Au revoir: A family says good bye to Paris

Yes, I know the title of this post is cheesy, but if I’m forced to say good-bye, at least in French I can say “until I see you again.”

This last morning Caroline (whose plane ticket was purchased using frequent flier miles on British Airways) was scheduled to be picked up by a company called Paris Shuttle at 4 a.m. I had called and confirmed her reservation on Friday. Like a good girl, she was up and ready to go just before 4. I heard her go out to the street and then what I thought was the shuttle pulling up and taking her away before I dozed off.

Then suddenly, there was a knock at the door of the apartment. Caroline. No shuttle. Now five a.m. Somehow I managed to find the phone number for the shuttle company. Their offices were closed. Like good travelers we had spent almost all of our euros, as had she. I pulled something on over my pajamas and took off out into the street with her in hot pursuit, stumbling over the curb with her heavy bag. Fortunately there was a cash machine right at the corner. I took out 60 euros, shoved it into her hands, flagged down a cab, asked the disbelieving driver if he would be willing to go to the airport and pushed Caroline into the back.

Matt told me later that he looked out the window and saw me running around in the street waving my arms and thought, “Oh Mara, you’re always ready for adventure.”

When we called the shuttle company later (worried that they wouldn’t come for our 11 a.m. pickup) they said that the driver had come and that she wasn’t there. They said that we can expect a refund of the money we paid them, but of course, not the cab ride. I have a bad feeling that cabbie turned to Caroline at the airport and said, “How much have you got? That’s how much this ride costs!”

The day was uneventful after that. I took some pictures of the Place Monge market, where I did our food shopping three days a week; of “The Local” – the sports bar below our apartment where we heard the Spanish team cheered to victory in the European Cup our first weekend there; of the café where we ate on the first day; and of the wonderful boulangerie on the corner where the crabby baker found something to correct in my French every time I was in there even as a line of customers had to stand behind me and wait while I switched un to une.

The shuttle did show up–late, but not unforgivably so–and thus began that long trudge home, the line at the airport, the flight, the interminable wait for our luggage, and the even longer (and hot) drive down the New Jersey turnpike back to our house. But a kind of glamour hung over all of us, a Parisian glamour, that kept us all smiling.

“Mama,” Tommy asked for the tenth time on the plane, “Mama, can we go back to Paris another time?”

I’ll let you guess the answer to that question.