I know every family has their days when the best intentions
lead to grumpiness and displeasure, but here in France, with our impatient,
coddled, uncompromising American family, we tend to find it more typical than
not. I try to look back on these days
with a sense of humor, but it doesn’t always help getting through them at the
time. Hopefully, you’ll see the humor in
this rendition of a family outing.
One Saturday in December the three of us happily accepted an
invitation to meet a mom friend and her daughter to go ice skating at the newly
opened “largest ice skating rink in Paris” at the Grand Palais. How fun!
Elizabeth and I had flute lessons at 2:00, so I said it had to be in the
morning. We agreed to meet at the skate
rental at 11:30. I wanted to get there a
little earlier to get us set up so we could get on the ice as soon as possible,
given our deadline. Elizabeth never
skates for more than an hour, so I figured we had plenty of time, even if we
didn’t get on the ice until noon. We all
were very excited.
On Saturday morning, I made the dire mistake of thinking I
could sleep in an extra half hour. At
10:45 the three of us blasted out of our apartment all in a fury: me
complaining to my iphone obsessed husband that he didn’t help me get our lipgloss
obsessed tween out the door; our tween complaining to both of us that she had to
take the smelly metro; the husband complaining to himself that he came at all.
At 11:20, rushed and cranky, the three of us arrived at the
Grand Palais, to find that it was barricaded off with guards out front. I approached a guard and told him that we had
advanced purchased tickets and asked where to go. He pointed to the line to the right. We walked through a fenced in pathway created
for an anticipated long (Disney like) line and got behind the folks who were
waiting. There weren’t many people in
line, maybe 20 or so. We waited for
about 10 minutes and Elizabeth started complaining. “I’m bored!
How long is this going to take?”
I said I didn’t know. She told me
to ask the guard, but I was tired of trying to get stuff from French people and
being told it was "impossible." John wouldn’t ask
either. She complained more loudly. I told her to ask him herself and gave her
the French words to do it, but she refused and complained even more loudly. Finally, the woman in front of us turned
around and said in a British accent that we wouldn’t be let in until noon. They had changed the opening hours at the
last minute from 10 a.m. till noon. “How
French!” she added. We stood there some
more, John complaining and freezing because he hadn’t brought a hat or gloves,
Elizabeth still complaining about the wait, me trying to figure out what to do
while looking for our late friends.
At this point I started to worry a little bit about making
our flute lessons at 2:00. John told me
I had over scheduled. Elizabeth said she
didn’t want to do a flute lesson anyway.
I texted the flute teacher to ask to push the lesson back by a half
hour. She suggested we enjoy ice skating
and reschedule for a different day, freeing us up until my workout at 5:00. A little tension released.
Our friends were still nowhere to be seen and I was texting
the mom back and forth to try to meet up.
She was waiting for her nanny to drop off her daughter in front of the
Grand Palais. I looked over and saw her,
just as a man brought a sign out that said “for e-tickets.” We had e-tickets and were standing in the
other line, which by now was hundreds of people long. I climbed through the fence to go over to
check it out. Sure enough, that was a
new line that had been set up for people like us. I waved Elizabeth and John over. My friend had been standing there purely by
chance—waiting for her nanny out front—so we all got in at the front of the
line, which by now was about 30 people long.
Her daughter arrived and we waited, Elizabeth cheered up by her playmate
and John and I cheered up by having someone else to talk to besides each other.
At just after noon, the guards let us through the barricade,
but we had to go to the ticket booth to exchange our e-tickets for paper
tickets to get in the door. The scanner
was down. We waited another 5-10 minutes
for them to sort that out. We got
through that complication and went inside.
There we saw another line for skate rentals. (It was mandatory to use their skates and the
rental was included in the entrance fee.)
That line was pretty long because others had gotten in ahead of us while
some of the scanners weren’t working.
There weren’t that many people though—maybe 30-40. We waited 45 minutes, mostly standing
completely still because the line didn’t move, until we got to get skates. The French guy in front of us said, “It wouldn’t
be French without a line.” We finally
got on the ice shortly before 1:00. By
then, we had almost forgotten what we had come for!
We were pleased to see that the rink was pretty big, like a
normal skating rink size, not a mini holiday size. It was surprisingly warm inside the Grand
Palais—no coats needed but nowhere to put them.
We all commented on how it must be hard to keep the ice frozen with such
warm air. Ahh, but they didn’t. The ice was melting all over, just like when
you skate in Coronado on the beach. It
was also all cut up because it seems that many VIPs had been let in early to
skate ahead of the crowd. John and our
friend complained that their skates had stoppers (jagged points) on the toes
that were so low that they were getting stuck on the ice. John’s got stuck and he fell, got soaked, and
said he was done. It was 1:15. He got off the ice and said he’d wait over at
the tables and chairs where they sold hot chocolate and hot wine. He sat there and played on his iphone.
The rest of us skated for a while, stopped for hot
chocolates at the ice-side bar on the side of the rink with a special lane for
bar goers. How delightfully French! (No, they wouldn’t sell hot wine on the
rink. You had to take your skates off
for that. Bummer. Not so French after all. But still, in what American rink can you
skate into the bar lane to get hot chocolate?)
Shortly after that, Elizabeth started complaining that she was tired and
her feet hurt. We got off the ice at
about 1:45, said goodbye to our friends, and left by 2:00. We could have made our flute lesson after
all! Well, not really, as you soon shall
see.
We were hungry and there was nothing gluten-free at the rink
so we decided to go to a café we had been to before and liked just around the
corner. We went in and got the last
table. I ordered the cheeseburger for
Elizabeth without the bun. The waiter
said he couldn’t do that. He couldn’t
take the bread off of the burger. This
is the typical occurrence I was referring to about things being “impossible” in
France. So I ordered the “steak haché”
(plain hamburger patty on a plate) on the kids menu and asked for a supplement
(to pay extra) of cheese on the burger. This
often works, but again, the waiter said he couldn’t add cheese to the steak
haché, even if I paid extra. It was “impossible.” Elizabeth said she refused to eat a burger
without cheese. I asked if they served
omelets. Elizabeth cried out that she
didn’t want an omelet while the waiter said “yes” and that he’d be right back
with another menu. John said he didn’t
want to eat there if they wouldn’t give Elizabeth a cheeseburger with no
bun. Are we having fun yet?
I was very hungry and didn’t want to search for another
place to eat in an area that didn’t have much, and I had a workout at 5:00 I
had to get to, so I forged ahead. I
asked Elizabeth if she would please be flexible and eat an omelet today. She agreed to, “but just a little.” The waiter brought the “snack” menu, which
had omelets on it. John said he was
going to order the cheapest thing on the menu—a cheese sandwich—to not give
them much business because the waiter had been unhelpful. I ordered two omelets and a plate of fries
for Elizabeth and me to share. The food
came, piece meal, with John’s sandwich first, then the fries, then the
omelets. It took forever. John wolfed down his sandwich and asked to
share the fries. Elizabeth said
“no.” I didn’t argue, even though it was
exceptionally rude, because he had ordered a small sandwich out of spite and I
thought he should live with his decision—and I was hungry. Elizabeth and I finished the fries. And then we began the long process of trying
to get the waiter’s attention to pay the bill…
We got out of there at around 4:00 and went to the
metro. We went along Champs-Elysées,
which was mobbed to beyond capacity because of the Christmas market. We literally couldn’t even walk because there
were so many people. John went off to do
some Christmas shopping. Elizabeth and I
managed to wedge ourselves forward half a block and then I found a path through
the park behind the market that took us to another sidewalk to the metro
station. We got to the entrance to the
station and had to wait in a long line just to get to the stairs to descend to
the station. It was so crowded with
people we could barely move. As we got
to the platform, a train was there but it was full so we had to wait for the
next one. It was only 2 minutes, so we
felt lucky. But in those two minutes,
the platform filled up again and Elizabeth and I were so squished on the subway
that we were literally held up by the people around us and I had to hold onto
her shoulders to open up a space for her to breathe. (I feel sorry for kids on crowded
subways!) We made it home just in time
for my workout at 5:00. Hallelujah!
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