Bonjour from France! After two long days of travel I am happy to say that we have arrived safely at our first destination, Biarritz, France. In order to get here, many different things had to come together, most of which happened smoothly, though a few were challenging. The first "challenge" presented itself on Saturday morning. The movers were scheduled to arrive at 8:00 am. We woke up early to finish sealing the final boxes and to stash away final items into our luggage for our trip. 8:00 am came and went with no sign of the movers. After a few calls to the moving office whose voice mail claimed to be out until normal business hours of Monday - Friday, we began to worry. With our plane leaving the following day, we needed to be out of the apartment. With nothing to do but wait, Annabelle and I hit up Hudson River Park for one last romp down the boardwalk. At around 10:45 we checked back to find no sign of a moving truck outside the apartment. Aye. We checked out the playground at Bleeker St. where we ran into some friends and still no sign of the truck. Finally around 11:00 Nate texted that the movers had arrived. Phew. As the movers shuttled our boxed belongings to the truck, Nate and I painted and cleaned (actually Nate painted - I have to give him credit for that one!). We spent our final night at our friend Alex's apartment which has an awesome view of the city. As any local New Yorker would do, we ordered thai take-out and finally broke open that bottle of champagne we had been saving for a special ocassion. It was a perfect final night in the city.
Morning came too soon, and with the sun we were off to remove the final remnants from the apartment and take care of some final NY business before we left for the airport. The next challenge that arose was the luggage. Traveling with a baby for an extended period of time requires a lot of stuff. Between the three of us we have 2 60-lbs. suitcases, the toddler car seat, an umbrella stroller, two medium-sized carry-on's, a back pack and the travel crib. When I was in Europe ten years ago, I had my backpack and that was it. My things have changed! We quickly learned that it is all about leaving enough time. I hold the baby and watch the stuff as Nate moves each piece little by little to the next location. As we went to check in the bags, one of the two large suitcases that we had just purchased that same day for the trip sprung a leak at the seem, giving us a view of two tiny baby shoes and a tiny clothes ready to spill out. Yikes. Too late now. We fastened a luggage strap around the bag, and prayed that the case would hold together until Paris.
Annabelle was a trooper on the flight. She slept for a few hours and I managed to get a few short snoozes in as well. We landed at Charles de Gaulle airport where we had a 2 hour layover before we caught our train to Bordeaux. We picked up our luggage, all of which thankfully was still in tact, and lapped the train station a few times, keeping the little one busy with endless games of peek-a-boo. Fifteen minutes before the train arrived they announced what track we were on. As soon as the track was posted on the board, a surge of people made a beeline for the escalators down to the tracks. With our luggage situation, we got in line for the elevator - the world's slowest elevator. When it was finally our turn to board, a Frenchie cut in line and hopped on right in front of us. Aye-again! We watched the elevator floor counter as the numbers went up and then down again as the minutes ticked away. Finally we made our way to the platform just as the train approached with just minutes to spare. Then came boarding. The luggage hold on our car was already full and we had yet to board. Even the conductor was nervous for us when she saw our stuff. With Nathan on the train and me off, we frantically tried to stuff everything in. "Hurry! Just get it in - anywhere you can!" Apparently the train waits for no one. Just as we got the last piece in the door, the whistle blew the doors shut and off we went for four hours to Bordeaux. We had to laugh at the chaos once we were safely on our way. We were all pretty exhausted at this point. After checking out the train Annabelle crashed out in the Ergo for a long nap thankfully which took us about half way there. The rest of the way we read books and tried to make friends with some of the French kids on the train. In Bordeaux we unloaded again. Nate stayed with the stuff while I tried to round up some milk and fruit for Annabelle. No luck on the milk, but we scored some yogurt and bananas. Good enough. After another 45 minutes we loaded up again for the final leg of the trip - our train to Biarritz. We were expecting a similar situation to the chaos in Paris, but this train boarding was much more mellow. There were just a few other passengers in our car - a drunk, creepy guy (from who we kept our distance), a couple back packers and few families with children. This two hour stretch went by quickly and we enjoyed the views of the French countryside.
Finally at Biarritz, we hopped a cab to the airport where our car was waiting for us. When we pulled up there was a man holding a sign that read "Ellis". Yeah - finally something easy! At this point it was about 7:30 pm and it had been a very long day. With our Google Maps we made our way to Bidart where our little flat is located. We called Gregory, who coordinated the apartment, and he met us on his scooter to escort us into the complex. He had a nice stock of milk, eggs, bread, cheese and wine waiting for us and made sure we were comfortable before heading on his way. We showered off the two days of travel and hit the hay.
Yesterday, the jet lag hit hard. We woke up at a decent hour, but then took a long family nap before we hit up the grocery store. The grocery store was extremely large, but interesting to navigate. Things to note - yogurt is incredibly popular here. I have never seen so many kinds (they take up a full aisle). Tofu and hummus, not so much. We are having to adapt Annie E's diet to a more French cuisine. We accidentally purchased the creamiest cottage cheese ever in our attempts to find Greek yogurt. Luckily Annabelle seems to like it. It is almost like alfredo when put on pasta (what's not to like?) Another thing - you put a Euro into the cart to get them to operate as a deposit. Interesting. Lastly, you bring your own bags - how very eco-IKEA (love it). This made for a few trips back and forth the car - something we have gotten used to the last few days.
Around 4:00 we went for a long walk to start exploring the little town that will be out home for the next month. Everything is incredibly lush and green here. There are rolling hills dotted with trees that lead out to rocky cliffs over the ocean. There are several surf breaks close by and a darling little village called Guethary that is just a quick walk from the flat that has darling restaurants, shops and an open air market on Wednesdays. The homes sort of look like Swiss chalets, but with Spanish tile roofs. All of it is very quaint and charming. The other thing we are noticing is surfers in Biarritz do the OC better than the OC. They are head to toe in logo gear, as not to be mistaken as anything but a surfer. Again, I anticipate the language barrier to be hard and even potentially a little lonely, but we are still counting on hopefully some English speakers amongst the locals.
Today we met up with Gregory and his girlfriend, Emily, who gave us a quick tour of the local spots and showed us around Biarritz. There is another great market in the heart of town where we sampled Basque cake, local oysters and had a glass of white wine. Then we had a nice lunch at an Italian place and then hit up the La Grande Plage where Annie E. got her feet wet and played in the sand. As I write this entry, Annabelle is taking a snooze and Nathan is having a beer on the deck. Tomorrow we will attempt to find some semblance of a routine. So far so good. Ce la vie! More to come...
