The week before Bastille Day was the worst week I’ve had in France. Chris was in the US for a conference and of course Lilah decided to get her first virus while he was gone… either Hand Foot Mouth or Roseola – the verdict is still out. After temperatures of 102+ and blisters on her butt for 3 days, she broke out in a full body rash for another 3 days. Meanwhile, it was pouring down rain every day so we were cooped up inside. I wasn’t looking forward to single-parenting for the 9 days he was gone to begin with, but adding a sick baby to the situation was really hard. I have so much respect for single parents, it is incredibly difficult to make decisions about your kid’s health on your own, know when to call the doctor and when you’re just being a worried mom, comfort a sick baby alone while you are exhausted, and still remember to eat, feed the kid, and not pull every strand of your hair out.
Anyway, that week sucked. The only light at the end of the tunnel was knowing that Monday July 14th was going to be awesome. Chris got home from his conference, and our great friends Jamie and Ryan, and new great friends Richard and Julie arrived in Paris for a week. And it was Bastille Day, so we had big plans to celebrate together. And the sun decided to come out for the first time in a week. Happiness!
Bastille Day was great. We spent the afternoon walking from Jamie and Ryan’s airbnb to the Champ De Mars park at the Eiffel Tower, stopping for breakfast, some afternoon wine, and slowly picking up stuff for our dinner picnic. I read that if you want a good spot to see the fireworks it’s best to get to the park early, so we arrived with all of our picnic stuff around 5:30pm. It was crowded but easy for us to find a big spot for all 7 of us, and good we arrived when we did because our nice spot was slowly encroached upon and got smaller and smaller as the crowd grew. We estimated there were around 250,000 people at the park by the time fireworks started.
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| The crowd thickens |
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| Lilah and her pal Ryan |
The only downside of the day was getting home. All of the trains to Versailles had stopped running, so after walking to 4 different metro stops to try different ways to get home, we waited for the ‘late bus’ for an hour which was full by the time it came to our stop, so we ended up sharing a taxi home with a grandpa and his granddaughter who were celebrating her 10th birthday. We got home around 2:30am which officially marks our latest night out in Paris.
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