Saturday, June 29, 2013

Paris Day 1

June 10th ...by Anela

We made it!  Were in France right now!  The house is super cute! Well its like 100 years old but it has a lot of personality.  There's a lot of weird random stuff in it but we love it.  There are no words to describe this place.  It's so old and unique.  We've only been in France for like 4 hours but I LOVE IT! Everywhere is so different!  Well we just got home from the airport, we caught a Taxi.  Its hard to get places because they don't speak English.  I've only ever been out of the country twice to New Zealand (they speak English) and to Tahiti but I was young then.  Anyways, its so crazy!  Its just so fascinating just being in another country with different everything.  There's different people, language, views, perspectives, lifestyles and everything is at least 100 years old here.  Im just so grateful to live in Hawaii because here it is so big and confusing, like taking the Metro is so hard cause sometimes you don't know which one to take.  


this is the view from our apartment

the living room in Paris
back of the front door to the left and dining room on right

the kitchen is so cute.  thats a washing machine in the corner
europeans dont really use dryers.  you just hang it out to dry

                                                                         chimneys

one of those cute random things in the apartment
they're tiny tea cups


another random thing but we used it.  its a pepper grinder

we were on the 4th floor of a stone building built in the 1870s.  

the first thing we did in Paris was go to Nortre Dame.  It was
impressive.  There is detail and symbolism in everything and it was reverent too.  We sat in the pews for a while to take it all in and while we were there, they had a sermon.  Photos cannot do justice to the amount of detail in everything - N.  

the front center arch way detail
depicted on one side is heaven with hell on the other side with its gargoyles.

this is other side of Nortre Dame

next to the Seine River
Inside Notre Dame its magnificent and much larger than it looks here

Paris Apartments along the Seine River


At the back of Nortre Dame theres a little garden.  This is where we took these photos.

After Notre Dame we visited a holocaust Monument.  It was very small and simple and sad.  
We spent a few minutes talking about all those senselessly killed during the holocaust and how we need to love everyone no matter how different they are from us.  God never intends for one people to dominate another. 

Then it seemed perfect to go to Lovers Bridge which was right next door.  It was wonderful to read peoples names and the dates they were in Paris.  They put the information on a lock and it means they are together forever in Paris.  Its so sweet.  




Then we just wanted to walk around Paris and eventually find something to eat.  Its fascinating to just observe everything that is going on.  When you walk past a restaurant there are people standing at the door trying to lure you in.  Its quite intimidating.  We found we always went to places where no one was standing there waiting for us.  But, we did fall in love with Gelato immediately.  

Isn't she pretty?  The middle (yellow) was Mango and from that time forth we ate a lot of Mango Gelato.

Here's a shot of the restaurants.  Can you spot the people waiting for you to come and eat?
Guess what we ate?  
I know, very french right?  But it was delicious and different from the type of Pizza we are use to eating.

 Makana loved it and went back the next day.  He's a creature of habit.  Don't worry we followed up with Crepes' and they were absolutely delicious.  I ate a lot of Nutella and Banana Crepes'.


 by this time we were really tired and jet-lagged and decided to go home for a nap.  Time to get on the metro!  Getting use to the metro took a couple of days and was a little confusing and scary and first but by the time we were done, it was a piece of cake.  Heres a few shots of our metro experience.  

Makana was very helpful!  



Us on the train after our first day.  

When we got home we decided we would take a nap and then go to the Eiffel Tower in the evening.  We all crashed so hard and woke up about 5 hours later (at midnight).  We made food and ate dinner at 3 am. Its a 12 hour time difference and so our bodies were so confused.  But it was fun to have dinner in the middle of the night and we enjoyed cooking together.  Almost every breakfast and dinner we have at home and we prepare ourselves (we eat out only for lunch everyday).  Its been a fun experience buying food in the local grocery stores here (it takes a while to figure out what things are and where they are).  Its also been awesome cooking together as a family and trying new things.  Heres our 3am meal:

Pasta, salad and baguettes.  

It was a perfect first day in Paris.




















Sunday, June 23, 2013

A little about our departure …..


          We made a mad rush for the airport leaving late.  We are the last ones to board the flight (not a great start).  There were so many things to do before we left.  I had only a few hours sleep two nights before and zero sleep the night before we left.  I finally started packing my bag around 3am.  My goal was to leave at 5am; instead we were pulling out of the driveway at 6:15am.  I was a little nervous since the flight departed at 8am and we had to drive almost an hour and park our car for Amber’s friend to drive back.  We said a few prayers on the way down.  Long story short, we just barely made it.
The flight from LA to Honolulu was pretty uneventful although I will say that Delta needs a refresher course in customer service.  We were excited to meet up with Amber once we arrived at LAX.  She had flown up to LA 10 days earlier and we planned to meet up for the flight.  I had her passport and so she couldn’t check in, we had to find her at the Air France check in.   From Deltas gate where we landed we had to exit and get on a shuttle and find her. 

We saw her from a distance and she came running toward us.  Big hugs were exchanged and it felt so good to be together.  We gathered her bags and said, “Let’s do this”.  









We got to the Air France counter and proceeded to get Amber checked in (we were pre-checked from Hawaii).  There was some murmuring with the workers and a supervisor was summoned.   They told us that Amber’s flight has been cancelled and she cannot come with us.  I was dumbfounded and asked what they were talking about.  Apparently, because Amber didn’t get on the flight in Honolulu, she could not get on in LA.  They said it was considered one flight and that her ticket had been cancelled when she didn’t check in at Honolulu (yes the delta person failed to mention this to me when I checked in with my other kids).  I told them that I had paid a lot of money for this flight to Paris and Amber was here and she was getting on.  Suffice it to say they were not very nice and they said there was nothing they could do about it because the computer system had blocked her out.  I told them that no where had I read that or been told that or have heard of that and they told me that it is the same with all the airlines.  I asked them to show me in writing and they told me they couldn’t.  They said Amber was not getting on the flight unless we bought her another ticket, which was $2,500.  At this point, Amber burst into tears.  The flight was already starting to board and we were still at the check in gate.  The worker said we could book a cheaper flight if we looked online but as I just mentioned, the flight was already boarding!!!  The worker also said that maybe we should leave Amber and she could meet up with us in France when she finds a ticket (by this time I was thinking this chick must be on drugs).  I then told her I wasn’t going to let her travel alone.  She gave me this look like I was an idiot and she said, “but you let her come to California?  I wanted to punch her in the face. 
“The irony is that just minutes before we were so happy to be together and to be embarking on our journey.  Now, we were told we cannot be together.  The thought of starting our journey without every family member was out of the question and when the worker asked me what I was going to do I told her I would purchase Amber the ticket.  Amber was still crying because she felt so guilty and vowed to work really hard so she could pay me back.  I told her to stop crying and remember that it is only money and the main thing is that we are together and that we are safe.  I also told her that we weren’t going to let this spoil our experience and we would never speak of it again.  In this experience I had a moment of clarity, which was that I would do or pay whatever necessary to make sure that we were together.  Amber and I talked about this while we were on the 10.5 hour flight (together – YAY!).  We talked about how in this life we forget that we will do whatever it takes to be together until that is challenged.  Sometimes we stop fighting or advocating for each other and we need to do that for things that are not only temporal, but are spiritual too.  For things that will matter not just in this life,  but things that have worth eternally so that we are all together forever.  It was so cute to watch Ambers siblings comfort her and tell her not to worry about it.  My kids are all tight when it comes to money but when it came to buying her sister a $2,500 ticket, the money was of no consequence!


this is ambers empty seat next to us that I already paid for but was now "unavailable".  I should have taken a photo of ambers first class seat (I wish I had a photo of her in tears too but at the time it was the last thing on our minds).  

*for some reason the ticket I had to buy Amber was in first class while we were all in coach.  There was an empty seat beside her and yes you guessed it, I used that empty seat in first class!

Why go on this trip?



Things change so quickly.  I learned that the hard way.  So, I’m taking life’s lessons and trying to apply them to my life.  My children are now 20, 18, 15 and 11.  Things are going to change really REALLY soon.  Recently I have felt an urgency to best utilize the time I have with my children, and the time they have with me.  Soon there will be jobs, school, marriages and possibly even missions.  So before they leave my nest I want to teach them how to maneuver their way around the world.  There are so many things you learn when you travel.  Many of you know that Jon was raised around the world as a "navy brat".  He spent his childhood in the Philippines, Spain, Japan as well as the east coast USA. I loved that he was able to embrace cultural differences.  I always felt safe traveling with him because he had acquired the skills of someone who was comfortable with differences and confident in his ability to navigate through the world.  I want our children to have the same skills and confidence (and Im sure he does too).  Traveling also gives you perspective that you cannot see when you are close to it.  In our short trip so far, the kids have already learned a lot about their home.  I have heard them say repeatedly, "we really are from a small town".  I also think it is important to be challenged, to eat and try new things, to have new adventures, to learn geography and history and hopefully a few words at least in each new language.  Also, you receive increased confidence in your ability to problem solve outside of your comfort zone.  Most importantly, we will gather hundreds of cool stories and memories of times spent together discovering new things about new places, new people, and hopefully about ourselves.  The memories we create will come up in conversations for the rest of our lives.  Remember that time when we were in Paris and ……  Remember that time we were working in an orphanage and …. .  I understand that society says we should save our money for retirement.  To be completely honest, I do not have a retirement fund.  When I’m retirement age, my kids will be off making memories with their own children, and I wont have the opportunity to be with them like this.  I don’t mind having to work a little later in life, so that I can do this now.  For those of you who do not know our itinerary it goes like this:
June 10-22    France and Spain
June 23         Italy
July 1            Greece
July 10          Ghana Africa
July 20          Dubai
July 23          Thailand
August 5       Cambodia
August 11     Bali
August 18     New Zealand

*with brief layovers in Egypt and Australia

And so here we go, around the world in 80 days ……