A ROUGH START

The day has arrived and the 4 Myrah grandchildren showed up in Sunnyvale with their passports and 3 even had their pouches.  Grandpa is adamant about the kids carrying their passports in their neck pouches and Grandma Pauline gave each kid a nice one with their name embroidered on it.  

We checked our flight status on the computer and found that it was an hour late, so Gary had to wait around some extra time before taking us to the airport.  Even with the added wait we still had quite a bit of wait time at the airport, but we wanted to allow plenty of time for check in because there was some confusion over our ticket arrangements.  They sent us two confirmation codes and every time Grandpa called to get seat assignments the clerk got the reservations confused.  We kept telling them to cancel one of the set of reservations, but they would tell us it was the travel agency's mistake and the travel agency would tell us it was the airline's mistake.

Anyway, there was no problem at all checking in and so we waited and waited in the staging area and finally they boarded out flight.  The airplane was an Airbus A380, a really big plane, that holds 516 passengers, so it took some time to load.  

Once we got on the plane they announced that they had a small mechanical problem and so we had to  wait on the plane for another hour while they fixed it.  They gave us the option of getting off and rescheduling, but we didn't because it would have impacted out touring plans.

Once the plane took off everything went great.  We each had a screen and we could choose what movies and tv programs we wanted to watch.  They served dinner and then turned out the lights and we all fell asleep.  Brendan slept the best, a solid 5 hours.  Grandpa slept pretty good too.  Ryan and Isabella slept fitfully and GG got a few hours in.  

Before we knew it they were turning on the lights and serving breakfast and we watched another movie and then we were over Ireland, England, and then France.  We could see a view of the land  from the airplane cameras and France looked just like America to us.

We had a smooth landing and our processing through customs was smooth and then we were out into the main airport looking for the Delamares.  Grandpa found them, two very nice people, and they took us in two cars through the streets of Paris and on to their apartment on the Rue de la Tombe Issoire.

Our apartment is large by Parisian standards, with three bedrooms and a nice big dining room, two bathrooms and a living room.  The kitchen is smaller than a walk-in closet, though.  So the Delamares showed us around and told us the secrets to getting in the doors, and getting hot water, and where to put the garbage, and then they were off to their vacation  home in Normandy and we were alone in our apartment.

Some of us were a bit grumpy, due to jet lag and lack of sleep, and we were tempted to take a nap, but GG, the slave driver, would not let us and she led us out, along with Grandpa, to explore the neighborhood and find the grocery store.  She kept telling us it was good to be out in the sunshine and staying awake until 8pm, but we were dubious.

We finally went back to the apartment, took our showers and brushed out teeth, and we were out like lights by 8:30.