Travels with grandma: Paris
When she was 80 and I was 25, my grandmother invited me to Paris and London with her. I think she preferred traveling alone, as she had done for many decades, but age was finally limiting her abilities, and she wanted me to drive us into the English countryside.
My grandmother loved to travel, and could afford to by being very frugal. Orphaned by the Spanish Flu, she tracked every penny she spent after coming of age during the Great Depression. She worked as a bookkeeper most of her adult life as a single woman, scrimping and saving so she could vacation in places like Russia and China. She first went to Paris at age 56, obtaining a student visa so she could live there for six months while learning French.
Like most trips, the journey we took together in 1995 was both amazing and awful, creating my favorite memories of her: us collapsing in laughter after battling our way on and off crowded buses during a transportation strike in Paris, us collapsing in laughter again after misinterpreting the warning sign “Weak bridge” as the name of the span, and her looking at me mournfully over yet another stack of white toast for breakfast at our hotel in London and saying, “Let’s go to Mcdonald’s and get Egg Mcmuffins!”
But even better than my memories are the journals we both kept during our trip:
TUESDAY, DEC. 12, 1995 MY GRANDMOTHER’S ENTRY >>
Overnight on plane, arrived 2:25 p.m. at gate.
Walked to hotel, we stopped for coffee. Got there 6:30 p.m.
Philippe there, did not ask for money.
Rested 1/2 hour, walked. Justine liked the view from the window.
MY JOURNAL ENTRY >>
“I think the first night was the worst. We got off the plane in Paris, dragged all our luggage thru the airport and found an Air France bus that dropped us off in the freezing cold at Mont
parnasse, and then began our trek to the hotel. But I had to pee like mad, so we found a toilet first, and there I met my first Turkish toilet: basically a f—king hole in the ground.
I had a long overdue pad (with no wastebasket to put it in) and hovered there, trying to keep pee off my underwear, shoes and everything else. It was not looking good.
Then we dragged the bags through the streets, grandma at a snail’s pace, my arms falling off and the sidewalks barely wide enough, with a steady stream of people rushing in front and behind; wet streets, cars rushing by, it was hell.
Every corner my suitcase tipped over and we were the conversation piece and annoyance for everyone for eight blocks. Halfway there, we stopped at a cafe and squeezed, I mean squeezed, ourselves inside. We were all bulky jackets and sweaters and scarves and gloves and huge bags cramming past the people at the bar and dragging our bags up the steps to these tables built for dolls.
Finally, we got to the hotel, and I sat up on the table at the window, put my legs on the radiator and ate my first baguette in Paris, watching the endless stream of lights and traffic below.”
WEDNESDAY, DEC. 13, 1995 GRANDMA’S JOURNAL ENTRY >>
Up three times, cold. Breakfast here.
To Seine, looked for boats, found to Bercy. Could not go back, waited 35 mins for another.
To Eiffel Tower, ate at restaurant: Poulet, frites, coffee, 150 francs.
Walked, took bus. Held up in St. Germain de Pres.
MY JOURNAL ENTRY >>
“The next day started with good, strong coffee and steamed milk made for us downstairs by a woman at the hotel, plus a baguette and croissant she
just bought at a bakery. Then my camera broke after three pictures; I tried and tried to fix it, getting more and more frustrated and depressed.
We heard there were free boat rides because of the strikes, so we set out to find where they were… After walking back and forth from bridge to bridge, over and back, we finally found a stop, missed the right boat and got on one going the other way. It took us all the way to Bercy, then we had to get off because the men were having lunch. We had to go out into the cold, get behind this huge crowd, wait 45 minutes for them to eat lunch, and a new boat to come. Finally, after starting out at 9 a.m., we got to the Eiffel Tower around 2 p.m. But it was beautiful.
We walked across to the Palais de Chaillot, and I ached for my camera. And it was FREEZING! It was windy and incredibly cold, and we stopped for tea and coffee on the way, and luckily the Arc de Triomphe was only a few blocks away. We saw the Arc and all the traffic, very impressive, and caught one of the free buses that drove us right to our hotel, straight
down the Champs Elysees with all the trees lighted — breathtaking — and through the Place de Concorde, with all the lights and statues, really beautiful.”
THURSDAY, DEC. 14, 1995 GRANDMA’S JOURNAL ENTRY >>
Slept very well. Breakfast early.
Found photo store, got two cameras.
Walked to Palais Royal, Justine to Pyramid.
To Marks and Spencer, Justine got body suit. My Visa refused!
Walked across to National Assembly, missed one bus, second full, third we pushed lady in fur coat to get on.*
MY JOURNAL ENTRY >>
“We walked to the Hotel de Ville, going into Notre Dame and looking at the Louvre from the outside. We walked all the way to the Opera House, beautiful, then looked at all of the expensive shops on the way back.
We got to the Place de Concorde again, and as we were crossing the bridge I saw a bus go by and said, ‘I bet that’s ours.’ But we couldn’t make it to the stop in time, so we stood at the corner, and it started to snow again. I have never been so cold in my life.
There were lots of other people waiting, too, and cars would stop and pick people up randomly.
One bus stopped and only picked up four of us, so when another came, we got brutal. Grandma just plowed on, so I had to really push to get on or I would have been left there alone.
We were all packed on the bus like sardines; the woman behind me was holding onto my parka. It got dreadfully hot and I felt sick and claustrophobic; the windows were all steamed and you could not see out.
Then more and more people got on and sometimes the bus would barely move, the traffic just crawling, and finally when we got to our stop, it was impossible to get off!
No one else was getting off, but more people were squeezing on, and I pushed, and got stuck between a man and a round woman — I literally could not move.
But I pushed and pushed and finally popped out, my stuff all squished and twisted, and grandma slowly squeezed out, and we collapsed into the hotel lobby, laughing so hard we had to sit down in the chairs.
Every night in Paris I slept like a baby, falling asleep almost instantly, couldn’t read one page.”