We landed safely in Paris, and discovered, much to our surprise that we didn't need to ride a bus from the plane to the terminal building. Instead we were able to actually walk from the plane directly into the building. Off we went to passport control, where we got in line and watched the people with European Union passports go flying past. We were behind a large group of Africans (tourists or immigrants, I'm not sure which) and the passport people were taking forever to screen their passports. Eventually we reached the official, who checked our passports and let us through.
The next step was to find our luggage carrousel and wait. And wait and wait. At last one of our bags came through, and shortly afterward the "no more bags" sign started flashing. So we were short one large bag, one carseat, and two boosters. Well, there was nothing to do for it but go stand in the line for people who were missing luggage. After all, we had been on 3 flights on 2 airlines involving 4 airports and 3 countries. It was hardly shocking that something would have been misplaced. Once we had cleared about half of the waiting line, the light on top of the carrousel began to flash again, and we rushed over to check what might be coming off. Our carseat and booster seats showed up and we pulled them off, but though we waited for another 10 minutes our second bag never showed up. Back to the line, which was somewhat shorter at this point. Blaise filled out the paperwork while I attempted to entertain the kids, something I don't do particularly well when tired.
Then we loaded up our luggage cart (free, at least in the international terminals, in Paris) and headed out the door to the train station. We were pleasantly surprised to discover that this time the train station entrance was basically right where we were. (Last time we had to walk a really, really long way to get to the trains.) We dragged our stuff down the escalators. I took Cherry and the bag. Blaise took the carseat. Sapphire and Ezio each carried their own booster seat. And of course we all had carry ons. We took the train to the Gard du Nord, and transfered to the Metro. On the way we noticed a bakery shop, and stopped to grab some pains aux chocolats.
We took the metro a few stops, then unloaded. I needed to take Cherry with me to go pay the second half of the rent for the apartment we were living in for our first few days in France, and to pick up the key and the passcode to the building. Blaise and the big kids stayed in the train station with all of our luggage, because it turned out that we needed to get a different train from the same station to get to our apartment. That way we didn't have to worry about dragging the luggage the 3 blocks to the rental office.
Cherry and I found the office successfully, though not without a few mishaps, and I dutifully put my money into the lockbox and removed my key. We then headed back out to the Metro station, where I had to buy a ticket (actually, I bought 10 of them because it's cheaper that way) in order to get back into the train station. By the time I got back, Sapphire and Ezio were both panicking about how long I'd been gone, and convinced that I'd gotten lost somehow. We grabbed our luggage and dragged it to the platform for our departing train. By now we were approaching rush hour, and the trains were beginning to get crowded. Somehow, Cherry and I, with the big duffle bag, managed to get on a different train than Blaise and the big kids and the rest of the luggage. To make matters worse, Blaise wasn't completely sure where to get off, and I had told him we only needed to ride a couple of stops. (It was more like 10.) Cherry and I got off at the proper stop, and tried to stay right where we were, hoping that at least they would be able to see us when the next train pulled in. Fortunately, they were on it, and saw us, and promptly gave me a 3 person scolding for providing Blaise with incomplete information and getting on a different train. (Honestly, given the amount of luggage we had, I'm not sure we could all have managed to get on the same train.)
We hoisted our luggage up the steps, and began the miserable trek to the apartment. By the time we'd gone halfway we'd stopped to rest at least thrice, and were beginning to wish that the airline had managed to lose all of the luggage. We found the building at last, and discovered upon entry that in order to get to our apartment we would have to drag our luggage up an incredibly steep and very narrow set of stairs to a tiny platform that was made smaller by the child's potty sitting on it. I went up alone and opened the door. Then everyone else followed, one at a time, so that if someone fell down the stairs at least they wouldn't knock over all of the people around them.
Once we had settled in a bit, and Blaise had gotten the wireless router running, I headed out to the supermarket and picked up something for dinner. Afterwards, we visited a playground around the corner for a bit, then headed home and to bed.
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