Travels: 2003,2005/2006 France
I had heard that the 2nd trimester was the "happy" trimester during a pregnancy, Morning sickness would be over, and that the discomfort / awkwardness in just moving around didn't really start until the 3rd trimester. With this in mind, in 2003, I booked a trip over Valentine's Day to Paris and around northeastern France. I had found an incredibly* good deal and Leanne was onboard. (You know what they say about the best laid plans... Leanne had morning, afternoon, and evening sickness, the entire trip)
We flew into Paris, got our rental car** and drove to Dijon. Spent some time in Beaune (Burgandy), Colmar and Strasbourg (Alsace), stopped in Verdun on the way to Reims (Champagne) before returning to Paris. We visited local wineries, castles and had fun getting lost, thereby discovering hidden gems of restaurants and cultural experiences in the countryside. Most of the trip we stayed in pretty cheap hotels. Best Westerns, they were adequate but nothing special. In Paris, we stayed at Le Meridien, in a suite, with bathrobes and slippers and fancy scented soap. It was the perfect ending to our trip.
I found another very good deal for a trip to Paris in 2005, we left on Christmas Day and flew back on New Year's Day. Aside from it being unusually cold for Paris (but still much warmer than Chicago) and the crush of a crowd at the Trocadero on New Year's Eve, everything went reasonably well. Emily charmed everyone she met, she received lots of little presents and attention and whatnot. She got a kick out of meeting the kitchen staff at the fancy restaurant we had dinner at for my birthday (and liked the fancy artisanal chocolates) Disneyland was a little surreal but fun (It's a Small World in French is still an earworm)
*airfare for both of us, 5 nights/hotels, rental car was under $1000. American Airlines Vacations messed up, the package was supposed to be five vouchers for a program Best Western runs where a night costs 2-5 vouchers per night and cost about fifty Euros each, but they advertised five nights, I made a stink, and they sent me around twenty vouchers. Between that and they stay at Le Meridien being comped (I knew a guy who booked us on his employee benefit) it was a very inexpensive trip.
**I paid a small upcharge to get a car with automatic transmission, when we arrived at the Hertz desk to pick it up the clerk told me that he was sorry but our car was not there.
"no problem", I said, "as long as it's a diesel, with an automatic, I am not picky, but I do not know how do drive stick" he frowned and typed, and searched in his computer. After a few minutes he passed me a set of keys and told us a stall number. When we got there, I smiled. There was a big beautiful Mercedes Benz. We were going to be touring around the French countryside in comfort. The ride was smooth and even though it was a diesel, it barely purred at 120 KPH.
We flew into Paris, got our rental car** and drove to Dijon. Spent some time in Beaune (Burgandy), Colmar and Strasbourg (Alsace), stopped in Verdun on the way to Reims (Champagne) before returning to Paris. We visited local wineries, castles and had fun getting lost, thereby discovering hidden gems of restaurants and cultural experiences in the countryside. Most of the trip we stayed in pretty cheap hotels. Best Westerns, they were adequate but nothing special. In Paris, we stayed at Le Meridien, in a suite, with bathrobes and slippers and fancy scented soap. It was the perfect ending to our trip.
I found another very good deal for a trip to Paris in 2005, we left on Christmas Day and flew back on New Year's Day. Aside from it being unusually cold for Paris (but still much warmer than Chicago) and the crush of a crowd at the Trocadero on New Year's Eve, everything went reasonably well. Emily charmed everyone she met, she received lots of little presents and attention and whatnot. She got a kick out of meeting the kitchen staff at the fancy restaurant we had dinner at for my birthday (and liked the fancy artisanal chocolates) Disneyland was a little surreal but fun (It's a Small World in French is still an earworm)
*airfare for both of us, 5 nights/hotels, rental car was under $1000. American Airlines Vacations messed up, the package was supposed to be five vouchers for a program Best Western runs where a night costs 2-5 vouchers per night and cost about fifty Euros each, but they advertised five nights, I made a stink, and they sent me around twenty vouchers. Between that and they stay at Le Meridien being comped (I knew a guy who booked us on his employee benefit) it was a very inexpensive trip.
**I paid a small upcharge to get a car with automatic transmission, when we arrived at the Hertz desk to pick it up the clerk told me that he was sorry but our car was not there.
"no problem", I said, "as long as it's a diesel, with an automatic, I am not picky, but I do not know how do drive stick" he frowned and typed, and searched in his computer. After a few minutes he passed me a set of keys and told us a stall number. When we got there, I smiled. There was a big beautiful Mercedes Benz. We were going to be touring around the French countryside in comfort. The ride was smooth and even though it was a diesel, it barely purred at 120 KPH.
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