24 Hours: Dieulefit — Paris (Terri and Finn’s European Adventure Day 5)
Oh how I love Paris but getting there on Monday, August 1st after leaving Dieulefit (Day 4) was a bit of a challenge.
We returned the car to the correct Hertz location (after going to the wrong train station in Valance) after successfully filling up the gas tank. It was so odd that my credit cards wouldn’t work at some of the gas stations but Finn’s did. I still don’t understand. That reminds me; I think I owe Finn some money.
I’d reserved seats for us on the train and we had no trouble finding our them and stowing our luggage, but it was a bit warm in the train car. We soon learned that our car didn’t have air conditioning and they weren’t going to be able to get it to work during the 3 1/2 hour ride to Paris.
They came through with bottles of water for all of the passengers and offered up seats in other air conditioned cars to older people first, then families with kids, and then the seats were all gone.
Fortunately my mom had given us mini fans that fit perectly in the seatback net so we were able to avoid being completely uncomfortable.
There was cold beer in the snack car.
We arrived at Gare de Lyon and it was a total zoo. We stood in line for a taxi for nearly an hour. I felt terrible because we were very late meeting my friend Terry’s son’s girlfriend at Terry’s apartment to get the keys to her place.
Terry and her boyfriend Michele were already in Les Arcs where we planned to meet them 9 days later. Terry had graciously opened up her apartment to us while we were in Paris.
We’d last seen each other five years before when I went on an investment tour of Paris, Nice, Estonia, and Berlin. Here we are at my favorite optical place in the St. Germaine, Bonot Opticiens.
I picked up two pairs of frames that trip after a very expensive lunch (with quite a bit of wine) at L’Atelier Joel Robuchon with Terry right across the street. I may or may not have done the same thing a few days later on this trip.
We first met when we exchanged houses in 2013 when she and her now ex-husband and two kids (Joseph and Kriss) lived on Rue de Saussure in the 17th arr. in Paris. We’ve been friends since we first met in Paris as we exchanged house and car keys in Paris in July 2013.
Finn’s friend Somerset was in Paris studying French for the summer so, of course, we had to meet up with her while we were all in Paris. She met us at the apartment after class and we walked to Tonton, a restaurant near Terry’s old apartment that I’d dined at before with Terry and a friend back in the summer of 2018 when I’d last stayed with her.
On our way, we walked down Rue de Levis, a street in the 17th arr., near Parc Monceau, where I did all of my grocery shopping when we were there for a month in 2013. It’s a typical Parisian street with individual vendors selling cheese, produce, meat, chocolate, ice cream or gelato, wine, pastries, and more. There’s even a Sephora and a Monoprix.
Finn remembered very little, if anything, about the area. This is definitely a downside to traveling with children under the age of 12. Finn turned 9 while we were there in 2013. Sigh.
The food and service were very good at Tonton but what stood out was the way they served the cheese (dessert) course. We honestly didn’t know what we were supposed to do with the blocks of cheese they left on the cutting board at our table.
Were we supposed to wait for them to cut us slices? Were we supposed to serve ourselves?
Eventually we cut the cheese ourselves and shortly thereafter the server came by and removed the cutting board from the table so we are assuming we did the right thing.
We were very impressed by Somerset’s command of the French language. It was really hard to not have her speak on our behalf but we needed to practice, too.
We walked back to the apartment together where Somerset charged her phone while figuring out how to get back to the hostel where she was staying. As she left, we promised to get together again the next day, assuming her schedule allowed for it.
We took advantage of the washer and dryer in Terry’s apartment which required me searching YouTube for instructions on how to actually use the machines.
Terry’s apartment, while smaller than her last one, is quite lovely and the balcony looks out onto other nearby buildings. It’s a two bedroom, one bath, with a kitchen, living/dining room in a secured building near public transportation. Her kitchen was so familiar to me since I recognized so much from her last place.
She’d recently completed having the kitchen cabinets and appliances installed. The unit had recently been renovated and didn’t come with any kitchen cabinets or appliances so she had to have it done herself.
I enjoyed coffee on the terrace and caught up on my journaling and emails before we prepared ourselves for our first full day in Paris. We didn’t have any specific plans other than to make sure that we got to a restaurant for lunch between 12 and 2. Once again, we didn’t acheive this goal, and if there was a theme for this trip, it was poor lunch planning.
Finn had gone climbing with Somerset at a local climbing gym so that caused a bit of a delay as well.
It’s important to note that neither of us do well when hungry with low blood sugar. And we still hadn’t adjusted to the time zone.
Alas, I took a right instead of a left when we exited her building and went in completely the wrong direction. But more about that in the next post.. Paris (Day 6 of Terri and Finn’s European Adventure).
Spoiler alert: we did make it to a late lunch that included a glass of wine for me and seeing our Parisian waiter’s California tattoo. But that story is for tomorrow, Day 6: Paris.
Terri Hanson Mead is the multi-award winning author of Piloting Your Life, Managing Partner of Solutions2Projects, LLC, and an advocate for women through all of her platforms including YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and this blog. Terri is the mother of two college aged kids, is based in Redwood City, CA and in her spare time, loves to travel, cook, play tennis, and fly helicopters around the San Francisco Bay Area, especially under the Golden Gate Bridge.
