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