Pretty Lil Momma : Have Baby will Travel

My husband surprised me this year with a spontaneity that I never knew he had in him. Every year, in the fall, we celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. A time where our whole church comes together from all over the world and dwell together for 7 days. During this time, we pick a location of a list of places it will be held and stay there with Gods people and praise and worship HIM. Most people compare this time to a convention or a retreat. But to us, it's so much more than just that! It's a time set apart that God commands of us and it's a time of fellowship, food, laughter, and fun. The surprise my husband surprised me with was that we were going to France this year. France!

This has always been a country I've always wanted to travel to. I couldn't ever imagine being able to afford going. But God blessed us this year in so many ways, he made our dreams come true. It was quite difficult for me to imagine an 8 hour flight with our 16 month old. But she was older now and I knew it wouldn't be as hard as traveling with a baby that was younger. So this was the time to do it. If we waited any longer, we'd have to pay for a third ticket.

I wanted to blog about my traveling experiences with my little one and share my thoughts on my trip. First things first, I must say, the easiest way to travel on a long international flight is to travel overnight. My little girl stayed asleep as if she was sleeping in her own crib back at home. It was amazing. Not a peep from her. My fear was being that "mom with the baby that kept screaming" and being a hindrance to other passengers on the plane. But Juli proved both me and probably all other passengers wrong. It's a completely different story when traveling back home though. This flight was in the morning. She slept through the connecting flight, but the flight returning to America, she was up and starting to get fussy towards the end. Can you blame her though? I was getting fussy too! Who ever said international airlines are spacious and more comfortable, obviously never had to travel with a baby on their lap and a plane full to capacity. I felt like I was going to snap and just jump off the plane at one point!

Besides the plane ride experience, my experiences in another country was an exhilarating one. Exactly what you think you'd expect from being in another country is what it's like. We had the first 24hours of jet lag and trying to reset our minds on a different time zone. So once that was over, we were good.

My husband rented a car against everyone's warning of not driving in France. He's a brave man. Especially when they gave us a manual to drive and he hadn't driven one in forever. When we pulled out the airport, we took a deep breath and said a prayer to get us through this next week alive. I had a huge culture shock when it finally dawned on me that we were not in America anymore. From the main language to street signs, English was the foreign language here. The only thing I knew how to say in French was hello and goodbye. This would be an interesting week.

It actually turned out to not be so bad. My husband knew a little more French then I did so we were able to communicate a little with some French people. Thankfully, we met some people who knew a little English. It was a big revelation to me when I realized that this language barrier is what so many foreigners in America must go through. Lets face it, the English language is a tough one to learn. We Americans sometimes don't even know all the rules! I built a better understanding and grew more compassion for those that don't understand. It helped to realize that communication is a huge ordeal. Especially in my line of work where I come across so many different cultures. It's important to get an understanding of the other person. No matter how you try to.

I ended up downloading all the street signs in Europe so we knew what the signs mean. Its funny, some of the signs had pictures on them illustrating what they meant just in case you didn't speak French. Well done, France, well done.

Driving in France didn't seem as crazy as everyone was warning us of. The only thing I'd say was crazy was that French people SPEED! And we found out early that the middle lane is ONLY for passing. No coasting. Throughout our week, we drove to different towns to explore. And besides getting lost a couple of times and our lovely GPS losing signal, we made it around pretty good.

Mostly all the towns we've visited were what I expected France to look like. A lot of older buildings from like the medieval times. It was very historical and beautiful. I took a lot of pictures. Its a huge difference from Paris. Paris definitely is a lot more modern. What we quickly found out on just our 2nd day was that apart of French culture is that everything closes down at 7pm. And everything takes an afternoon break between 12 and 2. Being from America where nothing seems to ever close down, this was hard for us to get used to. I definitely understand where France is coming from though. Closing at 7pm allows for people to be home with their families at a decent hour. It's definitely something American culture has lost along its way. Family time has been overshadowed by work. I learned that "Family" means a lot in French custom. Their meal times last 2 hours long. Another thing we had to get accustomed to. Juli couldn't sit still in her high chair for that long. But they like to serve their food with each course, one at a time. With a huge time lapse in between, serving cheese as a dessert after the entrée and wine with every meal was another thing I wasn't aware of with French culture. The food was exquisite and I can say now that I have eaten French food and tried French cheese. Not bad at all. During the meal times, I kept telling myself, "Why rush?" America has programmed it in our brains to rush. We seriously do live in a rushing and busy body like society. Take it easy people. Enjoy your food.

The Town of Chauvigny

We spent a day in Paris trying to explore everything we ever wanted to see. Not realizing that the Palace of Versaille isn't even in Paris, we stopped there first and toured this massively huge mansion. Even if I hit the lotto, I couldn't see myself living in a place this huge. I don't find it homelike. But that's just me. We spent so much time there trying to see everything, we were running out of time to tour Paris. So after 4 hours, we left and said we will definitely have to come back another time. Especially to see all of Paris. We did manage to make it to the Eiffel Tower. The lines were so long for everything, we just added that to our list of things to see when we returned. We'd definitely come back for an anniversary getaway someday in the near future!

Here's some trips of our exploration of Paris!: