December 18-21, 2007
We are here at last!! Whew what a journey! Let me just start by saying that great adventures never start out boring! Ha!
It seems almost a year ago that we left the US, but it’s only been a couple of days! Good grief! And here I am, completely wasted, and I’m writing…Oh well. We left our hotel in a flurry by 2pm, thanks to all the help of Robyn and Eric!! We couldn’t have gotten out on time without you! THANK YOU!! (and we hope you found Mierae’s coat!!) The shuttle took us to the airport…unfortunately, it wasn’t the Hummer, so I didn’t get to take a picture. Sorry, everyone! L We stood in line for what seemed like forever in the United International check-in area. And let me tell you, those people were not happy to be there! I thought that was too bad. They were grumbling and angry and frustrated and generally miserable to be there, and therefore making everyone else’s lives miserable. The phrase ‘misery loves company’ comes to mind. Oh well. We did make it, though, albeit with a lot of dirty looks for the loads and loads of baggage, then the printer that was supposed to print our baggage stickers wasn’t working, so they had to switch us to another one that did work. Blah. Our bags, thankfully, just barely cleared the 50 lb limit, so we were thankful for that one! J We finally got through, (and still had WAY too much baggage, I think) and saw some friends there! So, they were going to come through with us and carry some of our bags…well, turns out they were in business class and couldn’t go through the line with us, but we got separated, and they ended up going through the line with our stuff! Sadly enough, they also got selected to be the lucky people that get completely searched! Turns out, my clarinet is not a bomb, so they got through ok. J We got to our gate, found some ice cream type stuff (I promised Claire), and got on! Good thing we got there three hours early, eh? We even only sat on the plane for like an hour before taking off, so that wasn’t too bad.
The kids were fine for the first 5 minutes. Just kidding. They did a super job. Andrew got pretty cranky around 10:30 ish, but once I stood up with him for a while, he settled down pretty quickly. Claire fell asleep before we even took off!! Good for her!! Josh, well, Josh fell asleep around 3 am (Paris time). Oh well. He only got about 2 hours of sleep that night. I didn’t sleep at all. Devin nodded a bit off and on. Some guy kept coughing really loudly, and another guy was reading a comic book and the pages were shining in my face all night, so I did not even nod. Oh well.
We got off the plane in Paris all smiles (ha ha ha ha ha ha ha) and not knowing which way our heads were put on. As we got off, we asked where our stroller was, and they said it would be where the baggage was. So, we took off down the really cool moving sidewalk (this one was super cool…instead of being flat, it went up and down. Not like an escalator, because it didn’t turn into stairs. It was like going over hills. Neat!) and stood in line to have our passports stamped so we could get out of the airport and get our luggage. Well, we saw the other passengers from the plane with kids already had their strollers, so we asked them how they got them. They got them off to the side of where we came off the plane! AH!! So, Devin went running back (Josh and Claire wanted to go, too, but I told them no, so they both sat by my feet screaming at the top of their lungs. I enjoyed that, and so did everyone else around us.) People kept saying things to us in French, and I had no idea what they were talking about. Finally, after about 15 minutes, Devin came running back…without the stroller. I almost sunk down and joined the two little purple puddles!! We couldn’t have lost our stroller on the first leg of our flight!!!!! AAAAAHHHHH!!! Well, there wasn’t much we could do except go try to find the rest of our luggage, and see if we couldn’t find the whereabouts of the rogue stroller. So, the nice lady security guard person let us go through the handicapped side because of all the kids, and they stamped our passports. Whew. At least that one went ok. We were kind of worried that they might not because of the diplomatic passports.
Anyway, we got to the baggage terminal, and found our luggage, but still no stroller. By the way, you know those carts that they make you pay like $2-3 for at the airports in the US? In any other airport, they’re free. Cool. So, we filled up two of them, and strolled on over to the lost luggage claim place. After a lot of talking to people who really didn’t speak English even though they thought they did, someone came running in with it!!!!!!! YEA!!!! I was never so happy to see a piece of luggage in my life!! I could have lost anything else…I still would have been sad to lose something in our luggage (as that’s some of the most ‘important’ stuff), but the stroller was the one thing I absolutely could not have parted with!!! Traveling with the kiddies you just have to have that double stroller!!
So, we found it. *Sigh of relief* We wandered around for awhile looking for where we needed to go to find the shuttle to our hotel. We found the spot, and stood there for another half hour or so until we realized we were standing at the wrong spot. Doh! So, we had to run outside (oh, it’s cold in Paris!!!!!!) across the street to wait for it. Then we had to wave the poor guy down, and he helped us throw our 4 million suitcases into the shuttle…enduring a very angry bunch of honks from other bus/shuttle drivers waiting to get through! Now, mind you, we really didn’t have THAT much luggage…we had 4 large suitcases and one small one that we checked, then 4 small suitcases, and the myriad of diaper bags/purses/laptops, etc. So, I guess we had 15 bags en toto, so I suppose that was a bit extreme…but it still wasn’t our limit! Ha!! We could have checked 10 bags! Then they really would have hated us!!!
The shuttle driver was very nice, and even helped us on both ends and refused a tip when offered!!!! Weird, eh? We got to the hotel, and it was very nice. Certainly a place where we just don’t belong!!!! There was a very angry person in front of us, yelling at everyone in English and swearing in English and French…we thought, “Oh dear. That’s why everyone things Americans are rude and inconsiderate.” Come to find out, he was Italian. Weird. Sad that he had to act that way. So, we got to the front desk and asked if we could put our luggage in a locked up room. So, they just left everything on the big luggage rack, and pushed it into the room. They only put one luggage marker on it, though…
They told us that our room would be available around noon, so we decided to do a little sightseeing. Oh, we were so tired!! But, we walked over to the train station that happened to be right behind the hotel (we kind of did that on purpose, obviously) and after a lot of wandering and a lot of French, we figured out what we needed. We got unlimited day passes for the RER, Metro and any other public transportation. It was super fun! The kids were free, so we studied the map a bit, and decided where we wanted to go, and we went!! Woohoo! Really, no one was overly rude to us, and some people were super nice, so I was pleasantly surprised. We finally made it to our first stop:
The Arc de Triomphe. We got off at our stop, and went into the elevator that takes you to the surface…and almost died!!!! It was SOOOOOOOOOOOOO COOOOOLLLLLD!!!! HOLY COW!!! Now I know why everyone there wears scarves. Oh my goodness! I knew it would be chilly, but this was ridiculous! It was cold, windy and humid, and not fun! So, we ran to the corner, took a couple of family-ish pictures (there were no other people around to ask to take our picture) and ran back to the elevator. The kids were crying! Yikes!! So, we went back down, and decided to head to the Eiffel Tower. Yes, it was cold, but how many times do you get to spend a day in Paris?? So, we figured there was a stop right at the Tower, and we could do just like we did at the Arc. Um, no. The stop was closed for renovation or something, so we had to go one stop more. Not only was it a fairly long walk, the stop was NOT stroller friendly!! LOTS of stairs and very tight doors. Oh well. We made it. But the walk was horrid. The kids were screaming by the time we reached the Tower.
We got attacked by a bunch of gypsy ladies. The first one asked us for money to buy food…so we gave her our half eaten sandwich. Oh well. Then this whole pack of them descended on me while Devin was off taking pictures…they were berating me for having the kids out in the cold, and pulling their hands into their sleeves and pulling their hoods tighter over their faces and making the kids scream even more, and the whole time I’m thinking to myself, “Are there any valuables in the stroller? Is my purse zipped shut and tucked under my arm securely?” I did NOT want to have someone stealing my money or purse. My purse had ALL of our passports!! That would have been so awful!! So, Devin finally finished taking pictures, and shewed all the ladies away, and we turned around and walked back to the RER station with the kids screaming bloody murder the whole way. The gypsy ladies tried to stop us again, so I yelled at them in Spanish!! Ha!! (They kept asking everyone they saw if they spoke English, and that’s why we talked to the first one who took our bread. We thought she needed directions, or wanted to help us or something…but she just handed us a note in English that said she needed some food and money or something. So, from then on, I just spoke Spanish.) So, we got back on the train, and I warmed up everyone’s red frozen fingers. We had to change trains at Notre Dame, so we decided that since we were there, we’d poke our heads up and see, so we did. We chased some pigeons and looked at the giant Christmas tree, and yelled at some gypsy ladies in Spanish, then went back down to the train to head back ‘home’ to the hotel.
We got to the hotel a little after 1pm, thinking our room would be ready and we could all just crash. No such luck. They hadn’t even started cleaning the rooms yet, and we might be able to check in around 2pm. But, they were nice and gave us a key to a lounge on the top floor where we could sit and relax and watch tv and eat some snacks. So, we did…but the kids were so tired they were completely slap-happy and out of control! They ate a little, flung more of it around, switched tables every 5 seconds, and generally made themselves crazy. After about 10 minutes of that, Devin took them out, and as Claire was yelling, ‘ME TOO!!!’ and turning around, she flung out her arm and threw her orange juice across the room, so that it shattered on the ground. I was in tears as I tried my best to clean up the glass and wipe up what juice I could. The desk guy didn’t seem too upset by it, but I was. So, we went out to a little waiting area, and Josh screamed and cried, and Andrew tried to run away, and Claire tried to attack him. Oh, it was so fun! :/ Finally, at almost 3 pm, they came and told us our room was finally finished…THANK GOODNESS!! I didn’t think we were going to last much longer!
So, we finally got into our room. It was rather small compared to the one we had in Chantilly, but very large for European standards. The bathroom was super pretty! So, we let the kids run wild, and we showered. Then we decided to go down for dinner. Well, it seems that no one in France eats dinner before 7pm. And it was only 5pm. They had a big buffet that we could do if we waited, but we were too tired to wait. We just wanted to eat and go to bed! So, we asked if we could just order separately. They said that was fine, and so we made sure that Josh and Claire understood the acceptable behavior that would be required in the setting where we would be eating. It was a very ‘posh’ place! So, we got down there, and the kids were sitting so still! It was great! They brought us some crusty rolls, and they all started to chow down…but funnily enough, before they even finished eating their rolls, they were asleep!!! Completely and totally out!! We couldn’t wake them for anything—even offering candy! Ha! So, Claire slept with her head on the table, and Josh slept all slumped over in his chair, and Devin, Andrew and I enjoyed a nice quiet candlelight dinner!! Ha!! Well, they were definitely quiet and refined for their dinner! Poor little guys! It was the quietest dinner we’d had! We actually roused Josh enough to eat some French fries…it was funny, because he’d eat a fry, then fall asleep again while chewing, then eat another one, then fall asleep again. He did that for probably 15 fries! Then just gave up. He was awake enough to walk up to our room, then just crawled into bed and went to sleep! Same with Claire. She never even woke up. She stayed asleep until the next morning! Andrew fell happily asleep after a nice dinner, and so did Devin and I. We all slept for a good 12 hours and felt much better!
The next morning, Devin and I went to breakfast in shifts. He took Claire, then I took Josh, and we just brought some food along for Andrew. We wanted to leave our room by 7:30 to get to the airport with plenty of time. Well, we didn’t leave until 8am, because Andrew was sleeping so soundly, and none of us had the heart to wake the poor boy! So, we left a little late. We headed to the elevator and hopped on. That started the problem. For some reason, our elevator only made it to the 5th floor (we were on the 8th). Once on the 5th floor, about 3 other people crammed themselves and their luggage on with us, and the doors wouldn’t shut anymore! The would come together, and almost shut (we’d all be holding our breath at this point hoping they would shut), then open again! After going through this ritual about 6 times, we just hopped off to wait for another one. Well, every one that came down was chock full of people and bags!! We couldn’t have squeezed in if we’d wanted to! So, we gave up and made a run for the stairs. Oh boy! The kids were mad because they wanted to stay in the stroller, so they went down the stairs VERY slowly, and screaming the whole way!! Then, the stairs didn’t go all the way down to the first floor! So we got out of the stairwell, more frustrated than ever, and went to another stairwell hoping to get the rest of the way down. We went down another level, and through some doors, but they led to a door that went outside! Doh! And when Devin pushed on it, an alarm went off!!!!!!! So, we went to go back out the other doors to get back to the stairs and go up to find the elevator again, and the doors were locked!! We were trapped in the basement of the Hilton Paris! Ha!! (of course, it wasn’t very funny at the time…) Well, what else could we do? We made a run for it through the alarm door! I told the kids that when daddy opened the door, they had to run out as fast as they could. Well, Devin opened the door, and the alarm sounded loud and clear, and I yelled ‘run’ to the kids…and they ran in the opposite direction!!! So I had to go running after them while Devin is holding this door open (I might mention that this is probably only the second time I’ve ever seen Devin really mad…not at us, but at the system…). So, I finally rounded up the kids and I’m half dragging half carrying all three of them out this big door, all the while completely expecting half the Interpol to be waiting there to arrest us! We finally got out of the door, slammed it shut so the alarm turned off, and went around to the front of the hotel to wait for the shuttle and to check out. The kids were both crying, so we all sat on a bench hugging while Devin went to straighten everything out. He explained all about the alarm, etc., but he doesn’t think the person understood a word that he said. Another lucky time for a language barrier! Ha! So, we weren’t thrown in prison. Whew. He checked out just as the shuttle pulled up, and because we had all the kids, the driver let us on before all the other people that were waiting! Yea!! Just another benefit to having lots o’ kids (not that we have lots…yet)! We gave them our baggage ticket so they could go get our bags and load them on. It took them forever to find it, but the reason was that they were looking for only one bag…not a mountain of bags on a luggage rack! I’m not sure if they found that funny or annoying, but, again, thank goodness for a language barrier, so I could be happy in my ignorance. J
We were finally off to the airport. The driver let us off at our check in terminal, and we disembarked with our mounds of stuff. We found our spot without too many problems and proceeded with the check in process. Interestingly enough, they only let you take one bag per person onto the airplane. Oh dear. So, we got really creative with the big plastic bags that we put the carseats in, and the lady was super nice and let us check 2 other bags, no charge! So, all we had with us were a diaper bag, laptop, clarinet, and a carryon bag with games and things for the kids to do! That was SOOOOOOOO nice!! We found our gate, and hung out for awhile until boarding.
We spent like 4 or 5 Euro on some water. Rip off! Again, someone came by and told us that because we had so many kids and a stroller that we could board with the business class people, which was a REALLY good thing! That was a crazy airport! There is no rhyme or reason…just a lot of people all packed in together as tightly as possible hoping to get into the right line! They boarded almost an hour late, and when they finally said all passengers with children, we had to really push and shove our way through to the line!! I have to admit that I was fairly ruthless trying to get through. Devin was trying to be all polite and careful, so I finally just pushed a bunch of people out of the way and shoved him and the kids forward! Ha! They wouldn’t have let us through, otherwise! It was nuts!! We finally got up to the line, and had no trouble getting through at that point. We walked down the ‘plank’ (as Devin calls it) to get to the airplane, and instead of an airplane, there was this huge flight of stairs going down! Weird. So, again, we had to have the kids get out of the stroller (and again, they were mad and screaming) and walk down the stairs to gate check the stroller, and then they loaded everyone up on these busses! Umm…I wanted to go on an airplane! Ha! The bus took us to an airplane out on the tarmac, and we all got off the bus and walked up the stairs into the plane. Apparently, they had to change planes at the last minute. There was no explanation. So, since they changed planes, after everyone got on, they had to switch all the luggage and the food from the other plane to the new one. That took another hour or so. THEN some of the passengers that were supposed to be on the plane, never showed up…SO they had to go through everyone’s luggage AGAIN and find the luggage for the people who didn’t come, just in case there was a bomb or something. It’s always better to be safe than sorry, right? Then they had to count everyone again to make sure we were all there, and then make sure that everyone’s overhead bags were accounted for…anyway, 3 hours later we were finally on our way. Due to our late leaving, we had to wait an extra ½ hour to be able to take off…but then we were finally in the air. Whew.
The flight was actually fairly nice. Claire took a nap. I think Andrew took two small ones. Josh played with his little tv. It was so nice, because they had the individual tv’s for each person, and you could watch tv, cartoons, movies, play games, watch the map of where we were…all kinds of stuff! So, Josh had fun playing with his tv and using his remote. He also played with his leapfrog and colored. So he was happy. Claire played, watched Ratatouille twice, and talked to the guy sitting next to her (who didn’t speak any English). I sat by a nice lady from Germany, who only spoke German and French. It was interesting trying to communicate. Mostly we just laughed. I got to play solitaire on the tv! Ha! It was funny. My earphones kept giving out and the tv/movie part of my tv wasn’t working very well, so I didn’t watch anything. That’s ok.
These are from the Air France flight from Paris to Yaounde...Andrew going for his afternoon constitutional; Claire smiling (she held long conversations with the guy sitting next to her...and he didn't speak a lick of English!!); and Josh hanging out with his Leapfrog. It was a nice flight. Once we finally got in the air...
We landed in Douala (the biggest commercial city of Cameroon), FINALLY, after about 7 hours in the air. Most everyone got off. Then, they counted us all again, and made sure that we only our luggage was left in the overhead bins, and we took off again for Yaounde. The flight here took only ½ an hour! We barely got in the air, and we were starting our final descent! Very cool! I can do the short trips! J We landed in Yaounde, and we were the last ones off. It’s just easier that way. So, we walked out, and there was no one there…so we found the baggage sign, and followed the stairs. We walked down the stairs and something was definitely not right. There we found a couple of baggage carousels that weren’t moving, but instead had a bunch of African ladies who were dressed as nuns sitting on it, and a bunch of other people just standing at the window staring out. No one moved a muscle when we came down. It was super creepy!! There was definitely no baggage there! We asked someone who looked somewhat normal, and she told us to go through the big glass doors and walk the other direction. Ok. So, we did. And we still didn’t see anyone who looked remotely helpful, and we didn’t see any baggage! I was starting to panic a little at this point. We walked through crowds of people, hoping someone would be helpful, but they mostly just looked at us funny. We were headed toward an information booth, when a smiling guy with a badge came up and said, “What happened to you?” I about fainted! I was so relieved! He was there with the guy who was supposed to meet us, so he took us through the crowds of people and through the customs/passport check backwards (somehow we had gone totally the wrong way, and if we would have gone through one more set of glass doors, we would have been right in the country! We sidestepped the passport place and all the other stuff! I don’t know how we did it. But no one was there to tell us we were going the wrong way. We just read the signs and went where the arrows pointed!) So, we got back in, and met up with the people we were supposed to meet, and they took care of our passports for us and got our bags for us, and the kids and I just sat in a nice quiet corner and I cried! No, I wasn’t sad. I must say that I felt like I was ‘home’! I know that sounds super weird after all the things we’d already been through, but it was JUST like the airport in Guate, and even smelled like it! Ha! I was just so excited!!!!!! We found ALL of our bags—for which I was pleasantly surprised and grateful that none of them got lost! Being only 3 ½ hours late and with no lost baggage was a pretty good deal, I thought! It could have been much worse. We got our passports back quickly (oh, I can’t even say what a relief it was to be with people who cared that we were there and were taking care of us!), and we got to go through the VIP exit (pretty cool!), then we loaded up in the van and let the driver take us home! Oh, it’s SO beautiful here!! SO PRETTY!! Tropical fruit trees are everywhere…palm trees, banana trees, papaya, mango…flowers are blooming everywhere… there are big rolling hills covered in green… It’s just gorgeous! I already love it, and haven’t even seen it during the day! J The roads sure are crazy, though! It’s like playing a video game! I was sure glad it wasn’t me driving!
We made it home, and our guard opened the gate for us to go in. Our neighbors came over to help us get our bags in and show us around quickly. I still can’t believe how big this place is! Super big! I’ve almost got the hang of where everything is…I have lost the laundry room on more than one occasion. I keep forgetting exactly where it is. There are lots of stairs and rooms and bathrooms and wide open spaces. The ceilings are all at least 10 ft high, except for the entry way…that’s at least 20 ft. It’s crazy! The walls are all echoey, so in some ways it feels like we live in a big tin box. J Once we get our stuff and put some pictures on walls, and some rugs down, it will get a little better, I think. The kids are enjoying it, though.
Our first day, Devin went in to work, and I went with our neighbors over to the commissary to get some things and meet a few people. It was nice, but I was still super tired (due to the fact that we finally got settled in and ready for bed around 11pm the night before, and because Claire had a long nap on the airplane right before we landed, she wasn’t ready to sleep yet, so she cried until almost 2am. *Sigh*) so didn’t enjoy it as much as I normally would have. It was good to get out, though, and get a few things to eat. The kids played with the neighbors, and really enjoy being over there. It’s nice to have friends next door!
Devin came home late, due to some problems at work. Something for me to get used to, I guess. He got home and we ate some food. As he was washing the dishes for me, he noticed a little line of ants going to the window from the hot water faucet. He poured a little water on it, and it practically exploded with ants!! Hundreds of them!! Oh dear!! So I whipped out the first thing I could put my hands on, which happened to be my Veggie Wash, and started spraying! The ants all died almost instantly!!!!! Who knew? So, after killing all the little ones that came out, the big winged ones started to wriggle their way out, too, and I stood vigil for about ½ hour making sure that every last ant that came out was killed! I think we must have had a nest behind there or something. So, we’ve got that going for us.
The water here is yellow. Apparently, we have a machine out back that cleans it most of the way before it goes to all our faucets. It’s still yellow. This morning it was brown…like hot cocoa. He he he… thankfully we have a distiller that we can get drinking water from. We can buy bottled water if we want, too. The bottles are handy. It’s really funny to see this nasty brown water coming out of the washing machine to get my clothes clean? Ha!! But it works. It’s hard on whites, but what can you do?
Did I mention that our neighbors set up a Christmas tree for us? I walked in the door to see a Christmas tree all twinkly and decorated with ‘snowflakes’! J So fun! We even had a few packages here already, and that was nice. J Our stocking package hasn’t gotten here yet, and I’m more than a little concerned, but, well, what can I do?
Today I got to go to a little store in town with my neighbor. It was fun. The prices are fairly comparable to that of the states, except for the meat prices. It’s SUPER expensive!! A while chicken is $5 a pound! Chicken breast is over $6 a pound! Ground beef is $4 a pound. Apples are $2.50/lb. But, they have fresh beans—black beans, red beans, navy beans, and some really cool looking ones that I don’t know what they are, but as soon as I get my Bean Bible back I’ll look them up! J They have all my favorite stuff to cook with—like fresh garlic and potatoes and onions…they don’t have celery, though. Oh well. And the carrots are hilarious! I should take some pics—they’re big and fat!
In our yard, we have a pear tree, papaya tree, and a guava(?) tree! Cool, eh? Our yard isn’t huge, but it’s beautiful! Lots of tropical plants and flowers…I have no idea what half of them are. I’ll have to take some pictures and see if anyone can tell me what they are! J
Our first morning here, Devin told me that he woke up around 6am to the sound of the birds outside, and his first thought was: “Just one more for exotic bird bingo! I am loving this!” (Gotta love Kronk!)
Anyway, this is terribly long, and may be boring to some of you. I need to get Andrew up from his nap, and find out if Josh wants to come home from the neighbors any time soon. Our neighbors are having a White Elephant thing tonight, so we’re going to that.
I just can’t tell you how much I am loving it here! It’s fantastic
We have a giant bunch of bananas that should be ripe soon, and some papayas and guavas…and a giant avocado tree!! J How fun is that? I started Claire and Josh on watering the yard. As we don’t have a gardener yet, and it’s dry season, our plants were droopy and needed water, so what better way to get the kiddies away from the tv and doing something constructive and wet?? :P They’ve really enjoyed it, and the guard joins in with them (he’s even been teaching them how to do it properly!!!) and even Pascaline joined in this afternoon….so Josh, Claire, our housekeeper and our guard were all outside with a big bucket of water using old yogurt containers to water all the plants!! Ha!!! I should have taken a picture!!! It was so fun!!
