I left home at 12:30 PST on Wednesday to catch my 3:30 flight. I slept all of 20 minutes on the flight, and had a huge headache most of the time. The landing was a little rough, and one of the panels that hold the oxygen masks actually fell off when the wheels hit the ground. Scared the crap out of most of us. I arrived at Charles De Gaulle airport at 11am French time (2am PST), went through passport control and met my friend, Gaelle. We went to her apartment, picked up her fiancé, Adrien, and went out to lunch. We had delicious crepes and then went shopping so I could buy a few souvenirs. We made it to Gaelle's parents house around 4pm (7am PST), made a cake out of candy for the wedding, and then I headed to bed at 7 (10am PST).
Day 1 Sleep Count - 20 minutes in 24 hours
The Candy "Cake"
I woke up around 11pm (4pm PST), stayed awake for about an hour, and then fell back asleep until 4am (7pm PST). I watched videos, got on Facebook, and read a book. I finally got out of bed, dressed and went downstairs at 9am (Midnight PST). Around 11am (2am PST), I took a two hour nap. At 1pm (4am), we went to the reception hall to decorate. We worked until 10pm (1pm PST), went home, had dinner, did manicures and finally went to bed around 1am (4pm PST). I slept until 5am (8pm PST), woke up for around 3 hours, and then went back to bed until 12:30pm (3:30 am). Then it was off to the wedding.
Day 2 Sleep Count - 9 hours over an 18 hour period
The Reception Hall and Decorations
The wedding started at the town hall in Massy, where Gaelle and Adrien were married by a representative of the city. Then it moved to the Basilica in Longpont-sur-Orge where they were married by a Catholic Priest. Then after a long time of taking pictures in front of the Basilica (which all the guests stayed for), the party moved to the reception hall near Arpajon. I had no watch or phone at this point, so I really have no idea what time these things happened at. We had the cocktail hour for two hours, and the dinner lasted until around midnight. We would be served a course, and then a game of some kind would be played. The next course, and then a slideshow. The next and another game...and so on and so forth. After dessert was served, the dancing started. The French seem to have a choreographed dance to every song. My favorite part of the night was the Gangnam Style conga line. My brain simply could not compute the French people + the Korean song + the Cuban Conga line, but it was hugely entertaining. Around 2am (5pm PST), people turned their clocks back because it was the end of Daylight Savings in France. I left the reception around 3am (7pm PST - France was now only 8 hours ahead of us). I got back the house, packed and finally fell asleep around 4:30am (8:30pm PST). I woke up at 7:30am (11:30pm PST) to be ready for my 8am (Midnight PST) taxi to the airport.
Day 3 Sleep Count - 3 hours
The area just outside of Paris where I spent my entire trip.
I never once set foot inside the city limits of Paris, but I saw the Eiffel Tower from the freeway.
My flight left France at 11am (3am PST). I slept for about two hours total on the plane, and landed in Seattle just after 1:00pm (9pm in France). The flight was uneventful, we got a great clear view of northern Greenland, and arrived a half hour early. My favorite part was the pilot announcing that we were arriving early and that we should "remember this the next time we're late". It felt like it took forever to get through passport control and customs, and I was finally reunited with my husband and son at 2:00. We spent the rest of the day making a quick visit to a birthday party, grabbing dinner, I took a 20 minute nap to help get me through the rest of the evening, and I ended up going to bed at midnight (8am in France).
Day 4 Sleep Count - 2 hours and 20 minutes in 24 hours.
The Yoda Hat I made for my friend son's Halloween costume.
I had lots of time on my flight to work on it.
I've been trying to recover, but I'm all kinds of messed up time wise. Eventually I will get back on track...and then the time will change on Sunday night...awesome!
I'm happy to be back, but I feel like my to-do list is a mile long...getting caught up on work stuff, house stuff, and general life stuff. I need a vacation after my vacation...but isn't that how it always is? :)
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