall. Usually they don’t. I am pretty lucky; even with this latest string of episodes, we were pretty fortunate. Still, that schedule was pretty grueling, even if everything had gone perfectly.

Yesterday in Caen was pretty terrible, but I tried not to let the kids know. Caen was only a sleepover stop for us to catch the train after our Normandy tour, I had heard about the great museum in Caen, so I looked it up and was relieved to find that it was pretty close to our hotel. Even after the rental car battery breakdown, we had two hours to see it before closing time.

We threw our bags in the hotel and followed the map- to a lovely museum in a medieval castle that was dedicated to Normandy- the region in France, not the World War II landing site. 

We stepped inside and I immediately knew we were on the wrong place— samples of lace and pictures of cows Leaeverywhere. The boys were so polite to the guide when we told her in French that we were “just looking,” but they were quietly pissed at me for rushing them up the hill to the castle. 

Samuel had a smirk on his face because earlier when I told him I wouldn’t buy him a toy machine gun at the museum gift shop, he announced “then I’m not going;” to which I of course said in typical mommy form, “oh yes you are!” Bennett and Cooper were relieved because they didn’t want to go to a museum anyway; plus, there was a cool playground inside the castle walls and you could walk the ramparts. It was the perfect win-win-win-lose situation. At that point I could care less. 

The museum we wanted to see was actually 30 minutes from our hotel and not easy to get to at all. I would say maybe next time, but I’m not sure we’ll make it to Caen again. After wandering the streets on an Sunday night, we had two choices for our last dinner in France. One, a TGIFridays sort of place, complete with random crap on the wall and blaring Rock music and the other was called Dolly’s and it was also sort of old-time American themed. 

I hate eating out when I’m forced to do so, but since we were at a hotel, we really had no choice. We picked the generica-inspired TGIFridays place and the kids ordered fried whatever.

I mentioned previously that Taylor and I do not eat at restaurants with our kids. They’ve gotten much better on this trip (thanks Taylor for letting me be the ones to break the wild ponies) but here’s a picture of our dinner table at Mt. St. Michel- they play with their silverware, so I take it, they use too much salt, so I take it, Cooper puts the bread basket on his arm like a cast, I take it, Samuel is blowing tunes with his Sprite bottle, I take it, Cooper plays with his pasta, you get the idea. Extra glasses, sharp knives, sugar packets— all must be placed outside of arms reach of my boys at restaurants— they simply cannot stop playing. 

This isn't even my plate! 

We were all getting a little punchy by the end of the meal.
This was actually at MSM- we are all held captive as there are only a few
places to choose from. The food here was great but there were only two waiters,
so service was slow even by French standards. It was a very long meal for the ShoBros.

I realize that I bitch about my kids quite a bit, but I’m on a train right now with at least twenty 7th graders behind us, and mine has been quiet, helpful and respectful the whole time. The family next to us has two little girls who have screamed, cried and thrown up pretty much the whole time— I jumped to the rescue with one of the trash bags I packed from home for emergencies, and I am pretty sure it’s the biggest plastic bag that woman has ever seen—- she’s going to talk about that for days—as I was saying— my kids are being GREAT! My kids get tired and whine at the end of busy days, but they don’t complain much about what we’re doing, where we’re going or how we’re getting there. 

On our way to London Hall where we pass through immigration and
customs on our way out of Paris. First thing Samuel said was-- OMG they all speak English!!

My plan is to keep it simple in London We may miss out on some of the sites, but I’ll be the only one to notice. We’ll hang in the first night and then start with our old Antibes routine: homeschool in the morning and activities in the afternoon. We fell behind when Taylor came, and despite planning to take a little break from school, we have been inconsistent since Daddy left. 

I planned everything out to the hour for every place we went to in France. Having been to London a few times now, I was content to wing it here a bit. It is amazing the confidence you have when you no longer have the language barrier. We arrived last night and when I went into the grocery store, and I was like “I got this.” Although the culture here in London is different, but the kids were excited to see more American things. Ordinarily I would poo-poo any American kid who went abroad and wanted to go to Burger King or buy Ritz Crackers and Nature Valley granola bars (as my kids did as soon as we left France), but after traveling this long, I think my kids have earned their right to request familiar things. 

Before bed Samuel called me in and I kissed him goodnight and he said “hey Mom, we did it!” And I said “What?” (half knowing what he was talking about)— and he said “we made it, the whole trip, in France, we did it.” I of course said I was proud of him and he of course gave me the teenage smirk and brushed me off, but I was sure he was proud of himself too.