Settling in… sort of

Well, we made it another week here in Paris, and it feels both incredibly fast and slow at the same time. Overall, I’d say things are settling in, but there’s still an underlying feeling of being unsettled/homeless. We’re still waiting on the official move-in date to our apartment, but it should be sooner rather than later.

Yesterday was nearly a perfect day out in Paris for us. We did a lot of walking, sightseeing, and ate some amazing pastries right on the steps of the Louvre. Emotionally, I think we were all pretty drained after two weeks of constant adjustments, so today we had a much-needed lazy day. Although, it turned out to be a bit interesting this afternoon—more on that later.

Since the last post, we’ve mostly kept things mellow. Friday was work for me, while Hailey and the kids went about our new “normal”—frequent trips to the store and visiting nearby parks. It was a bit bittersweet spending the Fourth of July here and missing all the festivities back home. We decided to celebrate in our own way by getting burgers—and where better than our favorite Parisian spot… McDonald’s.

But not just any McDonald’s. We went to the Champs-Élysées location, home of the famous McDo—a McDonald’s take on the croque monsieur. (TBH, not that good.) Hailey and I splurged and tried the 280 Burger—280 grams of beef—but I wouldn’t get it again. Stick to the Royale with Cheese (Pulp Fiction was right!) and don’t look back. The kids loved their Happy Meals and are now convinced we’ve collected all the toys for the month. After that, we made a quick stop for gelato on the way back to the apartment. Overall, it was a pretty average day, made a little extra special by the holiday.

Saturday, we didn’t have big plans, so we decided to trek out to Parc des Buttes-Chaumont—a beautiful park about a 30-minute metro ride away. It was awesome.

I have to pause here to share two things that struck us. Coming from Houston—and especially the suburbs—we’ve been pretty insulated from homelessness. So riding the metro and seeing people stand and yell for money or pick cigarette butts out of ashtrays to smoke was a bit shocking. No harm came to us, but it was definitely eye-opening and very sad. Back at the park, the kids were a little confused there wasn’t a big playground—because for them, a park means a playground, end of story. I think a better choice of words on my end is needed… note to self! We walked around with the kids in the wagon, Hailey and I acting as their horsepower. We eventually found a nice lake with an island where we ate lunch and people-watched.

After lunch, we decided to track down the play area. Luckily, there was a map. The playground was small but clean and had a see-saw, which the kids loved. Me being me, I was eager to check off the next thing on our list, but Hailey reminded me to chill, and we spent the next hour just hanging out which was in fact very nice.

From there, we hopped over to Ikea, which was a short metro ride away. The store was pretty small by Ikea standards, but we picked up a few much-needed towels (this Airbnb has no hand towels!).

It was about 3 p.m., and we were going to head back, but I realized we were right next to the Louvre—and right in front of us was Bo&Mie, a bakery I’d been to before. That was enough of a sign. We picked up cookies, tarts, a strawberry-filled croissant, and a ham-and-cheese doodad for good measure.

Since we were already there, we decided to eat our pastries on the steps of the Louvre. After weeks of extreme heat, the 75-degree weather felt amazing. We sat, ate, and watched the world go by.

Then came the choice: metro or walk? Walking won out, so we strolled along the Seine. It was beautiful. Emery found an obstacle course she quickly mastered while Fischer cheered her on, yelling, “Good job, Emery!” We all agreed that a river tour is a must and added it to our list.

After that, we walked past the Eiffel Tower and back to our apartment, with a quick stop at McDonald’s for the kids and a little Chinese food for us. We capped off the night eating in the park while the kids played a bit more. By the time we got back to the Airbnb, we were all exhausted and went straight to bed (well, the kids did). I spent about two hours watching live music re-runs on YouTube while Hailey caught up on everything going on in Texas.

Around 11 p.m., I finally turned in and picked up Sixty Million Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong, which is a fascinating book about expats in France. It’s pretty eye-opening, and I’ve been adding spots from it to my list of must-sees.

Today, Sunday, we slept in—amazing. The kids and I picked up croissants, a baguette, and, for the first time, pain au chocolat. The kids loved it, and before I could blink, it was gone. I ate my croissant with salami like a true European, and it rocked.

The rest of the day was mostly downtime in preparation for a 3:30 p.m. church service. And now… the gripe of this post. We were really excited to meet the English-speaking community, but once we arrived, it left a lot to be desired. Especially the woman who kept staring at us every time the kids so much as moved—it was disheartening and the main reason we won’t be going back. Overall, it just didn’t feel welcoming, which was a surprise considering the reviews and the website. So, the search for a church community continues.

That brings us to now: we just had take-and-bake pizza from Monoprix and are watching Frozen. Next up—cookies, a short walk, and then bed.

Looking forward to another week here in Paris, finally getting more settled in (and hopefully finding out our move-in date!), and celebrating Hailey’s birthday weekend at none other than Disneyland Paris.