Since Jackson and I were moving home from Germany in February, we realized all of the places we wanted to see while living in Europe were going to have to go on the backburner for a while. Granted, getting a baby in return is totally worth the trade, but we were bummed that we didn’t get to see as many places as anticipated.
We decided that we could at least explore one fun city and then head back to Texas directly from there, and it was an easy decision that the city would be Paris. I’ve been before but Jackson hadn’t and we were excited to explore a new city together. And babymoons are a thing now, so why not call this ours?
We took a 4 hour train from Frankfurt to Paris. You should know that our luggage broke a few days before, so everywhere that we are lugging our 50 pound bags, Jackson is dragging the suitcase that has a broken wheel. It was a disaster, but we managed to make it to the train station in Frankfurt with help from some friends. Getting from the train station in Paris to our Airbnb was a different story. We had two 50 pound bags, my camera backpack and a backpacking backpack that weighed 25 pounds. Also, it’s worth noting that we only encountered ONE escalator in the Paris subways, so poor Jackson is carrying these bags up and down SO many flights of stairs and saying all KINDS of stuff under his breath. Meanwhile, I was doing everything I could not to let him see me laughing because I had no desire to encounter the wrath of a sweaty and tired and hungry Jackson, who is saying words I have never heard come out of his mouth.
We finally made it to the Airbnb and it was the cutest little studio apartment. I’m such an Airbnb fan. It’s so much cheaper than hotels and you get a kitchen and more space and we’ve just always had great experiences.
We got our bags to the Airbnb and then decided to head into the city. We jumped on a subway and got off right in the heart of the city, grabbed a Nutella crepe and hot chocolate and roamed around for the rest of the evening. Paris is great because so many of the “have to see” sights are all so close to each other. We knew that traveling in Europe in February was going to be cold but that first was so SO cold and rainy. The number of hot chocolates that we consumed was ridiculous. Also, naturally we took ALL the selfies.
That night, we grabbed a crepe for dinner, bought some oreos and milk and headed back to the apartment at 8 pm. Non-pregnant me would have never been down for such an early night (and SUCH an American snack) in a city like Paris, but pregnant me couldn’t think of a better way to spend the evening.
The next day we did a hop-on-hop-off tour bus, which was surprisingly great. I’m not usually a fan of these, I like to see the city the “local” way, but nothing sounded better to pregnant me than seeing sights without having to walk on my achy feet. Because of the rain, there was hardly anyone else that wanted to be on a half-uncovered 2 story bus so we had the entire thing to ourselves. My feet were so happy with me.
We spent the last two days leisurely seeing the city, taking lots of breaks at cool coffee shops and creperies. We took so many breaks and Jackson was so patient through all of our coffee shop stops. The ridiculous amount of yummy pastries we consumed at each one definitely aided in his patience, I think.
We also went to Louvre to see Mona, and got to use our German residence permits to get in free and save 12 euro. We were pretty proud of that.
We definitely didn’t go as hard as we would have in the past, but it was perfect. We went to bed before 10 every night and woke up without alarms. We ate tons of pastries and drank a lot of hot chocolate. We roamed around smaller, lesser known areas of the city and got addressed in French enough times that we felt pretty good about ourselves and our ability to be mistaken for Europeans. Maybe all that time in Germany paid off.
It was a sweet time for us to explore one last European city before we are a family of 3! We also made our first purchase for sweet baby bailey at a cute little baby store and that made things feel so real. Overall, it was the perfect end to a crazy and sweet season.
