So, technically, we were in France today. Okay, it was only me and only for an hour, picking up our leased car from Calais. Still, it's an important part of our trip and, perhaps, it was the most complex to plan (more on this later when I don't have to thumb type).
Here's me doing what you shouldn't: taking a quick snap crossing back into Belgium in our brand-spankin' new Peugeot while cruising at 108. Relax, that's kilometers per hour. The blue "mood lighting" dashboard gives a glimpse of our ride's posh-but-affordable sleekness.
UPDATE:
Booking our U.S. - Turkey plane tickets with a month and a half "stop over" in Europe? No problem. Lining up AirBnB locations throughout Europe? A cinch. Renting a car for 37 days? Not so easy. The details and fine print would make most people's head spin, so here are the cliff notes. If you ever need to rent a car for more than 21 days in Europe (15 days minimum during special promotions), seriously consider Auto Europe's "Buy Back" program. It's a short-term lease program that gives you a new car right out of the factory with full, zero-deductible auto insurance; no extra driver fees; and a few other perks.
The only catch: you have to book the car at least a month out, and once you're within 30 days, there's no turning back - not without incurring a 1000-Euro fee. But when you consider getting full coverage - including collision and theft - through even a reputable car rental place is very expensive, the commitment seems worth it. For example, we priced 37 days with a comparable insurance package, and the cost was about $1,000 more, nearly doubling the cost of leasing through Auto Europe. The other option is to rent the car using a credit card that offers additional insurance - many cards offer this. This wasn't an option for us because they only cover for 30 days.
There is one other catch: If you pick up your Auto Europe car from one of the several locations in France, you're good to go. But if you need the car delivered to another city outside of France - say Brussels, like us - there's a $400 fee associated with picking up and dropping off. So we had to get creative: we booked a car to go pick up the car from Calais and a second car to go drop off the car, ultimately saving us $300 (instead of paying the $400, we would pay the $50 for each of the additional rentals).
First, Aylin and Emilio picked up a stomach bug that had 'em salvo pukin' non-stop for about a day. Our consolation: there are worse places to get stuck than our Cousin Irina's and her husband David's lovely beachfront apartment in De Pannes, Belgium. Deniz and I took turns watching the kids, so we didn't completely miss out.
Second, we got dealt a you-just-can't-win day. The day after picking up our car in Calais, and once the kids were feeling 100 percent better, we decided to venture into downtown Brussels and attempt to revisit the Grand Place and the Manneken Pis - hold the rain this time, s'il vous plait. The sky looked clear as we sat in some traffic and looked for parking. As if on cue, the drizzle began the second we got out of the car. Google Maps decided to lock up on my iPhone. I knew we were so close to the Grand Place, but without knowing which direction to go, and in the rain, it seemed so far. Our rain plan of hitting the Musée de la Ville de Bruxelles (the Museum of the City of Brussels), where the kids enjoyed seeing the Manneken Pis's wardrobe, including an Ecuadorian outfit, would have been perfect until we walked out.
After carefully carrying the stroller down the few stairs from the museum entrance, I proceeded to take what must have been a spectacular, cartoon-like, slip-on-a-banana-peel, ass plant. With stroller in hands. With Emilio in stroller. Not pretty. I lost enough cool points to make it mathematically impossible to recover. Ever.
With the same urgency one might help a fallen senior citizen, onlookers rushed to my aid, as I lay flat on my back with the stroller on top of me in a small pool of rain and shame. With my backside soaked from my waist to my ankles, my immediate thought: Emilio! Apart from being a little rattled, he was fine. Somehow I managed to maintain positive control throughout the tumble.
Beyond Emilio being good to go, the weather held up enough for us to get a family portrait with a backdrop featuring the photographically elusive, 310-foot steeple of the Town Hall Building in the Grand Place. If anyone cares to point out that we missed the five-foot archangel Michael slaying the devil at the very top of the steeple... Following the day we had, we'd like to politely say, "Oh, shut up."
We also got a better shot of the kids with the Manneken Pis.
Third, I had my own maladies to contend with - beyond licking my emotional wounds from the embarrassing fall, of course. I picked up a bug that took me out of service for a day and a half, forcing us to cancel a day trip to Antwerp. This bug featured some great sneezing episodes, one of which rattled my frame just enough to pull my lower back something fierce.
There was one big epiphany (or selective, self-serving rationalization) for me in all of this: If I'm having these health issues and mobility challenges now at 41, can you imagine me at 60? What a mess! Better to scratch this travel business off the bucket list now while I'm still, literally, able to.
Of note: this epiphany applies only to me, as I know some 60 year olds that would run circles around me.
After a few rough days of sickness and falls, we had a good feeling about Bruges. Almost as soon as we got out of our car, it stopped raining.
Without a doubt, Bruges is one of the best cities we've ever visited. Its cobblestone roads and water canals winding through well-preserved buildings dating back hundreds of years fools the senses into thinking you're back in the feudal age. Horse-drawn carriages and the town's cleanliness almost make you feel like your walking down Main Street at Disney. Almost.
If a picture tells a thousand words, here are about 10,000.
Belgium far exceeded our expectations. We knew Brussels and Bruges would not disappoint, but we didn't anticipate the genuine affection we received from essentially perfect strangers - Cousins Mario, Sonia and Irina, and their respective families. They're actually my dad's first cousins - children of my dad's uncle and hero, Tio Pepe - my grandma's younger brother. Apart from one quick brush with Cousin Mario in 2000, I simply knew them by fame: Tio Pepe's successful kids - the pilot, cardiologist, and lawyer - from Belgium. In other words, I didn't know them at all.
They each hosted us for a few days and made us feel immediately at home, as though we've known each other forever. Family unity is a badge of honor in our family, so I suppose I shouldn't have been that surprised. Even so, we never felt even the slightest, expected awkward moment. Beyond that, their respective better halves - Catherine, Georges and David - had no excuse for being so kind to us. In their own way, they each demonstrated their warmth. Catherine's thoughtful gesture of toasting our arrival. Georges going way out of his way to grab a small bag we'd left behind. David offering to have us stay at their beach apartment, so we can pick up our car from nearby Calais. You can tell a lot about a person from those small gestures of kindness.
With this context, it's easy to see how some of my favorite moments in Belgium were low-key, subdued, but memorable, family affairs. Playing a little guitar with Cousin Mario with our daughters Aylin and Laura looking on. Cousin Sonia's enthusiasm to host us in their new pool. We made it to her place just in time to enjoy a poolside beer before the rain came in. She texted us this photo, inviting us over:
Our drive to the beach with Cousin Irina, where she shared the miracle birth of her beautiful, "Petit Sara," and David's hopes of taking his family where the sun shines a little more. And perhaps one of my favorite, favorite little moments was exchanging music recommendations with Cousin Mario and David. Sitting around the computer, pulling up YouTube videos, Mario shared Georges Brassens, David gave us some Leó Ferré, while I countered with Tom Waits - "A Sight for Sore Eyes," if you must know. Our mutual passion for the power of music transcended any language barriers (David speaks mostly French).
In each of my cousins, I also witnessed a hunger - similar to mine - to live in the now. It's never too late to learn a new musical instrument or never too soon to put in the pool before the kids run off to be grown ups or never too crazy to give serious consideration to a wild dream that may set you free. In the end, perfect strangers with similar bloodlines turned out to be kindred spirits.
When leaving Belgium and honoring their music, you can't go wrong with these three vastly different but equally compelling wise men of song - in no particular order: Plastic Bertrand, Arno, Jacques Brel, and Stromae.
And when driving to Paris, can you go with anyone but La Môme Piaf, the Little Sparrow: Édith Giovanna Gassion? Plenty more French music to come, but Edith Piaf is the only way to really start.
Deniz likes to know what she's getting herself into. I prefer the element of surprise. She's pragmatic. I'm idealistic. She likes movie previews. I don't. But we compromise and manage to find a good balance between preparation and spontaneity.
For example, she wanted to know our kids' sex and I didn't. So with Aylin, we didn't find out until her birth. She totally rocked our world by being born a girl - so much for parental instincts. We learned Emilio would be a boy at 11 weeks. Usually, you have to wait until 20 weeks to see the baby bits. We don't intend to tell him this, so it doesn't go to his head.
This marital dynamic of ours played out nicely in Paris. Deniz did her homework, settled on a few must-hit places, and simply turned it over to our college friend, host and tour guide extraordinaire Delphine. She whisked us through our three days with pin-point precision and record-breaking efficiency. She had the timing down to a science - knowing where and when to go up to the bell towers at Notre Dame, take the elevator to the Eiffel Tower summit, or wander the Louvre during the least congested time. Usually, it falls on me to herd the cattle, but with so much to see with such little time in a sprawling city I’d never visited before, I was more than happy to just "moo" along.
By buying us time, Delphine helped us find another balance. We enjoyed Paris’s romantic offerings without neglecting the kids’ needs. For example, we enjoyed the Eiffel’s spectacular night view of its City of Light, but we also made time for the carousel across the street – a far more enjoyable activity for the kids.
It didn't hurt that Delphine lives in Saint Denis, where we were able to leave our car in her building's garage, and walk five minutes to the Metro and be in the heart of Paris within 20 minutes. This saved us time and patience. Like in most big cities, Paris traffic is a bitch.
I spent a better part of the time blissfully disoriented in what has to be one of the greatest walking cities in the world. Although I'm aware of key landmarks and managed to retain a healthy, high-school level of historical context, I purposely don't like to spoil the experience by reading up too much. I rather experience it as it comes. It's partly my Navy submarine background. We used to go down a hatch at homeport. A shake, rattle and roll later, we'd pop up in some port on the other side of the world. And then, we'd go out and embrace the unknown - meandering around town, sometimes drunk - our uniforms weren't the only things ready for a good soaking after weeks of being underway. The excitement of not knowing what's around the next street corner - before Google Maps and smart phones - was enticing and has stuck with me.
This is where Deniz and I differ. For her, getting a preview and knowing more doesn't spoil anything. It enhances your travel experience. It is due diligence. Certainly many of you will see it her way. And you would all be terribly wrong. I’m kidding. Mostly.
For me, the uncertainty of it all is part of the draw. I loved that the Eiffel sort of snuck up on me, as did great looking Parisians - women and men. These people are as ubiquitous as baguettes here. I suppose in the fashion capital of the world, you should expect the occasional, drop-the-sippy cup, high-cheek boned, elegant, well-manicured, model types.
Not all disorientation is welcome, however. We found the Louvre to be a messy maze of staircases - almost out of M.C. Escher's famous "Relativity" lithograph - and confusing signage, especially when piloting a stroller with two highly kinetic enfants. And it seemed most places had two entrances and exits, but everyone was only aware of one.
In the end, we all enjoyed Paris tremendously, if even if at times we stretched the kids' routines to squeeze in some live jazz at Luxembourg Gardens or gave up a little romance to walk up Avenue des Champs-Élysées to the Arce de Triumphe hands-on-stroller instead of hand-in-hand.
Deniz even scheduled a short stop at Boulevard Saint Michel near Université Sorbonne, if only so this idiot can accurately visualize the famed street anytime I listen to Peter Sarstedt's wink-to-Paris lullaby, "Where do you go to, my lovely?"
So, I guess I can - reluctantly - acknowledge that a little planning ain't all bad. Especially, when the planner has your number. Merci, mon amour.
CLICK ON THE PHOTO TO VIEW OUR PARIS PHOTO GALLERY:
