Two Mondays ago, my mom arrived in Paris for a two week visit. The first week she stayed in Paris and the second week, which was my spring break, we were supposed to spend in Mallorca, one of the Balearic Islands off the coast of Spain. The second week didn't go as planned, but I'll get to that part later.
Monday around noon I met my mom at her hotel in Republique, a 2 stop metro ride from my school. We were both a little teary-eyed when we saw each other--it had been almost 3 months since we said goodbye in the
Philadelphia International Airport. Soon enough though it felt like we had only been away from each other for only a few days. We had a great lunch at the hotel and then she decided to take a nap. Later that night we met up with Libby, my best friend from college, and her parents, who had flown over to Paris a day earlier than Mom. I had gone out to dinner with them the previous night nearby the Eiffel Tower but it had been too cold to go up the parisian landmark that night. We went back to the Eiffel Tower and ascended it, much to the dismay of my mom and Libby's. They reached the top, looked out for a second, and quickly went back to the elevator to go down. Libby, her dad, and I took lots of pictures and gazed into the sunset and the beautiful view we had from the summit of the 324 meter structure. Afterwards we went back to
place de Republique and had a delicious Alsatian meal at Chez Jenny, which I highly recommend to anyone going to Paris who wants authentic food from Alsace, the area of France close to Germany.
The next few days we did some sightseeing, including an open air double decker bus, which was great because the route of the bus took us to every major landmark in the city. We also went to Versailles one day with Libby and her family, which was utterly breathtaking. On Thursday, I actually went to class for the first time since early Monday morning, so my mom and I did a little shopping in the morning and then met up with two of my friends for falafel at our favorite place. My mom went shopping by herself while I was in class and we met up later at her place.
Now this is where things go awry. I got to the room and my mom was watching SkyNews, a british news station. They were reporting the shutdown of UK airspace, as well as those in Norway, Sweden, and Ireland. What was the cause of the shutdown? A volcanic ash cloud from Iceland was hovering over Northern Europe 30000 ft up in the air. Of all things that could have happened, no one would have ever thought that a volcanic eruption could cause the cancellation of thousands of flights. Initially we thought that this all would blow over, literally. Libby and her parents had a flight back to the US the next day so we were still hopeful things would go as plan--but they didn't. Paris shutdown all its airports around 9pm Thursday night. They begin to open back up til midday Tuesday and all flights did not resume until Thursday.
My mom and I were supposed to be on a plane to Mallorca Saturday, which was cancelled. I booked a flight for the next day, Sunday, and it was also cancelled. Iberia's next available flight for us was Wednesday night. So we had an extra five days in Paris, not so bad. We were disappointed that we would have to shorten our trip to Spain but we made the most of our time together in Paris. Saturday we went shopping in Galeries Lafayette, the biggest department store in Paris--it's similar to Harrod's in London. We also shopped at the boutiques nearby.
Sunday we took it easy, just walked around the area near the hotel and watched some movies.
Monday was the best of our extra days in Paris because we went to Disneyland! My mom and I
felt like little kids as we walked into the park. The excitement was contagious and it made us feel like we were home in the US. The park is smaller in comparison to Disney World, but it definitely takes the best aspects of the American parks and also adds some of its own things to make it more European, yet still very true to the Disney way. The funniest thing about the park was that the characters in the rides spoke in both english and french! Seeing Buzz Lightyear yelling in french made my mom and I burst out laughing while waiting in line for the ride. I was pleasantly suprised to see popcorn vendors and fountain soda dispensers at the park as well--things very odd for the french to have. Tuesday, a day after our magical time at Disneyland, we did not do much. Most of the day was spent walking around the area we live in, getting my clothes from my apartment, and going to see "Remember Me" at the cinema (I highly recommend this movie!). We were eager to hear good news about the re-opening of airports and were delighted when we saw on CNN that most flights were operating once again. Wednesday we packed our bags, had a leisurely lunch, and headed to the airport to catch our late-afternoon flight to Madrid where we would connect to Palma de Mallorca.
Well that's all for now. I'll leave Spain for another entry.
Au revoir :)
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