We resume our tale bright and early at 6:30 on Saturday morning. Our French/Australian taxi driver Philippe was busy and couldn't drive us, but had set us up with another driver, Loic. (though after the giant tip I gave Philippe after the ride to the hospital, I’m sure he was kicking himself that he couldn’t fit us in on Saturday.) This driver turned out to be equally charming but not so much fluent in English. So front seat conversation took place in French, back seat conversation in English.
Loic was cab driver extraordinaire – not only did he drive us to the train station and help us with the bags, he actually went in with us and once we realized we were leaving from the other side of the station, he walked all the way over there with us, validated our tickets for us and set us up in a good spot to wait to find out which platform our train was on. Besides this, he was wearing a suit. Only in France. He was also rewarded handsomely for his service.
We were early, which we had planned to be, to make sure that we had plenty of time to get on the train, so HKD and I went off in search of coffee and left Mom attending the baggage to prevent the French military men with their berets and Uzis from considering it abandoned and destroying it.
We listened to the lovely sound of the train announcements (all announcements in Paris start with music) until finally our train came up. Getting on went smoothly, and we were among the first ones in our car, so there was plenty of room for stowing our bags as well as the rather unwieldy albatross.
First class seats on the TGV rock. (TGV is the “Train a Grand Vitesse” a.k.a. France’s high-speed train.) Roomy, reclinable, moveable armrests, and, if, you get the window, lots of window to lean against. I think the early morning hospital runs combined with the early-morning train run had caught up with me, because once that train was set in motion, I was OUT. I slept from the moment we left the Paris city limits all the way until we hit the coast. It’s too bad, in a way, because the countryside through France is downright beautiful, but waking up to the sun shining down on the Meditterranean wasn’t too shabby either. I swear, there’s just something about being on the ocean that makes everything all good, even me waking up from a nap. I don’t tend to be the cheeriest person upon waking up, particularly after sleeping on any number of modes of transport, but in this case, I saw the sea and all was well.
As we passed through Cannes, I seriously considered getting off the train there, even though our final destination was supposed to be Nice. Cannes, however, is actually closer to where the villa is located (Mougins) so I decided maybe that was a better place to get off. I waffled too long, however, and since it was only a stop (not the final destination) I worried about whether we would have ample time to get the luggage, the albatross, and Mom all off the train, so we decided to just go on to Nice as planned.
I had not-so-great memories of Nice, because sixteen years ago, when I visited the Cote d’Azur during a school vacation from studying in Paris, my friend Melissa and I got off the train in Nice and looked up some inexpensive hotels. Now it is true that in most big cities that the area around the train station is not usually the most desirable area of the city – this generalization holds true for the city of Nice, as well. Within an hours of getting off the train, Melissa and I had been entirely freaked out by the seediness of the place and had hopped back on a local train headed to Antibes, where we ended up in a lovely youth hostel (which is still there, I passed it) right on the sea where we sat out on the jetty and ate olives and drank red wine with some lovely South African guys also staying in the hostel who taught us how to say “blood orange” in Afrikaans. (Shockingly, 16 years later… I have forgotten the word. ☺)
ANYWAY, that was back then, and this is the now, people. So I was ready to give Nice a go for a second time. This time was also less than pleasant, for no reason other than the heat.
While it had been hot in Paris (95 at least three of the days we had been there) it was now hot and sea-induced humid. There are no elevators in the Nice train station, and while it was nice to be in the first car on the platform in Paris, that meant we were in the last car on the platform in Nice, where the two o’clock sun was beating down nice and strongly on us. Mom wanted to walk after sitting so long, so HKD pushed the empty chair with a bag in it and trailed one bag behind her while I pulled the biggest bag and carried all the carry-ons. This was lovely until we got to the steps. Three trips down the steps with all the luggage and a wheelchair, then three steps UP the steps on the other side, into a very swelteringly hot and not-so pleasant smelling station. I parked HKD and the bags into a corner and went to a) get water b) get a map, c) check out the taxi situation. I think I actually scared the lady in the newsstand with how much I was sweating… I think she thought I was having some sort of medical emergency and she sure didn’t want it happening in her newsstand, so I got very prompt service.
I noticed that it was a bit breezier in front of the station as compared to inside, so we dragged all of our very heavy and at the time quite burdensome American crap over to the front of the station and that is when, as I stood in the taxi line with my map trying to figure out where to tell the taxi guy where to go, a miracle occurred.
I must say, as far as good coincidences go, I tend to very rarely be in the right place at the right time, however, if I had to choose a time for one to happen, this would have been high on my list. Suddenly, as we all stood there sweating through our clothes in a fantastically American kind of way, someone called HKD’s name and she turned and said, with far less surprise than I would have expected:
“Hey, that’s my mom.”
Ah, those were such sweet words. And not only was it her Mom (who shall henceforth be known as Ruth) it was also her brother (a.k.a. Justin/JD) who is big and capable of lifting heavy things such as wheelchairs and luggage far more easily than the rest of us. And a car. A typically small European, but gloriously air conditioned car.
Oh, dear Lord, was I glad that we hadn’t gotten off in Cannes. And it turns out that Ruth and Justin had been waiting for us for twenty minutes at the wrong train station and had arrived just as we came out of the right station.
One would think, for sure, that this is the happy ending.
Well, kinda.
After leaving the train station, we got lost. Tragically, pathetically lost. The five of us, squeezed into a small sized French car, Ruth in the front, a bit rusty driving the standard on the tiny winding French road. It was pretty humorous. There was a lot of stalling and cursing and reversing of directions, going around rotaries four times in order to figure out which way to go, etc. We had directions, but they were in French, and, even though I could read them, they were BAD.
We managed to find the town and after driving around for a while there we fortuitously happened upon the tourism office. I jumped out and ran in, greeting them in French with : “We are absolutely, completely lost. Please help us.”
I showed them the address and at first they were stumped, but eventually pulled out a map and highlighted where to go. We actually managed to get there, but, alas, they had sent us to the wrong address – a condo where a few extra people attending the birthday extravaganza were going, not the actual villa. I sat and studied the map for a few minutes while the others discussed the fact that we had, while failing to locate the house, located the hospital – good to know with the faulty ball-and-socket joint on board.
I managed to find the correct address on the map and we made it there, put the code in the main gate (gated community, ooooh…) and went to the villa where we lived happily ever after.
Uh, no. Actually, we were locked out of the villa gate.
Turns out Lynda and Rod, in the other car, had gotten even MORE lost than we did, and weren’t there yet. They were the ones who were supposed to call the caretaker to let us in, but it turns out that they also had no phone service. So I called the caretaker, who really only spoke French, while JD, HKD, Ruth and Mom stood as flat as possible against the opposite villa wall in the 3 inches of shade to be found in mid-afternoon in the Cote d’Azur.
Lynda and Rod pulled up soon after and we all huddled in the shade discussing our various degrees of lost-ness. Finally, the caretaker arrived and let us in. She gave us the tour, which, unfortunately, only I understood, since she wanted to give it in French and she knew I spoke it since I had talked to her in French on the phone.
Finally we got rid of her and the vacation was allowed to begin. I immediately hopped in the pool and went to my happy place.
**Author’s Note: After I wrote the above, I stayed in that happy place for one week and between that and the fact that there was no wireless internet, did not blog. The rest of this shall remain as factual as possible based on my frighteningly bad for a thirtysomething year old memory.
Back to our story...
Ok, so at this point, there were seven of us accounted for, and three missing. Sara was supposed to be the first to arrive, via JFK at 8ish that a.m., but she had met with a series of tragic airport screw-overs and ended up flying out of Boston (through Heathrow, I think?) and was supposed to be in around 4:30. Lesley was coming in on Lufthansa around 5:00. Graham, who had booked on a flight that arrived at 11:30 pm, hoping to go standby on an earlier flight, had lost that gamble and wasn’t getting in until the originally planned time.
As JD and I chilled out in the pool, Lynda, Ruth and HKD took off around 5 to try to get Sara and Lesley at the airport, planning to hit the grocery store afterward.
They had been gone quite a while, and had called saying they couldn’t find anyone at the airport when suddenly the doorbell rang, and there was Sara at the door. She had taken a bus to Cannes and a cab to the house. 8 out of 10 ain't bad...
Darkness fell and we all waited impatiently on the front deck for the groceries (read: wine) to arrive. Finally the airport crew arrived back with zero new guests in tow. They hadn’t been able to track down Lesley and were cursing at her for not at least calling with the cell phone Ruth had given her to use.
Amusingly, Lesley showed up shortly after, at the gate, having taken the same bus/cab route from Nice to Cannes to the villa in Mougins. The cell phone hadn't worked, so she had actually been cursing right back about the phone as she was getting cursed at for not using it. The outer gate code changed between the time the cabbie dropped her off and left (for security, it changes at 9 pm) so the cabbie was back at our gate in a few minutes, unable to get out. I gave him the codes the caretaker had left and he was not seen again so I guess they worked.
So, missing only Graham, Lynda cooked a lovely meal of spaghetti and meatballs with bread and salad (Note: there were no tomatoes in the salad because, although she had read the blog, Ruth did not weigh them in the produce department before taking them to the register..heh, heh… I try to teach in my blog…if you aren't willing to learn... just kidding.)
Dinner and wine were consumed and we all headed off to bed (except Lynda and Rod, who headed off at 11 to fetch Graham at the airport and of course got lost again on the way home)
Sleep was good, on the French Riviera
(okay, when is sleep not good, actually, but it seemed like a good ending.)
I’ll try to give you the lowdown on week two asap. Thanks for your patience and indulgence.
MLW
dimanche 30 août 2009
mardi 25 août 2009
Bonjour mes amis!
So sorry about the lack of blog action the past few days. It has been a whirlwind of activity for the travelers over here on the other side of the Atlantic and I have been either too tired, too busy, or too lacking in internet connectivity to update ye olde blog.
But now, sitting under an olive tree by the pool overlooking the villa, I feel the time is right to update you all on my travels.
Now, let’s see, where were we last time? Ah, yes, I had just admitted Mom into the French medical system.
So, the doctors had said that they’d be releasing her sometime before noon the next day. HKD and I decided that we would get the bus early and check out the accessibility at the Eiffel Tower and the Bateaux Mouches (the boats that go up and down the Seine). Conveniently, it was all on the same bus line, so we hopped off at the Eiffel Tower and found out that it is indeed very wheelchair accessible. Then we walked a quarter of a mile or so down the river to check out the boats which were also completely accessible.
We hopped back on the bus and headed back out to the end of the line, the hospital.
Checkout went fairly smoothly until it came time to pay.
When we had checked in, the admissions person had told me that since they didn’t recognize her insurance (Fallon) she would be required to pay, but you could get a 60 day deferral which would give you time to work with your insurance company and get the reimbursement worked out. What he had neglected to tell me was that this was only an option if you were paying by check, which we were not, since none of us had checks with us.To make things even more complicated, I had taken mom’s stuff home with me the previous night and left it there, including her debit and credit cards.
Here’s where a big old round of applause goes out to Aunt Ruth, champion traveler, who had made mom make copies of her credit and debit cards, which she did indeed still have in her bag.
It still was not all that easy, as at first the card was declined because the amount was over the “daily limit” but after a call to Bank of America and the combined use of hers and My debit cards, we were finally free to go. We are all still wondering what would have happened if we hadn’t been able to work it out on our end. Live at ten: a Massachusetts woman is trapped inside the French health care system and can’t get out!
But, alas, we made it and Fallon Community Health plan is gonna have some reimbursing to do when we get back.
So, we sort of considered the hospital thing a “pardon the interruption” kind of thing, and got right back to our tourist invasion of Paris. We took the bus back to the Eiffel Tower (a bit less seamlessly, now that we had been reunited with the mighty albatross) and in a fantastic show of handicapped –person accommodation totally uncharacteristic of the French system in general, we got to cut the line for the elevator, which could easily have been a two to three hour wait. They sent me to a special line to get tickets and we got to go right in.
The Eiffel Tower is definitely a “wow, you look much taller in person” type of monument. Even having seen it before, I was like “Damn, that thing is big.” Handicapped access is only available up to the second level, which was pretty much okay with us because the top is just very, very high.
So we did what we were supposed to do, as good tourists: we went up, took the mandatory walk around and saw Paris from above in each direction, and oohed and aahed appropriately.
Then it was off to lunch. We walked over to the area where we would be getting the bateau mouche and found (of course) the closest outdoor café and partook of some food and adult beverages.
The bateaux mouches (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, watch the Bond movie “A View to a Kill”) are completely unabashedly a tourist trap, but mandatory for the reason that they give you a view of the city that you will not get anywhere else. We were not particularly smart in the fact that we went on them at the absolutely warmest part of the day, but it was enjoyable none the less.
There was quite the excitement up ahead of us just as we were about to dock, and commotion as it appeared that for some reason we were not being allowed to get off. I found a French speaker who appeared to have seen the whole thing go down and found out that apparently there is a law in France that you can’t take pictures of other people’s kids. Well, who knows what this kid had been doing, but apparently a tourist had thought it was cute and took a picture of it. Apparently the French person freaked out and was being unreasonable and it ended with the police being called and, for some reason, nobody being allowed off the boat. As certainly could have been predicted, sitting in the hot sun, the natives got restless and eventually somebody took things upon themselves and opened the gate, thus freeing the angry hordes of French and German tourists and, at the back of the pack, the three of us with the albatross.
The next part of the plan was to head down to the Louvre, where Hillary was determined to see the Mona Lisa. I was hoping to get to the Sainte-Chappelle before it closed – I think of all the churches I have seen in Europe (and I have seen a holy crapload of them), this one is the most beautiful.
We considered taking a bus to the Louvre, which was about 10 blocks down but it was flat and the sidewalk was not cobblestone, so we ended up walking/rolling. We arrived and again were allowed to cut the line courtesy of the albatross.
There was no way I was going in there.
Like I said, the last thing I need is to pay to enter a building to be reminded of 1) how unartistic I am; and 2) How much history there is in our world about which I know nothing. So I bid them adieu and busied myself with people watching sitting on the triangle eternity pools outside.
It’s an interesting mix of people who stand in line to view world renowned masterpieces, I’ll tell you that. And from the turn-around time on some of their visits, I’m pretty sure they coughed up six euros just to take a gander at Mona, snap the picture, and check it off the life list.
BTW, as opposed to the Eiffel Tower, the Mona Lisa looks smaller in real life.
Anyway, I sat and watched as small children of varying nationalities performed ritual torture on the highly intellectual pigeons of the Louvre. One particular three-ish year old of Nordic origin had it down to an art: throw the bread, and the second the bird puts it’s head down to pick it up, pounce and scream. He was cute.
But I didn’t take any pictures. I didn’t need the police getting involved.
After a while I moved over to the pyramid and watched as the elevator went up and down over and over again, finally coming up with HKD and Mom.
We rushed down the few blocks to the Sainte-Chappelle, but, alas, it was closed. I was sad, not so much that I didn’t get to see it again (though I would have liked to) but for the fact that they missed out on what I think is the most beautiful church in Paris.
We were getting a bit hungry and it was now almost eight so we stopped at a restaurant on the Boulevard St. Michel and had some tasty Italian food. By the time we finished with dinner, it was getting late so we headed back up the Boulevard to the Jardin and back to the apartment. Most of the night was spent packing and putting some sort of order into the apartment so I won’t be blacklisted and never allowed to return.
We had an early train to catch (8:47 – and in most places in Europe, if they say 8:47, they MEAN 8:47) so as soon as we finished packing our excessive amount of American crap, we hit the sack.
Okay, so I’m one day closer to being caught up.
Paris is (almost) a wrap.
I’ll try to do the travel day after dinner tonight.
MLW
So sorry about the lack of blog action the past few days. It has been a whirlwind of activity for the travelers over here on the other side of the Atlantic and I have been either too tired, too busy, or too lacking in internet connectivity to update ye olde blog.
But now, sitting under an olive tree by the pool overlooking the villa, I feel the time is right to update you all on my travels.
Now, let’s see, where were we last time? Ah, yes, I had just admitted Mom into the French medical system.
So, the doctors had said that they’d be releasing her sometime before noon the next day. HKD and I decided that we would get the bus early and check out the accessibility at the Eiffel Tower and the Bateaux Mouches (the boats that go up and down the Seine). Conveniently, it was all on the same bus line, so we hopped off at the Eiffel Tower and found out that it is indeed very wheelchair accessible. Then we walked a quarter of a mile or so down the river to check out the boats which were also completely accessible.
We hopped back on the bus and headed back out to the end of the line, the hospital.
Checkout went fairly smoothly until it came time to pay.
When we had checked in, the admissions person had told me that since they didn’t recognize her insurance (Fallon) she would be required to pay, but you could get a 60 day deferral which would give you time to work with your insurance company and get the reimbursement worked out. What he had neglected to tell me was that this was only an option if you were paying by check, which we were not, since none of us had checks with us.To make things even more complicated, I had taken mom’s stuff home with me the previous night and left it there, including her debit and credit cards.
Here’s where a big old round of applause goes out to Aunt Ruth, champion traveler, who had made mom make copies of her credit and debit cards, which she did indeed still have in her bag.
It still was not all that easy, as at first the card was declined because the amount was over the “daily limit” but after a call to Bank of America and the combined use of hers and My debit cards, we were finally free to go. We are all still wondering what would have happened if we hadn’t been able to work it out on our end. Live at ten: a Massachusetts woman is trapped inside the French health care system and can’t get out!
But, alas, we made it and Fallon Community Health plan is gonna have some reimbursing to do when we get back.
So, we sort of considered the hospital thing a “pardon the interruption” kind of thing, and got right back to our tourist invasion of Paris. We took the bus back to the Eiffel Tower (a bit less seamlessly, now that we had been reunited with the mighty albatross) and in a fantastic show of handicapped –person accommodation totally uncharacteristic of the French system in general, we got to cut the line for the elevator, which could easily have been a two to three hour wait. They sent me to a special line to get tickets and we got to go right in.
The Eiffel Tower is definitely a “wow, you look much taller in person” type of monument. Even having seen it before, I was like “Damn, that thing is big.” Handicapped access is only available up to the second level, which was pretty much okay with us because the top is just very, very high.
So we did what we were supposed to do, as good tourists: we went up, took the mandatory walk around and saw Paris from above in each direction, and oohed and aahed appropriately.
Then it was off to lunch. We walked over to the area where we would be getting the bateau mouche and found (of course) the closest outdoor café and partook of some food and adult beverages.
The bateaux mouches (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, watch the Bond movie “A View to a Kill”) are completely unabashedly a tourist trap, but mandatory for the reason that they give you a view of the city that you will not get anywhere else. We were not particularly smart in the fact that we went on them at the absolutely warmest part of the day, but it was enjoyable none the less.
There was quite the excitement up ahead of us just as we were about to dock, and commotion as it appeared that for some reason we were not being allowed to get off. I found a French speaker who appeared to have seen the whole thing go down and found out that apparently there is a law in France that you can’t take pictures of other people’s kids. Well, who knows what this kid had been doing, but apparently a tourist had thought it was cute and took a picture of it. Apparently the French person freaked out and was being unreasonable and it ended with the police being called and, for some reason, nobody being allowed off the boat. As certainly could have been predicted, sitting in the hot sun, the natives got restless and eventually somebody took things upon themselves and opened the gate, thus freeing the angry hordes of French and German tourists and, at the back of the pack, the three of us with the albatross.
The next part of the plan was to head down to the Louvre, where Hillary was determined to see the Mona Lisa. I was hoping to get to the Sainte-Chappelle before it closed – I think of all the churches I have seen in Europe (and I have seen a holy crapload of them), this one is the most beautiful.
We considered taking a bus to the Louvre, which was about 10 blocks down but it was flat and the sidewalk was not cobblestone, so we ended up walking/rolling. We arrived and again were allowed to cut the line courtesy of the albatross.
There was no way I was going in there.
Like I said, the last thing I need is to pay to enter a building to be reminded of 1) how unartistic I am; and 2) How much history there is in our world about which I know nothing. So I bid them adieu and busied myself with people watching sitting on the triangle eternity pools outside.
It’s an interesting mix of people who stand in line to view world renowned masterpieces, I’ll tell you that. And from the turn-around time on some of their visits, I’m pretty sure they coughed up six euros just to take a gander at Mona, snap the picture, and check it off the life list.
BTW, as opposed to the Eiffel Tower, the Mona Lisa looks smaller in real life.
Anyway, I sat and watched as small children of varying nationalities performed ritual torture on the highly intellectual pigeons of the Louvre. One particular three-ish year old of Nordic origin had it down to an art: throw the bread, and the second the bird puts it’s head down to pick it up, pounce and scream. He was cute.
But I didn’t take any pictures. I didn’t need the police getting involved.
After a while I moved over to the pyramid and watched as the elevator went up and down over and over again, finally coming up with HKD and Mom.
We rushed down the few blocks to the Sainte-Chappelle, but, alas, it was closed. I was sad, not so much that I didn’t get to see it again (though I would have liked to) but for the fact that they missed out on what I think is the most beautiful church in Paris.
We were getting a bit hungry and it was now almost eight so we stopped at a restaurant on the Boulevard St. Michel and had some tasty Italian food. By the time we finished with dinner, it was getting late so we headed back up the Boulevard to the Jardin and back to the apartment. Most of the night was spent packing and putting some sort of order into the apartment so I won’t be blacklisted and never allowed to return.
We had an early train to catch (8:47 – and in most places in Europe, if they say 8:47, they MEAN 8:47) so as soon as we finished packing our excessive amount of American crap, we hit the sack.
Okay, so I’m one day closer to being caught up.
Paris is (almost) a wrap.
I’ll try to do the travel day after dinner tonight.
MLW
jeudi 20 août 2009
A Bump in the Road?
Okay, so today could have gone better. On the other hand, it could have been worse. So, two paths diverged in a wood and I: I chose the "it could have been worse" path, and hopefully, that will make all the difference.
Fade in.... Michelle hears the garbage trucks and rolls over in the bed she is now sharing with the XX chromosomed parent, since Hillary has arrived. She looks at her watch. 6:30. She closes her eyes and tries to fall back asleep.
But Mom is restless in the bed next to her. Michelle remembers that when she went to bed last night, she laid down on something hard and unforgiving: Mom's cane. Michelle reaches down, holds up the cane and as Mom takes it she tries to go back to sleep again.
Mom fumbles around a bit more.
"What are you doing? It's not even seven." Michelle wants to be sleeping.
"I hate to tell you this, but my leg really is hurting."
Michelle ponders this, then finally asks:
"Hurting like aching? or hurting like out of place?"
"Like out of place."
Now Michelle has been pretty confident with the French this time around, however she is not thrilled at the prospect of calling a French ambulance and dealing with the associated chaos. When presented with this idea, Mom is not all too interested in it either so we decide to take a cab to the American Hospital.
alright, I am already sick of this third person point of view crap. Back to first. This is my blog, after all, I can change points of view whenever I want.
Okay, so mom sits calmly drinking her coffee with a dislocated hip while I try to call our recommended cab driver, Phillipe, to come get us. He had already been working on getting us a ride to the train station on Saturday morning, so he assumed that was what I was calling about until I apprised him of the new situation. (oh, hi, my mom's leg is busted, so can you drive us to the hospital? who can say no to that...) He said he could be here in a half an hour so we all scurried to get ready to go (me not so conveniently forgetting my phone after an epic search for Mom's previous hip xrays.) He called when he was ten minutes away and by the time we got the now exceptionally gimpy Momma to the curb he was just pulling up. She had to stand since the wheelchair does not fit in the ridiculously small elevator unless it is closed. I must remember at a later time to discuss French elevators.
Turns out Philippe our cab driver was a sweetheart. His English was excellent and he definitely didn't have a French accent which was explained later when he told us he'd lived in Sydney for 2 years. A native Parisian with an Aussie accent: priceless.
In any event, I had briefly considered wheeling la maman to the hospital... on the map it didn't look so far... turns out it was about 6 miles. Granted, after doing 60 miles a few short weeks ago, six doesn't seem like such a big deal, but it turned out the cab was a good choice.
*SHORT TIME OUT FOR A COMMENTARY ON SOCIALIZED MEDICINE*
There was no wait in the ER. She was seen immediately. She was examined immediately after triage by an actual doctor. She was immediately taken to Xray where we waited maybe ten minutes, she was immediately sent back to the ER and given pain meds. It did take a while for the orthopedist and anesthesiologist to arrive but they did, after 1/2 hour, tops, and within three hours of our arrival she was in the OR getting jammed back together. The patient care end of things with universal health care was seamless, fast, and efficient. They did ask for a sizeable "deposit" which they don't actually charge you, they just hold your card number and when you leave you can ask for 60 days in which to pay which is (hopefully) more than enough time for your insurance company to deal with the bills and cough up the dough. The health system was nothing if not accomodating.
The "relatives of the patient" side of things, however, left a bit to be desired. I was included in everything from the ER arrival up to them actually taking her away for the surgery - probably because I actually speak French, and many of the orderlies/transport people were a bit weak in the anglais...but once she was sent off to surgery, nobody could tell me and HKD where she was or what had become of her. Seriously, it was weird. This should have been called Charles de Gaulle Hospital, because, just like in his airport, there were no seats. There was no actual "waiting room" except for the ER waiting room where people waiting for the ER doctor wait to be seen.
So Hillary and I basically wandered around, for hours, since there was really nowhere to wait. There is no such ting as the doctor coming out and telling you the surgery is over and how things went - we never saw that guy again. At one point we got a room number and went to wait in the room. However, the bed was unmade and it had clearly not been prepared for a new patient. I went down to the nurses station and asked and they told me yes, it was the right room, but it wasn't cleaned yet and therefore we couldn't wait there, because it still needed to be "sanitized."
So we went back to the ER. They told us if we wanted information about Madame Weagle we should go to admitting. I visited my friend who had taken my "deposits" in admitting and he said she was out of surgery and was waiting for the room in the ER.
We went back to the ER and they said she was not there, she was in recovery. There was a recovery unit on the third floor: she was not there. So Hillary and I decided to just pace around the area surrounding room 322 until she appeared.
Who DID appear was the cleaning crew and they do NOT mess around with disinfecting hospital rooms in France. They scrubbed the ceiling, the floor, the furniture.... every inch of that place was spotless and germ-free. Hillary and I went to get a snack at the "tea room" (What the heck, this is supposed to be the American Hospital, not the British Hospital...) and when we got back the cleaning people finally finished up and I asked my new best friend at the nurses station (whose English was a good deal worse than my French) when she was coming and he said soon. Mind you, this whole time Mom had been without her glasses and thus, for all intents and purposes, blind, and could not really communicate with anyone around her. HKD and I had been waiting around for...oh... four hours since she'd been out of surgery and nobody had sought us out, despite the fact that, as mom said later, she repeatedly told the doctors and nurses to tell us to leave and go "do" Paris.
Finally she reappeared and she was fine - no pain.
She didn't want us waiting around anymore, so I cleared up a few things with my new French best friend (vegetarian meals, what is the phone number for the room, etc) and HKD and I left, taking the bus back past the Eiffel Tower. Tomorrow that is on the agenda... mom and the albatross on the bus to the tower. It was actually a little weird, not having the albatross... I felt like I was missing something.
We came back, made a few phone calls ...
"Uh, Dad,... hi, Mom's in the hospital... again..."
and then headed out. Our goal was to scope out a boat trip on the Seine that claims to be "handicapped accessible" but as I discovered, that train stop is on the same line as the Eiffel Tower one I tried that first day we attempted the metro: shut down. So instead I tried to find a bus line to take us there.
Major fail.
In the end we hopped on a bus and ate a a café at Place du Chatelet. We ordered cheeseburgers which, translated into English on the menu, were made of "hacked meat." This turned Hillary off, but I did point out that they were just being more honest than Americans when we say ground beef...
After dinner we walked along the Seine and caught the Metro back home. I called the Mom and she is happy... private quiet room with TV and gourmet French hospital dining.
All you blog readers out there, don't fear for Mrs. Susan J. Weagle. All is well and we fetch her tomorrow in the a.m.
I am exhausted... it is 11:30 here.
À demain, mes amis,
MLW
Fade in.... Michelle hears the garbage trucks and rolls over in the bed she is now sharing with the XX chromosomed parent, since Hillary has arrived. She looks at her watch. 6:30. She closes her eyes and tries to fall back asleep.
But Mom is restless in the bed next to her. Michelle remembers that when she went to bed last night, she laid down on something hard and unforgiving: Mom's cane. Michelle reaches down, holds up the cane and as Mom takes it she tries to go back to sleep again.
Mom fumbles around a bit more.
"What are you doing? It's not even seven." Michelle wants to be sleeping.
"I hate to tell you this, but my leg really is hurting."
Michelle ponders this, then finally asks:
"Hurting like aching? or hurting like out of place?"
"Like out of place."
Now Michelle has been pretty confident with the French this time around, however she is not thrilled at the prospect of calling a French ambulance and dealing with the associated chaos. When presented with this idea, Mom is not all too interested in it either so we decide to take a cab to the American Hospital.
alright, I am already sick of this third person point of view crap. Back to first. This is my blog, after all, I can change points of view whenever I want.
Okay, so mom sits calmly drinking her coffee with a dislocated hip while I try to call our recommended cab driver, Phillipe, to come get us. He had already been working on getting us a ride to the train station on Saturday morning, so he assumed that was what I was calling about until I apprised him of the new situation. (oh, hi, my mom's leg is busted, so can you drive us to the hospital? who can say no to that...) He said he could be here in a half an hour so we all scurried to get ready to go (me not so conveniently forgetting my phone after an epic search for Mom's previous hip xrays.) He called when he was ten minutes away and by the time we got the now exceptionally gimpy Momma to the curb he was just pulling up. She had to stand since the wheelchair does not fit in the ridiculously small elevator unless it is closed. I must remember at a later time to discuss French elevators.
Turns out Philippe our cab driver was a sweetheart. His English was excellent and he definitely didn't have a French accent which was explained later when he told us he'd lived in Sydney for 2 years. A native Parisian with an Aussie accent: priceless.
In any event, I had briefly considered wheeling la maman to the hospital... on the map it didn't look so far... turns out it was about 6 miles. Granted, after doing 60 miles a few short weeks ago, six doesn't seem like such a big deal, but it turned out the cab was a good choice.
*SHORT TIME OUT FOR A COMMENTARY ON SOCIALIZED MEDICINE*
There was no wait in the ER. She was seen immediately. She was examined immediately after triage by an actual doctor. She was immediately taken to Xray where we waited maybe ten minutes, she was immediately sent back to the ER and given pain meds. It did take a while for the orthopedist and anesthesiologist to arrive but they did, after 1/2 hour, tops, and within three hours of our arrival she was in the OR getting jammed back together. The patient care end of things with universal health care was seamless, fast, and efficient. They did ask for a sizeable "deposit" which they don't actually charge you, they just hold your card number and when you leave you can ask for 60 days in which to pay which is (hopefully) more than enough time for your insurance company to deal with the bills and cough up the dough. The health system was nothing if not accomodating.
The "relatives of the patient" side of things, however, left a bit to be desired. I was included in everything from the ER arrival up to them actually taking her away for the surgery - probably because I actually speak French, and many of the orderlies/transport people were a bit weak in the anglais...but once she was sent off to surgery, nobody could tell me and HKD where she was or what had become of her. Seriously, it was weird. This should have been called Charles de Gaulle Hospital, because, just like in his airport, there were no seats. There was no actual "waiting room" except for the ER waiting room where people waiting for the ER doctor wait to be seen.
So Hillary and I basically wandered around, for hours, since there was really nowhere to wait. There is no such ting as the doctor coming out and telling you the surgery is over and how things went - we never saw that guy again. At one point we got a room number and went to wait in the room. However, the bed was unmade and it had clearly not been prepared for a new patient. I went down to the nurses station and asked and they told me yes, it was the right room, but it wasn't cleaned yet and therefore we couldn't wait there, because it still needed to be "sanitized."
So we went back to the ER. They told us if we wanted information about Madame Weagle we should go to admitting. I visited my friend who had taken my "deposits" in admitting and he said she was out of surgery and was waiting for the room in the ER.
We went back to the ER and they said she was not there, she was in recovery. There was a recovery unit on the third floor: she was not there. So Hillary and I decided to just pace around the area surrounding room 322 until she appeared.
Who DID appear was the cleaning crew and they do NOT mess around with disinfecting hospital rooms in France. They scrubbed the ceiling, the floor, the furniture.... every inch of that place was spotless and germ-free. Hillary and I went to get a snack at the "tea room" (What the heck, this is supposed to be the American Hospital, not the British Hospital...) and when we got back the cleaning people finally finished up and I asked my new best friend at the nurses station (whose English was a good deal worse than my French) when she was coming and he said soon. Mind you, this whole time Mom had been without her glasses and thus, for all intents and purposes, blind, and could not really communicate with anyone around her. HKD and I had been waiting around for...oh... four hours since she'd been out of surgery and nobody had sought us out, despite the fact that, as mom said later, she repeatedly told the doctors and nurses to tell us to leave and go "do" Paris.
Finally she reappeared and she was fine - no pain.
She didn't want us waiting around anymore, so I cleared up a few things with my new French best friend (vegetarian meals, what is the phone number for the room, etc) and HKD and I left, taking the bus back past the Eiffel Tower. Tomorrow that is on the agenda... mom and the albatross on the bus to the tower. It was actually a little weird, not having the albatross... I felt like I was missing something.
We came back, made a few phone calls ...
"Uh, Dad,... hi, Mom's in the hospital... again..."
and then headed out. Our goal was to scope out a boat trip on the Seine that claims to be "handicapped accessible" but as I discovered, that train stop is on the same line as the Eiffel Tower one I tried that first day we attempted the metro: shut down. So instead I tried to find a bus line to take us there.
Major fail.
In the end we hopped on a bus and ate a a café at Place du Chatelet. We ordered cheeseburgers which, translated into English on the menu, were made of "hacked meat." This turned Hillary off, but I did point out that they were just being more honest than Americans when we say ground beef...
After dinner we walked along the Seine and caught the Metro back home. I called the Mom and she is happy... private quiet room with TV and gourmet French hospital dining.
All you blog readers out there, don't fear for Mrs. Susan J. Weagle. All is well and we fetch her tomorrow in the a.m.
I am exhausted... it is 11:30 here.
À demain, mes amis,
MLW
mercredi 19 août 2009
HKD arrives.
This was a much anticipated day, as my cousin Hillary (aka HKD) was arriving. I didn't sleep through the garbage collectors this a.m., but I fell back asleep after their ridiculous amount of noise and had a bit of trouble dragging my butt out of bed at 10. The duvet/comforter I am using here is- I swear - the most comfortable piece of bedding I have ever experienced in my life. If I could fit it in my bag I would steal it and forfeit the security deposit in a heartbeat, but alas, I have no more room in my bag and I already have enough "baggage" between that and my mom. (Haha sorry, Mom, couldn't help it.)
(And I must take a moment to send a shout-out to my Dad back home - today is my parents' 42nd wedding anniversary. Woot!)
Soooo, once I finally shed the comforter, I took a quick shower and gathered the necessary items for a trip on the RER (not the metro, really, more like a commuter train) to the airport named for our fine French friend, Monsieur Charles de Gaulle. The trip there was fairly uneventful, until I got there and tried to get OUT of the metro. On this train you need your metro card to get in AND out. The card let me in just fine, but when I got to the airport, I could not get out. I inserted the ticket and got a "sorry, thanks for playing" kind of noise. Amusingly, there was a German guy near me having exactly the same problem. We just kept putting the tickets in and getting the "reject" noise. Then we saw a girl push a button to go through a door on the side. So he pushed the button and we both jumped inside the door... only to find that you still had to put your ticket through to get out the other side, and the door behind us had locked also. So both of us got trapped inside until a kind woman pushed the button to open the door we had gone into. I jumped out and rode the tailwind of somebody with a working ticket to get inside.
I saved dealing with the malfunctioning metro pass problem for later, as I was on a quest: MUST.RETRIEVE.COUSIN. I headed for customs exit door, looked at the arrivals board, and saw that her plane was due to arrive in ... 1 1/2 hours.
Normally this would not have been a problem, but apparently Charles de Gaulle did not like to sit down, and in his memory they decided not to install any seats in his airport.
Now, those who know me know I am not a good sitter anyway, but man, I paced the crap out of that airport, to the point where the French military (who would be cute in their berets if it weren't for the fact that they are packing fully loaded AK-47s) were eying me suspiciously. I bought some stamps, and a book, but mostly I just paced. It was slightly gratifying that several times other people waiting spoke to me in French though - I guess I wasn't too obviously foreign.
Waiting outside customs is interesting, because there is a great sense of anticipation in the air. The doors are closed until somebody on the other side trips them and, in a strangely Pavlovian response, everyone waiting looks up to see if they are the lucky winner and it is the person they are waiting for. If it is, there is a cry of victory and the requisite hugs and kisses, and everybody else is slightly disappointed, as though, in a small way, they have lost. I missed my moment of triumph, however, as I was watching some interesting interactions between passengers just off the El Al flight that came in just before the BA flight Hillary was on. I heard my name, turned, and there she was, HKD, live and in person. I never got my moment of celebration, where I could have triumphed over all the other people waiting.
Eh, life is full of small victories.
I had considered just buying us tickets to get back to Paris and ignoring the passes and figuring out the problem later, but once I saw that it was gonna cost us twenty bucks I decided the pass issue had to be remedied, fast. I somehow miraculously handled the entire transaction in French and it turns out the problems I've been having with the passes were a result of the magnetic clasp on the bag I've been using. I was demagnetizing the passes over and over again.
Shout out to Aunt Lynda, who sewed us all very cool bags to use on this trip: I should have transferred all of my crap to your (non-magnetic) bag sooner; I would have avoided major metro-pass issues. HKD and mom are loving your bags and I will be switching to it tomorrow.
Anyway, the problem was solved and HKD and I made our way to the INSANELY hot train. Paris will lie and tell you their trains are air-conditioned... um, no. lies.
By the time we got back into the city proper we were both sweating like only those of Bylund/Campbell/Doyle/Weagle stock are capable. We cut through the Jardin de Luxembourg but Hillary was unable to appreciate it much (nor was I though I channeled my past appreciation for it) since she was sweating out approximately .5 liters per minute. (I'm in France, so lets do metric, okay?)
By the time we got back to the apartment we were both drenched. I sat in front of the fan for an hour while she showered. The temps have been reasonable until between about 2-5 p.m. when it gets super -hot... the thermostat on a pharmcy we walked by said 35 C which is (ugh) 95 F.
But Hillary is only here for three (really, two) days so we are on a mission to see as much of Paris as possible. We headed out early for dinner, because on my way to the pick up this a.m. I had seen some orchards in the Jardin de Luxembourg that I wanted to show Mom. So we headed off that way, the plan was to go around the gardens 'til we ended up back at our street where there was a café we hadn't yet tried.
Well, plans change. I realized that at the corner of the garden it was only a short walk to the Pantheon (see my FB photos) so we headed up there to knock a monument off the tourist list. Problem: it was UP there and in the 95 degree heat, pushing UP wasn't so fun. Hillary is totally willing to be a wheelchair pusher but in many ways is hesitant about it because, as I mentioned previously, there are very many opportunities to dump my fair mother over. The sidewalks are uneven, many are cobblestone, and it gets hairy at times. She has been observing my expertise, though, and I suspect by tomorrow evening she will be up to snuff. As for me, I have bruises all over my body from pushing and carrying the wheelchair, which I am thinking should henceforth be referred to as "the albatross."
So, after the Pantheon it was still to early to eat dinner so we decided to head down to Notre Dame, since with HKD in our midst we had a real live Catholic on board. A quick stop at Starbucks for iced coffees and a bit of chair-pushing later and there we were, this time actually going in. These old churches are so... dark. and big. and how-the-heck-did-they-build-them-without-modern-machinery-ish.
Seriously. How do you build these things? It's a good thing I wasn't responsible for it, because Notre Dame would just be a giant pile of rubble on the ground if I had been. With maybe a sad gargoyle or two lying around.
Kudos to long-ago engineers.
So after we'd had our fill of religion we headed back up Boul Mich (stopping briefly to watch a heavily-muscled, half-naked street dancer) to the café I had picked.
I think I might have actually fooled the waitress into thinking I was French, because what I had to ask (about putting the wheelchair behind us) was pretty well done. She gave us all French menus. I say this because when it was time for the dessert menus we got two English ones and one French. I was the only one who spoke any French so that one, I assume, was for me.
Go me.
I would have to say dinner was fairly uneventful. We did what you do in Paris - sat and stared out at people going by, taking in the ambiance of the city. Café culture: it's good. We need more of it in the US. Mom and HKD got dessert and I opted for a coffee which is probably why I am wide awake typing this while everybody else is in bed.
I wish I could think of more to say, but... I can't.
So that shall be all for tonight. Tomorrow is gonna be a HUGE day. HKD and Michelle do Paris with Mom and the albatross. Stay tuned.
I apologize for not putting pictures into thei blog... if you aren't on facebook and therefore can't see them let me know and I'll send them to you. Eventually they will be on here.
MLW
(And I must take a moment to send a shout-out to my Dad back home - today is my parents' 42nd wedding anniversary. Woot!)
Soooo, once I finally shed the comforter, I took a quick shower and gathered the necessary items for a trip on the RER (not the metro, really, more like a commuter train) to the airport named for our fine French friend, Monsieur Charles de Gaulle. The trip there was fairly uneventful, until I got there and tried to get OUT of the metro. On this train you need your metro card to get in AND out. The card let me in just fine, but when I got to the airport, I could not get out. I inserted the ticket and got a "sorry, thanks for playing" kind of noise. Amusingly, there was a German guy near me having exactly the same problem. We just kept putting the tickets in and getting the "reject" noise. Then we saw a girl push a button to go through a door on the side. So he pushed the button and we both jumped inside the door... only to find that you still had to put your ticket through to get out the other side, and the door behind us had locked also. So both of us got trapped inside until a kind woman pushed the button to open the door we had gone into. I jumped out and rode the tailwind of somebody with a working ticket to get inside.
I saved dealing with the malfunctioning metro pass problem for later, as I was on a quest: MUST.RETRIEVE.COUSIN. I headed for customs exit door, looked at the arrivals board, and saw that her plane was due to arrive in ... 1 1/2 hours.
Normally this would not have been a problem, but apparently Charles de Gaulle did not like to sit down, and in his memory they decided not to install any seats in his airport.
Now, those who know me know I am not a good sitter anyway, but man, I paced the crap out of that airport, to the point where the French military (who would be cute in their berets if it weren't for the fact that they are packing fully loaded AK-47s) were eying me suspiciously. I bought some stamps, and a book, but mostly I just paced. It was slightly gratifying that several times other people waiting spoke to me in French though - I guess I wasn't too obviously foreign.
Waiting outside customs is interesting, because there is a great sense of anticipation in the air. The doors are closed until somebody on the other side trips them and, in a strangely Pavlovian response, everyone waiting looks up to see if they are the lucky winner and it is the person they are waiting for. If it is, there is a cry of victory and the requisite hugs and kisses, and everybody else is slightly disappointed, as though, in a small way, they have lost. I missed my moment of triumph, however, as I was watching some interesting interactions between passengers just off the El Al flight that came in just before the BA flight Hillary was on. I heard my name, turned, and there she was, HKD, live and in person. I never got my moment of celebration, where I could have triumphed over all the other people waiting.
Eh, life is full of small victories.
I had considered just buying us tickets to get back to Paris and ignoring the passes and figuring out the problem later, but once I saw that it was gonna cost us twenty bucks I decided the pass issue had to be remedied, fast. I somehow miraculously handled the entire transaction in French and it turns out the problems I've been having with the passes were a result of the magnetic clasp on the bag I've been using. I was demagnetizing the passes over and over again.
Shout out to Aunt Lynda, who sewed us all very cool bags to use on this trip: I should have transferred all of my crap to your (non-magnetic) bag sooner; I would have avoided major metro-pass issues. HKD and mom are loving your bags and I will be switching to it tomorrow.
Anyway, the problem was solved and HKD and I made our way to the INSANELY hot train. Paris will lie and tell you their trains are air-conditioned... um, no. lies.
By the time we got back into the city proper we were both sweating like only those of Bylund/Campbell/Doyle/Weagle stock are capable. We cut through the Jardin de Luxembourg but Hillary was unable to appreciate it much (nor was I though I channeled my past appreciation for it) since she was sweating out approximately .5 liters per minute. (I'm in France, so lets do metric, okay?)
By the time we got back to the apartment we were both drenched. I sat in front of the fan for an hour while she showered. The temps have been reasonable until between about 2-5 p.m. when it gets super -hot... the thermostat on a pharmcy we walked by said 35 C which is (ugh) 95 F.
But Hillary is only here for three (really, two) days so we are on a mission to see as much of Paris as possible. We headed out early for dinner, because on my way to the pick up this a.m. I had seen some orchards in the Jardin de Luxembourg that I wanted to show Mom. So we headed off that way, the plan was to go around the gardens 'til we ended up back at our street where there was a café we hadn't yet tried.
Well, plans change. I realized that at the corner of the garden it was only a short walk to the Pantheon (see my FB photos) so we headed up there to knock a monument off the tourist list. Problem: it was UP there and in the 95 degree heat, pushing UP wasn't so fun. Hillary is totally willing to be a wheelchair pusher but in many ways is hesitant about it because, as I mentioned previously, there are very many opportunities to dump my fair mother over. The sidewalks are uneven, many are cobblestone, and it gets hairy at times. She has been observing my expertise, though, and I suspect by tomorrow evening she will be up to snuff. As for me, I have bruises all over my body from pushing and carrying the wheelchair, which I am thinking should henceforth be referred to as "the albatross."
So, after the Pantheon it was still to early to eat dinner so we decided to head down to Notre Dame, since with HKD in our midst we had a real live Catholic on board. A quick stop at Starbucks for iced coffees and a bit of chair-pushing later and there we were, this time actually going in. These old churches are so... dark. and big. and how-the-heck-did-they-build-them-without-modern-machinery-ish.
Seriously. How do you build these things? It's a good thing I wasn't responsible for it, because Notre Dame would just be a giant pile of rubble on the ground if I had been. With maybe a sad gargoyle or two lying around.
Kudos to long-ago engineers.
So after we'd had our fill of religion we headed back up Boul Mich (stopping briefly to watch a heavily-muscled, half-naked street dancer) to the café I had picked.
I think I might have actually fooled the waitress into thinking I was French, because what I had to ask (about putting the wheelchair behind us) was pretty well done. She gave us all French menus. I say this because when it was time for the dessert menus we got two English ones and one French. I was the only one who spoke any French so that one, I assume, was for me.
Go me.
I would have to say dinner was fairly uneventful. We did what you do in Paris - sat and stared out at people going by, taking in the ambiance of the city. Café culture: it's good. We need more of it in the US. Mom and HKD got dessert and I opted for a coffee which is probably why I am wide awake typing this while everybody else is in bed.
I wish I could think of more to say, but... I can't.
So that shall be all for tonight. Tomorrow is gonna be a HUGE day. HKD and Michelle do Paris with Mom and the albatross. Stay tuned.
I apologize for not putting pictures into thei blog... if you aren't on facebook and therefore can't see them let me know and I'll send them to you. Eventually they will be on here.
MLW
mardi 18 août 2009
So this morning it was me that was dead to the world. I actually slept through the trash pickup, which is fairly epic. In Paris they pick up trash every day, usually before 9 a.m. The French are pretty good recyclers and (of course) drink lots of wine, so imagine the trash/recycling truck coming by at 7:30 a.m. throwing an entire neighborhood’s used wine bottles into the truck… one building at a time. It is LOUD. Louder than loud. And today I actually slept through it, and woke up around ten. I think I am done with the jetlag though.
So, my goal for today was to attempt the metro. I LOVED the metro and completely depended on it when I lived here, so I had bought passes a while ago so we could use it, thinking mom would be up and walking, not still in a chair most of the time. I will say this: if you are going to have your hip replaced, don’t do it in Paris. Seriously, for a major city, it is very rare to see anyone disabled, and I strongly suspect because unless you have somebody like me who is willing to push you around, the city is not very accessible. In weird ways.
Let me explain. In some ways, the city has completely shocked and awed me. Things you never think about until you need them have suddenly become obvious. Pushing Mom around the sidewalks, I have been shocked by the fact that EVERY sidewalk has a “curb cut” at the crosswalk (the sidewalk makes a sort of ramp so you don’t have to jump the curb.) This has been a total lifesaver. Most of the time it has been easy rolling, but every once in a while the lip is just a little too high and I have to turn the chair around and pull her up backwards. All in all, if you have an electric chair or a willing pusher, the city is very doable via sidewalks.
But… the metro…NOT SO MUCH.
I put it off for so long because, though I never had to worry about accessibility when I lived here, I was pretty sure I had never seen any elevators or things like that.
I was right.
There are, for the most part, not a whole lot of accessible metro stations. What does that mean, you ask…
Well, let me tell you. It means that Michelle got to carry the 35 lb. wheelchair for much of the day today while gimpy momma made her way down stairs with the cane and railing. She also had to walk in and out of the trains as there is about a 10 inch gap between the platform and train that a wheelchair could never cross. It was not very fun. It became even less fun when I realized that the train I wanted to get on (to the Eiffel Tower, which is the only “major” tourist attraction Mom hadn’t seen yet) was out of service. This necessitated a major change of plans and two more train connections, me hauling the chair over my shoulder the whole way. To make things even more fun, my metro pass seemed to be defective and didn’t want to let me into the station at several points. I had to have several conversations with metro workers about my defective pass.
But, we made it, eventually emerging from the depths of Paris at Charles de Gaulle/Etoile station with the help of a very nice young Frenchman who looked after Mom while I hauled the chair. This station brings you out to the Arc de Triomphe, so while yours truly regained her breath and ability to move her right arm, mom chilled out and checked out the monument.
After I recovered, we began our long trek down the Champs-Elysees. Halfway down we had to (of course) stop at a café for lunch and wine. Our waiter here was hilarious (as most are, in the touristy areas… they save the snooty ones for the outskirts) and we had a delicious lunch watching the world go by. This was the first day that I have seen more than one disabled person. We saw about three other wheelchairs today. This amazes me; it seems at home that wheelchair bound/deaf/blind/mentally disabled people are far more prevalent among the rest of us.
Anyway, we walked all the way down to the other end of the Champs-Elysees, Place de la Concorde, home of the giant Egyptian obelisk, and headed on into the Jardins des Tuileries, the far end of which had been our turning point yesterday. We had seen a giant ferris wheel yesterday, and I decided that was our goal. So we pressed on, eventually finding it at the far end of the garden from where we had started.
There was no question once we saw it; this was going to happen.
So we ditched the chair, paid our Euros and stood in line. Check it out here:
http://blog.photos-libres.fr/wp-content/uploads/photos/LagranderouedeParis_FC3B/LagranderouedeParis3001.jpg
keep in mind, the building behind it is about 6 stories high.
I have to admit, as we started to ascend, I had a brief moment of panic in which I was wondering if I might possibly have a panic attack and scream and cry and beg the attendant to stop and let me off; as it turns out, I was fine. In fact, I kinda want to go again to get better pictures. It was an amazing view of the city.
The Tuileries are nice, but both Mom and I agreed that we like the Jardin de Luxembourg better. There’s just something about it… chess tables, tennis courts, it somehow manages to be beautiful and elegant yet laid-back at the same time.
After that, the afternoon heat was setting in, so I made (again) the executive decision to head back to the apartment. It has been so great to have our own space instead of a hotel. We can leave a mess and not have to worry about it- there’s no housekeeping service to wake us up… It was definitely the right choice to rent the apartment.
We took the metro back and it went quite well. I think I have the wheelchair-hauling down to an art now and after two weeks of it, I will probably look like Schwarzenegger. My arms anyway. ☺ The only problem was my poor sense of direction in momentarily wheeling us in the wrong direction after we got off the train. I have a great sense of direction when walking or driving in the US… put me on a plane and dump me somewhere and I have no idea which way is up.
So we made it back in time for some R & R before dinner. We showered, checked email, napped. I decided on a cute place just down the street for dinner and it turned out to be the penultimate French café/restaurant. Mom had salmon and I had tuna and guess what we had to drink?
Apple juice!
Um, no. Wine. Delicious French wine.
During dinner a man walked down the street outside our window leading a pack of 9 horses. We assumed they were the horses you can ride in the Jardin de Luxembourg, going home. It was a very “only in Paris” kind of moment.
So now I am here blogging, watching “The Bachelor” in French and hoping to sleep soon. My cousin Hillary comes tomorrow for some much-anticipated wheelchair pushing relief. And we’re gonna do fun stuff! Called my sis and Dad tonight – all is well with my pets and my mom’s.
On that note, I am going to go back and try to add some photos to this blog.
MLW
P.S. I forgot to mention – Mom has smashed two more wine glasses in the apartment. Susan in paris smashed glass total is up to 3. The security deposit was $450 so I guess she has clearance to bust a few more.
P.P.S. Sorry that the options and stuff for this blog are in French... there is a way to change languages, somewhere! But if you click on what is under this post, something like "enregistrer un commentaire" that is to leave a comment. Please feel free to comment.
So, my goal for today was to attempt the metro. I LOVED the metro and completely depended on it when I lived here, so I had bought passes a while ago so we could use it, thinking mom would be up and walking, not still in a chair most of the time. I will say this: if you are going to have your hip replaced, don’t do it in Paris. Seriously, for a major city, it is very rare to see anyone disabled, and I strongly suspect because unless you have somebody like me who is willing to push you around, the city is not very accessible. In weird ways.
Let me explain. In some ways, the city has completely shocked and awed me. Things you never think about until you need them have suddenly become obvious. Pushing Mom around the sidewalks, I have been shocked by the fact that EVERY sidewalk has a “curb cut” at the crosswalk (the sidewalk makes a sort of ramp so you don’t have to jump the curb.) This has been a total lifesaver. Most of the time it has been easy rolling, but every once in a while the lip is just a little too high and I have to turn the chair around and pull her up backwards. All in all, if you have an electric chair or a willing pusher, the city is very doable via sidewalks.
But… the metro…NOT SO MUCH.
I put it off for so long because, though I never had to worry about accessibility when I lived here, I was pretty sure I had never seen any elevators or things like that.
I was right.
There are, for the most part, not a whole lot of accessible metro stations. What does that mean, you ask…
Well, let me tell you. It means that Michelle got to carry the 35 lb. wheelchair for much of the day today while gimpy momma made her way down stairs with the cane and railing. She also had to walk in and out of the trains as there is about a 10 inch gap between the platform and train that a wheelchair could never cross. It was not very fun. It became even less fun when I realized that the train I wanted to get on (to the Eiffel Tower, which is the only “major” tourist attraction Mom hadn’t seen yet) was out of service. This necessitated a major change of plans and two more train connections, me hauling the chair over my shoulder the whole way. To make things even more fun, my metro pass seemed to be defective and didn’t want to let me into the station at several points. I had to have several conversations with metro workers about my defective pass.
But, we made it, eventually emerging from the depths of Paris at Charles de Gaulle/Etoile station with the help of a very nice young Frenchman who looked after Mom while I hauled the chair. This station brings you out to the Arc de Triomphe, so while yours truly regained her breath and ability to move her right arm, mom chilled out and checked out the monument.
After I recovered, we began our long trek down the Champs-Elysees. Halfway down we had to (of course) stop at a café for lunch and wine. Our waiter here was hilarious (as most are, in the touristy areas… they save the snooty ones for the outskirts) and we had a delicious lunch watching the world go by. This was the first day that I have seen more than one disabled person. We saw about three other wheelchairs today. This amazes me; it seems at home that wheelchair bound/deaf/blind/mentally disabled people are far more prevalent among the rest of us.
Anyway, we walked all the way down to the other end of the Champs-Elysees, Place de la Concorde, home of the giant Egyptian obelisk, and headed on into the Jardins des Tuileries, the far end of which had been our turning point yesterday. We had seen a giant ferris wheel yesterday, and I decided that was our goal. So we pressed on, eventually finding it at the far end of the garden from where we had started.
There was no question once we saw it; this was going to happen.
So we ditched the chair, paid our Euros and stood in line. Check it out here:
http://blog.photos-libres.fr/wp-content/uploads/photos/LagranderouedeParis_FC3B/LagranderouedeParis3001.jpg
keep in mind, the building behind it is about 6 stories high.
I have to admit, as we started to ascend, I had a brief moment of panic in which I was wondering if I might possibly have a panic attack and scream and cry and beg the attendant to stop and let me off; as it turns out, I was fine. In fact, I kinda want to go again to get better pictures. It was an amazing view of the city.
The Tuileries are nice, but both Mom and I agreed that we like the Jardin de Luxembourg better. There’s just something about it… chess tables, tennis courts, it somehow manages to be beautiful and elegant yet laid-back at the same time.
After that, the afternoon heat was setting in, so I made (again) the executive decision to head back to the apartment. It has been so great to have our own space instead of a hotel. We can leave a mess and not have to worry about it- there’s no housekeeping service to wake us up… It was definitely the right choice to rent the apartment.
We took the metro back and it went quite well. I think I have the wheelchair-hauling down to an art now and after two weeks of it, I will probably look like Schwarzenegger. My arms anyway. ☺ The only problem was my poor sense of direction in momentarily wheeling us in the wrong direction after we got off the train. I have a great sense of direction when walking or driving in the US… put me on a plane and dump me somewhere and I have no idea which way is up.
So we made it back in time for some R & R before dinner. We showered, checked email, napped. I decided on a cute place just down the street for dinner and it turned out to be the penultimate French café/restaurant. Mom had salmon and I had tuna and guess what we had to drink?
Apple juice!
Um, no. Wine. Delicious French wine.
During dinner a man walked down the street outside our window leading a pack of 9 horses. We assumed they were the horses you can ride in the Jardin de Luxembourg, going home. It was a very “only in Paris” kind of moment.
So now I am here blogging, watching “The Bachelor” in French and hoping to sleep soon. My cousin Hillary comes tomorrow for some much-anticipated wheelchair pushing relief. And we’re gonna do fun stuff! Called my sis and Dad tonight – all is well with my pets and my mom’s.
On that note, I am going to go back and try to add some photos to this blog.
MLW
P.S. I forgot to mention – Mom has smashed two more wine glasses in the apartment. Susan in paris smashed glass total is up to 3. The security deposit was $450 so I guess she has clearance to bust a few more.
P.P.S. Sorry that the options and stuff for this blog are in French... there is a way to change languages, somewhere! But if you click on what is under this post, something like "enregistrer un commentaire" that is to leave a comment. Please feel free to comment.
So Mom did get up... eventually. That was around 10, and by then I had already hit the bakery for bread, brewed the coffee, showered, and paced back and forth in the hallway approximately 1000 times.
We managed to head out around noon, and I had a walking tour to beat the band in mind. We headed up past the Jardin de Luxembourg, but instead of indulging ourselves in the nature, we took a hard left and headed down Boulevard St. Michel, one of my old haunts when I lived here... "Boul Mich" as it is called is the Latin Quartier, the students' area, around the Sorbonne.
We walked past the Sorbonne and crossed onto the Ile de La Cite to take a gander at Notre Dame. I submitted a short prayer hoping that I would not unintentionally dump over my mom in the wheelchair. Probably sounds heartless, but, as I said before, pushing in a wheelchair in good old gay Paris is tricky, since so many of the sidewalks are cobblestone and the gardens are... dirt. But its my Mom, and I don't want her to miss out, so I push on.
We crossed over from the Ile de la Cite and I insisted we stop at the first cafe... I needed a break from wheelchair pushing. And wine. We had a fantastic lunch: salmon and basil salad over penne pasta for Mom, a ham and cheese sandwich for me. Things were going well until Mom, taking her last sip of wine, channeled her American self, smashed down her glass and broke it. Many of you readers may find this typical; my mom tends to be a bit hard on things. Our family is a big fan of the 8 for $10 wine glasses at Bed Bath & Beyond.
Anyhoo...
From there it was a bit of an adventure. I wanted to take her to see the Hotel de Ville (City Hall) home of the famous Robert Doisneau poster where a soldier kisses his lady after V-E day... and I also hoped to hit le Centre Pompidou with its insane fountain sculptures, yet the fates worked against me and, with no map (I forgot it on the kitchen table... oops...), we ended up just wandering around Chatelet/Les Halles area.I failed and we headed back toward the river.
We passed the Louvre. The insane, giant, why-are-you-so-big? Louvre. I went there when I lived in Paris, because I felt I should; I left feeling dumber than I ever had. Never, ever enter the Louvre unless you are an art history scholar seeking something in particular. We walked into the courtyard but did not venture in.
We had our first encounter with a pickpocket/scammer. Lady planted a "gold" ring on the sidewalk then pretended to "find" it while we were wheeling by. She asked us if it was gold and I said I didn't know, but of course it was too big for her so she gave it to me and I was like yeah, okay, whatever. THen I said, that's weird, usually a pickpocket comes a lot closer. But then of course she came running back after me begging for money since she's just given me the gold ring. I told her "Nice try" and gave her back her "gold" ring.
I was hot, then. The sun beating down on you whilst you are pushing your momma around the city gets hot. So we took a left at the Jardins des Tuilerires, crossed over the river and headed for the Musee d'Orsay. Most museums are closed on Tuesdays... not the Musee d'Orsay... that one is closed on Monday...
Bad luck.
I'd had about enough of pushing the chair so I made the executive decision to just go home which was very rewarding as after a good half hour of more pushing, my Mom asked "Do you know where we are?" just as I turned a corner.
"Do you?" I asked her.
"No," she said.
"Do you now?" I asked as I turned her chair around to see our front door. I surprised her. We were home.
But anyway... we hung around in the apartment for awhile... I went to get some groceries and made a classic "dumb tourist" mistake... I forgot that in France you get your produce weighed by a guy in the produce dept, they don't weigh it at the register. So of course I was at the front of a huge line and the lady was like "Um, stupid (okay, she didn't say stupid, but it was clearly implied) you need to go have these tomatoes weighed."
Cut to me, sprinting to the opposite end of the store and back in front of legions of French people.
It was awesome.
We went out for dinner and not so much happened there although my mom did let me drink most of the wine since she was walking home, which we found amusing.
Okay, well, I'm a day late posting this and I apologize but I fell asleep while typing it last night!
We managed to head out around noon, and I had a walking tour to beat the band in mind. We headed up past the Jardin de Luxembourg, but instead of indulging ourselves in the nature, we took a hard left and headed down Boulevard St. Michel, one of my old haunts when I lived here... "Boul Mich" as it is called is the Latin Quartier, the students' area, around the Sorbonne.
We walked past the Sorbonne and crossed onto the Ile de La Cite to take a gander at Notre Dame. I submitted a short prayer hoping that I would not unintentionally dump over my mom in the wheelchair. Probably sounds heartless, but, as I said before, pushing in a wheelchair in good old gay Paris is tricky, since so many of the sidewalks are cobblestone and the gardens are... dirt. But its my Mom, and I don't want her to miss out, so I push on.
We crossed over from the Ile de la Cite and I insisted we stop at the first cafe... I needed a break from wheelchair pushing. And wine. We had a fantastic lunch: salmon and basil salad over penne pasta for Mom, a ham and cheese sandwich for me. Things were going well until Mom, taking her last sip of wine, channeled her American self, smashed down her glass and broke it. Many of you readers may find this typical; my mom tends to be a bit hard on things. Our family is a big fan of the 8 for $10 wine glasses at Bed Bath & Beyond.
Anyhoo...
From there it was a bit of an adventure. I wanted to take her to see the Hotel de Ville (City Hall) home of the famous Robert Doisneau poster where a soldier kisses his lady after V-E day... and I also hoped to hit le Centre Pompidou with its insane fountain sculptures, yet the fates worked against me and, with no map (I forgot it on the kitchen table... oops...), we ended up just wandering around Chatelet/Les Halles area.I failed and we headed back toward the river.
We passed the Louvre. The insane, giant, why-are-you-so-big? Louvre. I went there when I lived in Paris, because I felt I should; I left feeling dumber than I ever had. Never, ever enter the Louvre unless you are an art history scholar seeking something in particular. We walked into the courtyard but did not venture in.
We had our first encounter with a pickpocket/scammer. Lady planted a "gold" ring on the sidewalk then pretended to "find" it while we were wheeling by. She asked us if it was gold and I said I didn't know, but of course it was too big for her so she gave it to me and I was like yeah, okay, whatever. THen I said, that's weird, usually a pickpocket comes a lot closer. But then of course she came running back after me begging for money since she's just given me the gold ring. I told her "Nice try" and gave her back her "gold" ring.
I was hot, then. The sun beating down on you whilst you are pushing your momma around the city gets hot. So we took a left at the Jardins des Tuilerires, crossed over the river and headed for the Musee d'Orsay. Most museums are closed on Tuesdays... not the Musee d'Orsay... that one is closed on Monday...
Bad luck.
I'd had about enough of pushing the chair so I made the executive decision to just go home which was very rewarding as after a good half hour of more pushing, my Mom asked "Do you know where we are?" just as I turned a corner.
"Do you?" I asked her.
"No," she said.
"Do you now?" I asked as I turned her chair around to see our front door. I surprised her. We were home.
But anyway... we hung around in the apartment for awhile... I went to get some groceries and made a classic "dumb tourist" mistake... I forgot that in France you get your produce weighed by a guy in the produce dept, they don't weigh it at the register. So of course I was at the front of a huge line and the lady was like "Um, stupid (okay, she didn't say stupid, but it was clearly implied) you need to go have these tomatoes weighed."
Cut to me, sprinting to the opposite end of the store and back in front of legions of French people.
It was awesome.
We went out for dinner and not so much happened there although my mom did let me drink most of the wine since she was walking home, which we found amusing.
Okay, well, I'm a day late posting this and I apologize but I fell asleep while typing it last night!
lundi 17 août 2009
Morning #2
Jetlag has hit mom, hard. It is 9:45 and she is still in bed and I've decided she gets 15 more minutes then the whip cracks. Hey, we've got a whole city to see. So I'm taking a few moments to muse on a few things.
First of all, it's been sixteen years since I was last in Paris. I was 20, a college junior, and I thought I handled the six months I lived here pretty well. For all intents and purposes, I was pretty much fluent by the time I left.
Here's the funny thing: I was way too hesitant with the language back then. My grammar was excellent, my accent more than passable, my vocabulary was huge... but I hardly ever spoke to strangers or initiated a conversation. I would never ask questions about something on a menu, or stop to ask someone the time. I was to worried about screwing up or being judged or being - as we Americans do tend to be over here - disliked.
Now, I don't care. It's funny, I will speak the most mistake-ridden French - and I'm sure it is, because I sure don't speak a whole heck of a lot of it back in the WC (That's the Worcester County, in Ma - sort of like the OC, but...nah, not so much) and yet it flows fairly freely now. Amazing what 16 years of living can do for your perspective and your self-confidence.
okay, well, enough about that. Just... it's a different city as an adult. At 20, I'm sure I thought I was pretty wise and mature, but, well, turns out I wasn't. Probably when I'm 52 I'll think I was a complete moron at 36.
okay, here's a weird thing: My computer knows I am in France. Seriously, it scares me sometimes how smart this little macbook can be. As soon as I logged on here it was like "Hon hon (that was an attempt at a mocking French laugh) you think I do not know where you are, but you are mistaken. I shall now open your facebook in French...." Seriously, I logged on and it was like "Shall we change your facebook format to French?" to which I was like "Non, merci." Then I started this blog and I got French e-blogger. Which was fine until I tried to edit something and since it was the dark ages back when I lived here (there was no email, kids :-() I am not real familiar with computer terminology en francais. It took some trial and error. Not until this morning did I figure out how to change the commands to English.
Bottom line: My computer is way smarter than I am. And it's French is better too.
Alright off to wake up sleeping beauty for another day in the big city.
First of all, it's been sixteen years since I was last in Paris. I was 20, a college junior, and I thought I handled the six months I lived here pretty well. For all intents and purposes, I was pretty much fluent by the time I left.
Here's the funny thing: I was way too hesitant with the language back then. My grammar was excellent, my accent more than passable, my vocabulary was huge... but I hardly ever spoke to strangers or initiated a conversation. I would never ask questions about something on a menu, or stop to ask someone the time. I was to worried about screwing up or being judged or being - as we Americans do tend to be over here - disliked.
Now, I don't care. It's funny, I will speak the most mistake-ridden French - and I'm sure it is, because I sure don't speak a whole heck of a lot of it back in the WC (That's the Worcester County, in Ma - sort of like the OC, but...nah, not so much) and yet it flows fairly freely now. Amazing what 16 years of living can do for your perspective and your self-confidence.
okay, well, enough about that. Just... it's a different city as an adult. At 20, I'm sure I thought I was pretty wise and mature, but, well, turns out I wasn't. Probably when I'm 52 I'll think I was a complete moron at 36.
okay, here's a weird thing: My computer knows I am in France. Seriously, it scares me sometimes how smart this little macbook can be. As soon as I logged on here it was like "Hon hon (that was an attempt at a mocking French laugh) you think I do not know where you are, but you are mistaken. I shall now open your facebook in French...." Seriously, I logged on and it was like "Shall we change your facebook format to French?" to which I was like "Non, merci." Then I started this blog and I got French e-blogger. Which was fine until I tried to edit something and since it was the dark ages back when I lived here (there was no email, kids :-() I am not real familiar with computer terminology en francais. It took some trial and error. Not until this morning did I figure out how to change the commands to English.
Bottom line: My computer is way smarter than I am. And it's French is better too.
Alright off to wake up sleeping beauty for another day in the big city.
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