The Goodale's Take Paris - The First 48

Shortly after BLC, I found myself packing for Paris.  This is ordinarily something I would be thrilled about doing, but while I was throwing up with morning sickness that seemed to still be worsening by the day, the very last thing in the world that sounded like fun was getting on a flight to cross the Atlantic with a sub-two year old in tow.  All the same, this was a very important trip that Justin's mother had been planning for...decades really.  She served a mission in Paris, and has always wanted to take her family back to see her mission.  This was her window of opportunity, and the tickets had been purchased some time earlier.  Backing out wasn't even an option, and trust me, there were moments during preparation when I would have given away my ticket with a grateful smile.

Ordinarily, I avoid all medications while pregnant, but in this scenario I felt that I didn't have much of a choice.  So, armed with a prescription of medication that seemed to work in so far as I didn't throw up anymore, with the undesirable side effect of feeling kind of crabby and tired all the time, we joined Justin's family for the long-awaited international Goodale family vacation.

The first flight was a shortish one from Salt Lake to Chicago, and to be honest, I remember nothing from that portion of the trip other than the walk through the airport from one gate to the other that probably wasn't that long, but at the time felt neverending.  I also remember trying to feed Vivian a cornbread muffin.  She crumbled the entire thing in one big heap on the floor at our gate while I wasn't looking.  It was rather embarrassing, but kind of too late to address once I came to my senses and realized what she'd been doing.  Next up was the dreaded overnight flight to London.  My in-laws were upgraded to business class, and mercifully volunteered to take Vivian with them.  I can't overstate how grateful I was for those couple of hours of sleep I got on that flight while Vivian seemed to acquire a full night's rest on her grandmother's lap.  The family landed in London, and I think it's fair to say that it looked as though sleep had alluded everyone...except Vivian, of course.

A flattering photo of us emerging from customs

From the airport we embarked on a bit of a drive-by tour of London.  It was a private tour for the family which was great, since it catered to our tight six-hour layover.  We all loaded onto a shuttle bus, and proceeded to cruise about downtown London.  I didn't take a single picture.  It's not that I haven't always wanted to see London, or that the things we saw weren't interesting, it's that my primary focus was on not throwing up on the streets of London, and not passing out from exhaustion every time we disembarked at another landmark site.  (I did manage some video, but it's not interesting enough to warrant uploading here) So I've stolen this photo from my father-in-law:

Outside of Buckingham Palace.  I'd be lying if I said that I didn't know I was partially obscured from view when this was taken.  I simply did not care at that point in time.

The tour ended with a stop at a fish and chips restaurant where our tour guide claimed that the fish and chips were as authentic as they get.  I probably would have enjoyed that meal under any other circumstances.  I consider it nothing short of a miracle that I was able to eat anything, and keep it all down.  Honestly, I can't think of a time in my life when I've felt worse.  London was great, morning sickness in London on two hours of sleep, and then drugged up with medication that didn't really seem to do anything at that point but add to the overall sense of exhaustion, was kind of my personal hell.  I hope some day that I'll get a chance to go back, and do the place justice, and I can't say I'm sorry that I got to see what I did, I just didn't enjoy it at the time.  After lunch we returned to the airport where I insisted that Justin and I leave the rest of the family standing around waiting for some members of our party to use the bathroom, and rush us through security, so that I could collapse on a bench and spend as much time seated as possible.

The flight from Paris to London was short, it felt long to me.  At that point I had started to suspect that I would not survive this portion of the trip.  I became more convinced when we stopped for dinner at a McDonald's where they made you order everything on a touchscreen computer terminal, which takes forever.  Then there was a hang up at the rental car counter which seemed to take forever for the in-laws to get it all sorted out.  The carseat that we rented for Vivian was kind of a joke.  I was pretty much convinced the entire trip that if there was an accident that it would do next to nothing to protect her.  I prayed every day that we were there that we wouldn't have to find out whether or not I was right.  At long last as we were now approaching almost 48 solid hours of travel time, with my temper on a bit of a hare trigger (naturally directed primarily at Justin, probably because other people were too scared to interact with me, or perhaps too tired) everyone was finally loaded into the two rented vehicles.  Justin was at the wheel of a small car with myself, Vivian, and two of his brothers as his passengers.  The rest of the family was filling the 12-passenger van that my father-in-law was preparing to drive.  He was still in park, and trying to familiarize himself with the European style controls when another car careened around the corner, stopped, reversed and slowly eased backwards to within an inch of or so of the van's bumper before a man suddenly jumped out, inspected a dent on his bumper, and then started shouting in French at my father-in-law, who was still just sitting there in park.  The whole incident was ridiculous, but under the circumstances felt very upsetting.  My mother-in-law was forced to return the rental car desk for assistance.  It did become obvious very quickly that the other driver was a bit of a scam artist.  Particularly when the paint on his car proved to be a different color than the van.  The rental car people dismissed us for the hour or so drive to a farmhouse where we checked in and kind of collapsed in bed without further incident.