We’re home

What a getaway weekend the misses and I had. We left Denver Thursday after work and were upgraded to first class for the first leg of our trip to Chicago. Next up we ended up in Business Class with the new sleeper beds that I could literally stretch out in. We joked that the kids would have never slept as they would have played games and watched movies the whole flight. I’m telling you this is the only way to fly.

We arrived in Paris on Friday morning and checked into our 5 star hotel just before lunch time. When we opened the door to our room, we were standing on a landing where the bathroom, a desk, and the closets were along with a stair case that went down to the king size bed. The ceilings were 20 feet tall with windows to match. It was a room for royalty. We didn’t spend much time admiring the accommodations as we wanted to hit the streets.

We must have walked 20 to 25 miles in the two days we were gone. The weather was a perfect 50 degrees and the city was beautiful. We walked a little ways and ended up at a great restaurant named Petit Marais for a lunch of fresh fish, white wine and baguettes. The bread there is just amazing!  Next up we were off towards the Eiffel Tower and the Seine. I almost forgot, when we boarded in Chicago we were sitting across the aisle from each other and I asked a gentleman if he’d trade so the misses and I could sit together and he said no! Now these were the same seats but for some reason he didn’t want to. Maybe he thought he’d get to sit next to my wife! Anyhow a lady in her mid 40’s sitting next to us on the other side offered to trade. Frederique, (the lady) who is our new friend and contact in Paris, turns out to be the Director General for a Worldwide law firm and lives in Paris with her 12 and 15 year old girls and her husband. She’s not a lawyer but apparently in some high position of power. It’s good to make new friends and she offered many times for us to call her anytime if we need any help anytime. We’ll for sure stay in touch, we joked that we had a “get out of jail free” card. Now back to our first day…

After lunch, as I said, we headed off towards the river. We were delighted to find the Christmas market had opened that day and stretched along the Champs d’Elysees for almost a mile on both sides of the street. The shops included all kinds of food like crepes to bratwurst with spiced wine flowing everywhere and all kinds of gifts and crafts as well. Lots of family’s out strolling along with the children eating cotton candy and roasted chestnuts all around. We did most of our shopping here as the prices were great and we found lots of little gifts for everyone. Funny but on the way home the misses and I realized we didn’t buy anything for ourselves, just a few small thing for family in friends in Denver who were taking care of the boys and the dogs. Our joy was just being in Paris for 48 hours together, alone. Ladies, you’ll be interested to know that a lot of women were wearing their furs as they walked the streets. It was a bit warm for a full length coat but a waist coat or vest would have been perfect. After hitting the Christmas market, we headed back to the hotel to change shoes (a trick if you plan on walking a lot in a day) and then we were back out. The side streets are where it’s at. Tons of people are always on the main avenues but the fun shops and great little bistro’s where the locals hang out, are all on the side streets. We made the mistake of grabbing a late bite at a restaurant on the main street and it turned out top be all presentation with pretty bad food. I think we were just too tired to think straight. We grabbed a bottle of champagne from a wine shop for about 20 euros and headed to our room. After a glass each, we fell asleep fast. I woke up around 3:30 am thinking it was morning as I heard noise outside but it turned out to be kids (20 somethings) on their way home from the clubs, just being loud. We fell back into a deep sleep until around 10am! We needed the sleep but didn’t want to waste our short time there in bed! We hurried to shower and off we went.

This morning (Saturday) we went off in a different direction to Galerie Lafayette which is a 4 building, 7 floor shopping store, all connected by sky bridges, that has literally everything! From Chanel to Gucci to brands you’ve never heard of, the store was amazing. We had lunch under a huge stained glass dome at the top of the women’s store which was fantastic. The misses had a ceasar salad with fresh anchovies and chicken while I had some kind of great stew. It was a welcome refresher as we were both starved. Off we went to explore the rest of the store. Here too we bought a few small gifts looking for fun stuff we don’t have at home. You wouldn’t have believed the crowds, people were everywhere during our whole trip. After a few hours here (we could have stayed the whole day exploring) we hit some smaller stores and the flagged a taxi to take us back towards the Eiffel Tower. This was our only taxi of the trip as we wanted to save our money and walk everywhere. The crowds at the tower were enormous as well. We didn’t go up as it’d take too long so off we went on streets we hadn’t been on making our way back towards our hotel. I had emailed ahead before we left the states, to Oumar, our concierge, to make us dinner reservations at a tiny bistro with great reviews. We were supposed to show up at 8pm. After a quick shower, we headed off walking up and under the Arc De Triomphe toward Rue General Lanzerac to find our restaurant. The food was good but we both should have ordered our first choice as it looked better. This was our splurge of the trip and cost 90 euros or about $117 for wine, crepes filled with crab and lobster, sea bass for the misses and shoulder of lamb for me and a poached pear with warm chocolate sauce and ice cream for dessert and orange burnt cream for the misses. The entire place sat only about 20 people. After this we walked for a bit as we were flying home in the morning.

We fell asleep around midnight and were up at 7am getting ready to head to the airport at 9:30. Our hotel bill, we’re happy to report, was zero, zilch, nada, not a penny! We pretty much did the whole trip on points except for the few gifts we bought and our food. I know, I know, every trip costs money but I’m happy to report, this entire 48 hours in Paris cost us a grand total of $504 euros or about $650 with the exchange rate. This was about half in food and half in gifts. Now I know this is still $650 we didn’t really have budgeted but come on, a weekend in Paris including airfare, hotel and all costs for $650! It was just too good to pass up and what a refresher for the misses and I to just have 2 days alone. It was long overdue and worth 10 or 20 times the money we spent.

We made it out to Charles de Gualle airport around 10:30, checked in and cleared passport control and headed up the the United Red Carpet room to hang out and wait for our flight. In France, the United Club is much more posh than in the U.S. The food was great (and free) and they had all kinds of snacks and liquor of which we didn’t partake. In fact, we drank very little on the entire trip. We boarded in coach (oh well, can’t win them all) and were the first ones on the plane. The flight wasn’t too bad, 9 hours, and we stayed up and watched movies the whole time. The misses chatted up the flight attendants who realizing she was “one of their own” ( a former flight attendant) really took care of us. In fact on our next flight from Chicago to Denver, one of the crew from our overseas flight flew with us. He (Jeff) made sure we had red wine from first class and even came up and gave us a bottle of wine wrapped in white linen when we were getting off the plane in Denver. Apparently they all stick together, even when retired.

We got off the plane very tired and headed off to baggage to get our 2 bags and get the car. We ordered chinese food to go on the way home to get the boys. They, for 3 nights and 3 days, were with Uncle T and Aunt B and had a non stop fun filled good time. We can’t thank them enough as there’s no one else we could trust to leave them with. Needless to say, we were all glad to be together again as a family. We were all asleep by about 8:30 and I slept until 5am. Everyone else is still sleeping and I’m going to get back into my routine and head to the gym before my 9am conference call. It’s good to be home but as I said before, what a great break and good time for the misses and I. It’s the first time in 11 years of marriage and 10 years of kids that we’ve had a break to ourselves.

The kids are off all week for Thanksgiving and the misses works tomorrow and Wednesday. I have lots of work to do as well and am in NY next week and then Seattle the week after. Back to the grind but we at least have the pictures and memories of our trip that’ll last until we get back to the City of Lights. We’re planning on going back late Spring as we found out Grandma has never been and I’m determined to get her there, one way or another. She can even take her little dog if she wants to! There were lots of little dogs in the restaurants all over.

Oh well, off to the gym, glad to be home and hope everyone is well. God Bless, Au Revoir!

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