Bethany’s birthday in Hilversum, Netherlands started at 6:30 A.M. and ended around 11:30PM in Paris, France. In between was a lot.
We first boarded a train to Amsterdam. A city with many tight alleyways, old beautiful building, a rich history and a lot of trash. Though, that could have just been the area we were in, near the main train station after probably a long Friday night. But yeah, there was a lot of trash, Spencer commented on it many times.
The highlights for me were :
- The arcitechture, Bethany had some fun facts about the canal and building history.
- Visiting Anne Franks house. The opportunity to speak to Adah about what this girl did to save the lives of many. We also talked about how she is a reminder that even God can use a simple person can do amazing things.
- The kids playground. I love seeing the girls let loose and find fun and creative ways to play. It was also a nice break from all the crowds everywhere.
We were told by many that the canal rides in Amsterdam were not to be missed, unfortunately we did miss them as timelines were too tight. I would give Amsterdam a rating but I don’t think 3 hours is enough to give it a fair shake.
We then boarded the train to Paris. I closed my eyes on this section but never felt like I slept. Perhaps I did but I’m honestly not sure. On the train Spencer began slipping notes to two older girls through the chairs. This extroverted activity eventually budded into a very nice train friendship between her, the girls and Bethany and their mom. They were from Phoenix, AZ but moving to South of France for work. All in all an easy breezy trip to arrive at Paris Gare Du Nord station.
Upon arrival however we hit roadblock, after roadblock after barrage routier.
To exit the station we just arrived in we needed a ticket to open the gates. Great, let’s go to a ticket machine. Whoops ticket machines are not showing any available tickets for our destination. Okay let’s try a different machine that covers different zones. Only accepts cash. No problem where is a cash machine? Across the street from the train station…. Not ideal. So we arrive and we are stuck.
A man is running from place to place helping wayward passengers try to manage the not working machine. He asks if we are stuck I say yes, he asks where we want to go, I tell him, he pulls it up on the machine, shows me the cost to Gare De Lyon 33 Euro and says he can help me get cash from the cash machine. In all fairness it seemed shady (and it was) but what he was offering me was a way out of the area I was trapped in to ticket machines that didn’t only take cash. I followed him out down multiple halls, up escalators until I saw a ticket / information window with official personal posted up. He started walking me towards exit of the station and as he walked out, I turned around, took off my hat, jacket and glasses and walked back to the ticket booth to get help. I freakin Bourne Identitied that dude. A worker quickly helped me purchase 4 metro passes to Gare De Lyon for 8.3 Euro, I went back to Bethany and we walked to our train. Attempted scammer pickup in the first 7 minutes of arriving in France…. Nice.
We made our way to Gare De Lyon where we planned to drop our bags in a luggage locker so we could spend a few hours wandering the city, visiting stores, sitting on the lawn by the Eiffel Tower. This is where things started falling a part. The lockers only took cash, we don’t have cash and as I mentioned before the cash machines were across the street though no one could agree as to where across the street. Not helpful. By this time it was 7:00PM on Bethany’s birthday, we hadn’t done any of the things we wanted to and our AirBNB was an hour a way.
We decided, potentially against our better judgement, to make a B-Line or rather then M-line for the Eiffel Tower. In some ways, it was a mistake, in some ways not.
Our bodies were wasted after a long day of travel. Travel is hard enough when you’re not carrying 34-55 pound bags arounded a croweded city. Adah and I took off our packs and went to find gelato & water while Spencer and Adah setup camp to the side of the tower with a nice view. After we had sat for a moment we thought it a good time to eat since it was now 9:30PM. We moved on to a bustling touristy Cafe around the corner from the Tower. The food was good, environment was frantic and the costs were unreasonable but after the chaos of that day…. Worth it.
The day ended with a moment like so many other sweet moments that have passed and many that will likely come. Our girls playing at a small park under the glow the of the Eiffel tower with children they could not communicate with who understood the commonality of joyful play. There really is something beautiful about Children.
We were done with trains for the day so we took an Uber XL Van and headed towards our Disneyland AirBNB. Time for another early morning.
