A weekend in Paris

First of all, let me thank Julia for doing all the posts since Béla was born and possibly before that. Luckily for our readers, keeping our friends and family in the loop is a high priority for her. I also love you guys, but not that much (kidding). This is the first post I've done in a long time but should be fun because I get to bitch about die Bahn (the German rail service) a bit.

This was Béla's second time in Paris although events did not make it easy for him to get there. First, we weren't sure if we would go at all since we were going for one of Julia's meetings. This particular one had only been briefly mentioned a while ago by her boss who could not attend and wanted Julia to go in his stead, but was unsure if this was possible. A few days before the meeting, he told Julia that it was indeed possible and that she could go. This was also a good meeting for Julia to attend since it had a lot to do with her present work. So we decided that Béla was getting better enough (see last post) and that we could afford my last-minute ticket.

This trip usually takes 7-8 hours, three trains and is relatively pleasant if you reserve the kids' room in the wagon. It took us 19 hours and six trains. The first train was a short 20 min ride to Weimar, where we can get on the fast east-west express line. It was 5 mins late, no big deal for a regional train, practically on time.

The next train that should have brought us to Frankfurt was an hour late. Already this meant that we would be missing our connection for the train to Paris. This was also the last connection out of Frankfurt that day so we weren't sure how we would get there in time for the meeting. Julia went to see the Bahn Travel Center and was told she had to bring her problems to the incompetent person at the Bahn Service Point. Die Bahn is the company that controls pretty much all rail passenger traffic in Germany and possibly everything else that moves on rails (Julia, Germans or Bill, feel free to specify in comments below). Usually in most largish stations they have two desks were you can interact with them; the Travel Center and the Service Point. They are allowed to do different things and your supposed to know which one to go to when your trip has been screwed up because of late trains. Anyways after some hardly helpful rude 'service' from this person, we now knew that the earliest time we could get there was at 9:30 the next morning, half an hour after Julia's meeting would have started, and to do so we would have to take the night train from Stuttgart. We considered our options; calling it off, renting a car and driving there; or taking the night train where hopefully Béla would not have any trouble sleeping. Since the hotel room was non-refundable and the car would have to be left in France and this is usually not worth it because of the drop-off fee if at all possible (and because Béla really doesn't love being in the car), we decided to go for the night train. We also decided that we would ask someone in Frankfurt to change our tickets, someone hopefully more competent.

When the train finally did come it was of course packed and the air conditioning was broken. This sounds like we're whining about our comfort but the ICE train, the high speed trains in Germany, was not designed to run without AC. Since it's a high speed train you can't open the windows plus it was really hot out which did not help. It was literally about 40 C on the train. After seeing how much Béla was sweating, even after getting stripped down to a diaper shirt, and knowing that we had three hours before our connection in Frankfurt, we decided we had enough time to get off at the next stop, in Gotha, and wait for the next train, since they run roughly hourly.

So we got off in Gotha to wait for the next train which was also 30 mins late. Still we had enough time in Frankfurt to get the train to Stuttgart to get the night train, so we were still not too worried except that we didn't know if Julia would have time to take a shower at the public bathrooms in Frankfurt. She would have to go to the meeting directly from the train station in Paris and spend the night sleeping on the train as opposed to our hotel room.

When we got to Frankfurt we ran for the Service Point and the Travel Center. Against our wishes, we had to buy reservations for the night train because they were obligatory and the Die Bahn policies are apparently too stupid to make exceptions for our case. The man said that we could likely claim the money back later, given the circumstances, but it was still annoying. Most of the time you can buy tickets without a seat reservation which means if all the seats are taken you have to stand around somewhere, but usually night trains and some international trains require reservations.

With that done, Julia ran for the showers with a mere 20 minutes left before our scheduled departure. The shower was really necessary after sweating on the crazy hot train, and then playing with Béla on the filthy train platform in Gotha. I went to the platform and stopped to get some food for the night. When I got to the platform she was already there with time to spare. Of course this train was also late but only by 10 mins or so. Strangely they were very apologetic during the announcements unlike the other trains that were far later in which they mentioned their tardiness only for your information. Passing through Mannheim (important to remember for later on) we finally got to Stuttgart where we had another couple hours to wait for the night train.

We walked around a little trying to find a bench where we could camp out and wait and maybe sleep in shifts, it was getting around 1 am by now. There were no benches inside but the night was very warm so we picked a bench outside on our platform. Julia and Béla got a little nap as you can see here. Bela did eventually get a couple blankets on him as it got colder.


I sat next to them and read. By this time we also knew that the night train was also running late, about 5 mins at first then 10 - 15- 25 - 50 - 60 mins late. By the time Julia woke up from her nap the train was 90 mins late although announcements had stopped. Because of this we went to the Service Point again and asked what was going on. The train was now more than 2 hours late, and they weren't sure when it was coming. We asked for an alternate route and she gave us one that had us taking four more connections to finally get to Paris at 9:35, the first train leaving in less than 5 min. So we ran for that train that was going back towards Mannheim.

This train was actually on time. Julia slept a little in her seat while I walked a very awake Béla up and down the passageway at around 4 am. The Bahn employee that had taken our tickets saw me and told me that there was a high speed train leaving from Mannheim and going directly to Paris that we could take instead of the three more connections. The only downside was that it was going to get us there at 9:49 in the morning instead of 9:40. Great, I said, we'll take that.

This conversation took place while Julia was in her seat and I in the dining cart so she didn't know exactly what was said. Just before getting in to Mannheim, the very useful Bahn came to tell us that there was a connection that would get us in even earlier, the night train. The same night train that would eventually go through Stuttgart and that we knew to be more than two hours late. Julia thought this was the connection I had told her about and that now we were going to be even later waiting for it again in Mannheim. Since we had already passed the stop we had to get off at to make the three other connections that would get us there at 9:35 that was no longer an option. While the Bahn Lady and a very tired Julia argued over the confusion in very good German, a very tired Jeremi was trying to explain that we were talking about two different trains in less than perfect German and that we could still take the ICE going to Paris and arriving at 9:49 and that it was NOT the night train. All this happened while pulling in to the Mannheim station and finished with Julia having a nervous breakdown (while wearing Béla in the carrier) and the Bahn Lady removing herself from the situation cause it was getting heated and her train was leaving again. Once she had left we clarified with another very nice Bahn employee that was on the platform that there was indeed a ICE leaving for Paris as we had thought.

This guy was really nice, but had an incredibly thick regional accent, and there were a number of Bahn mechanics hanging around who joined in in the conversation as well, who also had accents that were hard for us to understand. The mechanics assured us that the night train would run better once they were done with it, as they just had to swap the locomotive for another one, and then it should run much faster. We weren't convinced. They also explained that the train chaos was largely caused by thunderstorms in western Germany, on account of the heat, and there were lots of trees down over the tracks, which means also that the power lines that run over the high speed trains were damaged in several locations.

Again we had some time to kill in Mannheim. And we thought about what had happened. They only option we were told was available once we had gotten to Frankfurt was this stupid night train connection. We were even told they could put us up in a hotel to wait for earliest connection to Paris the next day, but that only got us in to Paris at 11:30 or something. But of all the Bahn workers we talked to none of them considered that we could have gone to Mannheim, gotten a hotel room, slept for 5-6 hours, and taken the 6:40 train to Paris getting us in at 9:49, a whole 9 mins after the stupid f#%& night train. Great job Deutsche Bahn.

Killing time in the Mannheim station at "0' stupid hundred" in the morning, Julia filled out some paperwork to get us partial refunds on this ridiculous trip and me and Béla stretched our legs a little. This is mostly just to give you an idea of how well he could walk at the time, when he was almost 9.5 months old. It's funny, looking at it now, only a month later, he looks really clumsy, but at the time we were really impressed! He walked up and down the length of the train station a few times while we waited, quite pleased with himself, and quite enjoying watching people going up and down the escalators.



The last train of this odessey finally came on time but was still late getting into Paris at 10:15 ish. Then we spent the weekend in Paris. The End!

...just kidding. I will go on about our time in Paris and show you more pictures than Julia having to sleep on a bench.

Directly after our arrival Julia had to dash for the meeting and got there and told them about the craziness that was our trip and made it through the rest of the meeting pretty well having only slept a fragmented hour or so the whole night. Me and Béla went straight to the hotel and tried to get some sleep. After a while of exploring the hotel room Béla succumbed to his nap as did I shortly thereafter. With the extended train trip in the hot weather we were a bit worried about the milk that we'd brought with us for the time that Julia was at the meeting, as Béla is still drinking only breast milk or water, but Julia's clever plan of putting bags of milk into my stainless steel water bottle, filling it up with water, freezing it solid, and wrapping it in a towel for insulation, meant that there was still ice in the bottle when we got on the train in Mannheim, and it was still nice and cool when we got in to Paris, and I was able to store it in the fridge in the breakfast room of the hotel until he needed it.

This time in Paris we didn't bother with any of the tourist stuff but just hung out instead and enjoyed being in a big city. Except for that night of course since we were all quite tired. We still managed to go to a restaurant for some nice French food. Béla loved my canard confit and also Julia's side vegetables which mostly only he got to eat. Then we went back to the hotel to finally sleep for real.

The next day, Saturday, we wanted to get Béla some nice French board books. Mathilde, a friend of ours that went to McGill with Julia, had recommended a store that was near where we were staying, so we walked towards it stopping at nice markets and bakeries for a leisurely grazing breakfast. The book store was aimed at kids and teens and had a whole section in the back with board books. We found a bunch that we liked and bought them. We then continued to walk around and found another market with the most wonderful Lebanese booth that sold fresh galettes with ground meat and spices or with zaatar. Delicious!

Here is a picture of Béla napping, with his face still covered in croissant crumbs, after enjoying some pastries on the go. Mmm, buttery pastry...

We stopped at another restaurant for a beer and a nurse. One thing that Paris is not great at is having kids in restaurants. This is something Germany does a lot better. Very few places have high chairs in Paris, not that we've tried all the restaurants, but we were told this by Mathilde and found it to be true. In Germany or at least in Jena the opposite is true. Last week we went to the Mexican restaurant and they had a high chair and a place mat with cutouts of animals that could be folded and stood up. Plus they brought a baby spoon with the utensils, all without even asking.

On the way back toward the hotel we thought it might be good for Béla to have a chance to play a little, as he'd been cooped up much of the day, so we stopped at the Jardin de Luxembourg, where there was a playground exclusively for small children (under 5 or so)! There was a nice grass area, little wading pools, and sand boxes. Here he is running around in the grass.
And making friends
Playing with a balloon a little girl gave him.
Playing with Papa, and one of his favourite things - our camera bag, which has a velcro flap, perfect for opening and closing, and for putting things into and taking things out of.
Try as he might, the nipple on that giant balloon was not giving up the milk.
Charming all the ladies.
Offering to shod one of them. A little too Cinderella for my taste, but whatever works.
More friends in the sandbox. "Hey Blondie, hands off my soother"

Looking for treasure!

Béla dancing the Haka.
If you are ever in Paris with little kids, I definitely recommend this place. It's really chill and the grass was soft enough that Béla could probably had landed face first without hurting himself. And green despite children running all over it all the time. Seriously, what did they do to that grass? Something awfully right or awfully wrong. It's Paris, probably something awfully wrong. Maybe they found a way to produce a high power fertilizer from all the dog poop in the streets.

This next pic is from earlier in the day and just an aside for my family that lives in St-Ignace. It's the church of St-Ignace. It's always funny to me to see the word Ignace any where else then in the tiny village where I grew up since it's not a overly common name.



The next day we met Mathilde and her daughter Éloïse at Le Jardin des Plantes, the botanical garden of Paris. It was a five minute walk away from where we were staying and also has a zoo. Mathilde and her family were supposed to move that month but the seller postponed at the last minute and have stranded them somewhat since someone is supposed to be taking there apartment before they will be able to take possession of the new apartment. To boot, she was just about nine months pregnant with their second child. Yet she was still able to make time to come and meet us at the zoo and apologized for not being able to put us up. I'm leaving out a lot of crazy details here but we wish them luck with their tough times.

This was Béla's first time at a zoo! He was not overly impressed. Perhaps because he has the Calico Wonder at home which is not usually in a cage and he can "pet" most of the time. Or maybe he just isn't old enough to be interested in it. I though it was cool, especially the stout and powerful looking snow leopard. Very differently shaped from other big cats. Big paws.

Anyways here are some funny looking rabbits and weird species of deer looking animals, and the kids looking at them.

"I like panini."

You can also see a bit of the fresh wound on the left side of his nose in this picture - gravel parks are not so nice for face plants. There was a fair bit of blood, and some crying, but nothing that some nursing couldn't make better.

We of course saw a bunch of other animals but the camera ran out of batteries after these. After the zoo Béla nursed and fell asleep and we checked out a bit more of the botanical garden before packing it in and heading back to the train station. They had a history of wheat display among other things. It's a pretty big park and it doesn't feel like you're in the middle of a gigantic city when your there. (Both Julia and I even got pooped on by birds while we were there, which made us feel "at one" with nature.)

The trip back to Jena was relatively uneventful, although we had to take a crazy bus trip from Erfurt to Weimar, as they were doing some work on the tracks, and this was running a bit late. I was really wondering when we were going to get to grandmother's house, because this bus went the most roundabout backwoods route imaginable. It was mostly full of young people who'd gone to watch one of the early World Cup games (Germany won), so there were some cops on hand in Erfurt to make sure things stayed orderly. The fans were well-behaved, but one of the cops mentioned disparagingly that it was a bit late to be out with a baby (it was shortly after midnight). Julia glared at him and commented that the trip from Paris is a long one, and left it at that.

After how well Béla dealt with the crazy trip from hell, we decided that it really isn't insane to take him by train all the way to the Black Sea this August. Honestly, he's really easy going, and is happy as long as we're there, there's something to eat, and he can move around (which is why I wouldn't want to plan a driving vacation anywhere). But more on our crazy vacation plans in another post...