Adopted

Chapter 80

We traveled with Dad until they went to Rome, and after the Rome show, Mom and I were heading back to Paris and then London. Just sightseeing, really. Two days in Paris and two days in London.

Dad was playing two nights in Rome, so we were staying in a hotel. Mom and I got up to catch our train, and Dad said goodbye to us. 

The train ride was cool. I loved watching the scenery change as our train traveled through mountains and fields. It was an 11 hour train ride, so we got into Paris in time for bed. From the window of our hotel, I could see the Eiffel Tower, which until now was nothing more than a picture in a book or in a movie.  I was filling my phone with photos of Europe. I must have taken 20 of just the Eiffel Tower. 

"We can go up tomorrow, if you want," Mom said, coming up beside me and looking out the window with me. 

"We can go up the Eiffel Tower?" I asked. 

"Yeah. Do you want to?"

"Sure!" I said. 

"Well, let's get you to bed, and we can get up early, have breakfast and head over. You're going to love Paris," Mom said. 

We both got ready for bed and Mom tucked me into my bed. She sat beside me and told me stories of her first time in Paris and her first time in Paris with Dad. And how happy she was that she was here with me for my first time in Paris.  She gave me a kiss on the head, turned the light out on my bedside and turned a light on on her side so she could read for a while. 

I fell asleep pretty easily. 

When I woke up, Mom was still fast asleep. I got up quietly, brushed my teeth, took my meds and got dressed. It was 7 am. I had no idea what time the Eiffel Tower opened, or when breakfast finished.  I turned on the TV in the room quietly, but I couldn't find anything in English that wasn't news. So I turned on my Switch and played on that for a while. I texted some pictures to Granny and PopPop, and Astrid and Paige.  

"Hey there. I was wondering where you got to," Mom said, coming into the living area. 

"Well, not many places I could go," I winked. 

"Fair enough. I suppose you could have gone to explore the hotel, but you know better than that."

"And I don't speak French. What if I got lost?"

"They do speak English in this hotel, you know."

"Everyone?"

"Mm, well maybe not everyone. But enough people probably would have been able to help you back to the room. And room numbers in French and English are the same. Numerically, anyway. Look, are you hungry?"

"Not starving, but yeah."

"Great. Let's go down to breakfast."

Mom got all our stuff ready and we took our day pack with us down to breakfast.  I looked at the breakfast confused. 

"Where are the pancakes and the waffles and cereals and stuff?" I asked. 

"You're in Europe, sweetheart. Continental breakfasts are very different here. Pastries and cheese, coffee, tea, juice. Sometimes meats."

"Huh," I said, taking a croissant and some jam, and a glass of juice. They also had hot chocolate. I also took some cheese, because, well, it's cheese. 

We ate breakfast, and then went to the concierge and got them to call us a taxi to the Eiffel Tower.  Mom paid for tickets for us to go up and it was so cool.  The first elevator was on an angle and went up one of the 'legs'. The second was a normal elevator up to the observation level.  There was a sort of display I guess, that showed how far it was to different cities around the world. I found LA, and it's 9,080 kilometers. I used my phone to convert it. It's 5,642 miles. 

We went out onto the observation deck outside and looked at Paris spread out all around us. It was amazing. Mom pointed out some points of interest. I took a ton of pictures on my phone. She showed me where the Louvre museum was, and once we got down from the tower we headed there. We followed the crowds through the rooms looking at art. I really wanted to see the Mona Lisa. It was a bit underwhelming, but cool.  

From there we walked up the Champs-Elysees and had lunch at a cafe. I had a salad with chicken and a croissant, and a soup. Mom was joking that I was finally eating like a typical teenager.  Mom  had a sandwich on a croissant with all sorts of weird looking leaves in it. 

We walked around some more and then Mom suggested going back to the hotel for a bit for a rest, and then we'd go back out for dinner. I didn't argue. I was a bit tired and it was cold in Paris. I mean, it's December. 

We went back up to the room and I sat on the couch and flipped channels on the TV. I fell asleep watching a movie. 

Mom woke me up a couple of hours later, and we got ready for dinner. We walked out of the hotel and went to a restaurant Mom knew about from visits with Dad.  It was a nice place. Lots of very French sounding food.  She told me that 'escargot' meant snail. So I did not order that. Everything had a lot of cream sauces. But the food was really good. 

The next morning we got up and had breakfast again, and then went to the Arc de Triomphe and back to the museum near the Eiffel Tower. We went back to the hotel to gather our luggage. We'd checked out, but they held our luggage for us in a luggage room.  We had to catch our train to Calais. Mom had asked if I wanted to take the Chunnel, which is a tunnel under the English Channel, or take the ferry. The thought of being under a ton of water... I chose the ferry. So we'd take a train to Calais, get on the ferry, and then take the train from Dover into London. 

It was a couple of hours from Paris to Calais, but the train ride was smooth and they served lunch. The trip across the English Channel was, well, a ferry ride. It was really cold outside on the water, so I didn't last very long, even though Mom had made sure to get me a really warm hat and gloves and a scarf. And a really warm winter coat. But the wind off the water was freezing! Mom laughed at how 'California' I am. 

The train ride from Dover to London was only about an hour and a half, give or take. We went from countryside to city in almost no time.