Premier Jour D'Ecole

We all do the ten minute walk and take the metro to school. It is quite busy and getting pram up/down stairs is sweaty work, but we make it on time.

I still haven't quite accepted that we've traded our lovely, neighborhood school for a few rooms inside a large building complex, mainly housing businesses and apartments. This is city living I remind myself.

Sam is quite shy when we arrive, but makes his first friend quickly, thank goodness. Alexi is bilingual and they both have tattoos which gets them talking. I then drop Ruby off at the beautiful American Church on Quai D'Orsay where her nursery room is situated on the second floor overlooking the Seine. She walks in confidently and says goodbye without a fuss.

My first taste of freedom is a coffee on the Champs Elysee followed by the Disney shop, however this is preceded and followed by major screw ups with map reading where I end up sprinting half a mile to pick up Ruby who is literally just over Pont D'Alma. The rest of the week is filled with taking metros the wrong way or getting off at the wrong stop, walking for blocks in the wrong direction.

Sam and Ruby both happy after school so we celebrate with a milkshake on Rue St. Dominique. Not as fun as the boat on the Lock Inn but semi-child friendly. Then we attempt to go to the park by the Eiffel Tower, get lost some more, finally get there, make a friend from New York who looks as bewildered as I do (she just moved here last week).

Sam tells me his play area at school is just rocks and trees and he likes his old school a little bit better. My heart aches a bit.

Take the wrong bus and end up miles from home, have to jump on the metro cause the kids just won’t make it otherwise. Get home and all collapse with tiredness, huge meltdown from me for messing up so many times, pounding the pavements of Paris and dragging my children along through it.

o Saving grace – Dog has been found and is flying unaccompanied to Paris to join his owner, THANK GOD! Spot the very tip of the Eiffel Tower all lit up from our balcony as I’m sipping my 3rd glass of wine – beautiful.

It will get easier eventually, but at the moment absolutely every single thing is an effort. I won’t have to worry about keeping fit with all this walking, and the Parisians aren’t as rude as you think.