Family in Paris: It's Getting Hotter

I am back from Paris. It was very hot. And I need to vent.

Before I do so, I want to stress that we had plenty of fun on this trip. When I told my mom I was invited to present at the Critical Theories of Antisemitism conference, she seized the opportunity to organize a whole family vacation around the trip, including my parents and my brother, sister-in-law, and their daughter (who's six months younger than Nathaniel). And as far as that project is concerned, it was great. We saw a lot of neat things, and more importantly, we got to spend time together as a family.

But on the travel side of traveling, boy did we get rogered.

As a quick point of reference, here was what the plan was, travel-wise:

• June 12: Depart PDX for Chicago O'Hare, then continue onward to Paris.
• June 13: Land in Paris.
• June 13-17: Stay all together as a family in an AirBnb in Passy
• June 17: Brother and his family leave for wine country.
• June 17-20: Parents and our family go to an AirBnb in the Marais while I attend the conference.
• June 20: Parents leave for Normandy.
• June 20-24: Jill, Nathaniel and I go to a hotel in Montparnasse for the remainder of the trip.
• June 24: Fly home (via O'Hare), arriving in PDX at 9:30 PM.

With that said, here's the actual blow-by-blow.

June 12

• We arrive at the airport three hours early for our international flight, scheduled to depart at 1:45 PM. As soon as we get to the ticketing desk, we learn that our flight to Chicago has been delayed such that we'll miss our connection to Paris. The woman at the desk tries to rebook us on another flight.
• We spend three hours at the airport perpetually almost being booked on another flight. At one point she told us to run to the Delta counter to check our bags for a flight leaving in 40 minutes, only for that flight to get delayed (and thus make our connection impossible). Nathaniel is a good sport for most of this, but by the third hour he's starting to get understandably cranky.
• Eventually, the agent gives up and tells us to call a phone number. The earliest we can get rebooked? 7:30 PM ... the next evening (through Heathrow). It will get us to Paris a full thirty hours later than scheduled.
• We go home.

June 13

• I hear it might be a bit warm in Paris, so I decide to use the extra day to get a quick haircut. I'm so excited, I accidentally back out of our garage before the garage door actually, you know, opens. Now it won't close. Oops. No time to deal with that.
• We get a worried text from our neighbor who noticed our garage door was open. Aren't we supposed to be on vacation? That stung.
• Off to the airport (we manually closed the garage door before we left)! We've actually done the PDX-Heathrow flight before with Nathaniel before, so we're optimistic. And it pays off -- he sleeps through most of the flight! Way to go champ!

June 14

• We land in Heathrow. There is a tram to take us from where we land to the main terminal.
• Just kidding: the tram is out of service. We have to walk the entire distance.
• We get to our departure gate, which is actually apparently a bus depot. And given how long the bus ride to the airplane took, I think our plane may have actually been on a runway in Gatwick.
• We get to our plane. While we've purchased a seat for Nathaniel so he doesn't have to sit in our laps, the gate agent tells us that our car seat won't fit in the plane seat and we'll need to gate check it (along with our stroller, which we had already been gate checking).
• We board the plane and reach our aisle. The flight attendant is confused as to why we don't have a car seat, since it would absolutely fit on the plane.
• We land in Paris. Our "gate checked" stroller and car seat are not gate checked at all but are sent to regular baggage claim.
• Finally we reach the AirBnb 30 hours later than expected. My parents had hired a private chef to cook dinner from us; he's in the middle of serving when we arrive. It looks delicious but we're too tired to really appreciate it. It is a warm evening, but it will get hotter.

June 15-17

• We spend several quality days together as a family. I take the metro to a bunch of art galleries and auction houses (including one that had a very neat preview of a chateau's collection being auctioned off), then walk to the Arc de Triomphe. 
• It is getting hotter.

June 17

• Brother, sister-in-law, and niece all say goodbye, while the rest of us travel to an AirBnb in the Marais. The apartment has two main levels (not including a terrifying basement we don't mess with). The bottom level has two tiny bedrooms and a bathroom. The upper level has a spacious kitchen and living room, all as one space. The problem is that the crib will literally only fit in the upper level, meaning that once Nathaniel goes to sleep we're all trapped in our hobbit hole bedrooms from dusk till dawn.
• I spend the day visiting art galleries. It is a lot of fun.
• It is getting hotter.

June 18-19

• I attend my conference, which is very nice, and my parents are able to watch Nathaniel so Jill can have some personal time as well.
• We book a time at an indoor petting zoo near our next hotel in Montparnasse, since that seems like a fun activity to do with Nathaniel.
• It is getting hotter. News reports speak of a generational heatwave making headlines around the world, with temperatures into the 90s and still rising. Paris is in a state of declared emergency.

June 19

• Our last night in the Marais. We are ready to check out of the AirBnb in the morning and move to our final stay location, the voco Paris Montparnasse, while my parents depart for Normandy.
• At 10 PM, we receive a message from the hotel that the air conditioning is broken. They suggest calling them for compensation and assistance rebooking.
• We call them. Nobody answers. The hotel may not even be open, as it is getting hotter.
• Scrambling, we book a new hotel near the Opera. It is almost three times as expensive as the old hotel -- which is what happens when you book on eight hours notice in the midst of a generational heatwave. Luckily, the email from voco suggested they'd provide compensation.

June 20

• We check into our new hotel. The people there are lovely and we really like the neighborhood. I decide to spend the day with the family to ensure we get settled rather than attend the last day of the conference. In spite of everything, I'm glad to be at this new hotel, particularly given their robust assurances that their air conditioning was in top-notch condition.
• On the other hand, Nathaniel learned how to whine today when he doesn't get what he wants. Literally -- it was a milestone discovered mid-trip. How lucky for us.
• I do go to the conference closing dinner in Montmartre. I consider not going, because I am very tired and it is getting hotter, but I decide to attend. By sheer exhaustion-related luck, I elect to Uber to the restaurant rather than take the metro, which turns out to be exceptionally wise as the restaurant is up a mountain of steps from the closest metro stop and the temperature is now approaching 100 degrees. Disaster averted.

June 21

• Conference is over -- now it's just family time! We decide to go to the petting zoo anyway, even though it is nowhere near our new hotel. It is a lot of fun, though it was extremely hot waiting outside on the building waiting for it to open.
• It is getting hotter.

June 22

• We finally get in contact with the voco to discuss compensation. We ask to be paid the difference in rates between the hotels, since we had to rebook at the last minute. The man at the desk is confused as to why our new hotel costs so much, and says that had we called him, he could've found a hotel for much less money, so no, he will not reimburse us for the difference. After all, what if we had booked the Ritz Carlton?
• We point out that we did not book the Ritz Carlton, that the reason the new hotel was more expensive was because it was last-minute in the midst of a historic heat wave, and that we tried to call the original hotel and nobody answered so we were forced to do our best. These are apparently not persuasive arguments. There will be no reimbursement.
• Defeated, we decide to see the Calder exhibit at the Louis Vuitton Fondation. It is fantastic, and more importantly, extremely well air-conditioned, which is important because it is getting hotter.

June 23

• It's our last full day in Paris. We have some ideas for some things to do, but ultimately we decide to stay close to the hotel and its air conditioning. It is the hottest it has been the entire trip -- over 100 degrees.

June 24

• Time to go home! We leave for Charles de Gaulle at 10 AM. Today will be even hotter than yesterday, but thankfully we'll leave before the temperature peaks.
• Our flight to Chicago takes off on time. But Nathaniel -- who has always been fantastic on flights and has really been a rock star this entire trip -- decides that our luck has run out. He screams for the first third of the journey, then for the second third decide he needs to run up and down the aisle. Finally he sleeps a little bit for the final hour (but starts screaming again during the landing).
• We arrive in Chicago forty minutes early, and we have a three-hour layover. How lucky for us! We can relax, let Nathaniel run around, change his diaper, even grab some dinner. We just have to get through customs, pick up our checked bags, recheck our checked bags, and go back through security.
• Customs line stretches approximately back to Wisconsin. A nice official spots us and moves us up in the line (thanks Nathaniel), but then the customs agent checking people at the front of said line goes on break and isn't replaced. The line stops. It's been an hour since we landed.
• Finally reach the customs agent, who is very interested in exactly what sort of "academic conference" I was attending in Paris. I debate whether telling him I was at a conference on "global antisemitism" will make it more or less likely I'll be thrown into a prison camp. Land of the free, baby!
• We wait for our checked bags. They don't show. Whoops -- turns out there were two flights arriving from Paris at the same time, and this was the other one. We sheepishly move to the correct baggage carousel.
• We wait for our checked bags. They don't show. Whoops -- turns out someone took them off the carousel while we were at the wrong one and set them aside. We sheepishly gather our bags and then immediately recheck them. This process feels gratuitous. It's been two hours since we landed.
• There is a tram to get from the international to the domestic gates. It is up a flight of stairs. There is one elevator with a capacity of approximately 1.5 people, which moves at a speed best described as "glacial", and a line of twelve people in wheelchairs in front of us. We decide to take an escalator, studiously staring upward to avoid seeing any signs suggesting strollers can't go on escalators.
• After the tram and two more elevator rides, we get back into a long security line. By the time we reach the front, it has been three hours since we landed. We arrive at the gate fifteen minutes before boarding, having had no time to relax, let Nathaniel run around, change his diaper, or grab dinner. My eye is feeling irritated.
• We board the plane. The plane then sits delayed on the tarmac for an hour. My eye is getting worse, and starts exploding with tears. Fortunately, being absolutely exhausted and being unable to open my eye without excruciating pain synergize surprisingly well, and I sleep through most of the flight. Even better, so does Nathaniel.
• We arrive in Portland a mere hour late (better than thirty hours, amirite?). Grab our bags, grab a taxi, get home before midnight. Remember we need to call someone in the morning to fix the garage door. Go to bed. Pray that Nathaniel approximates sleeping through the night (he does, but only because he doesn't fall asleep until two AM).

Fin.