Spring break and blogging hiatus over! In the next few posts, I will recount our trip to Barcelona and Paris, complete with more pictures than anyone but us wants to see, and publish our newly revised packing post, but, for now, a few overall observations to get us going:
1. Airbnb is AWESOME!!! Our two apartments were perfection and together cost us less than half the nights in one hotel room would have and instead we had kitchens, living rooms, washing machines, separate spaces for the kids, fantastic locations right in the heart of both cities, neighborhood bakeries steps away, and hosts who waited for us even when our plane was delayed. When I knew we were going to get in late, I was worried for a while about putting someone out and realized that is the one difference between hotels and Airbnb: in the first place, you just call the front desk and tell them what's going on, and in the second place, it's someone who doesn't do this for a living you're dealing with, which felt a bit odd. But when we arrived, our first host's friend, who had been assigned to greet us, couldn't have been nicer and wasn't bothered by our lateness in the least! And the space! I would trade just about anything for that kind of space!
2. We need to prep our kids a bit more for museum trips. They were troopers and really managed to stay interested much longer than I thought given how little we had prepped them for some of our outings, but I think if we had been more explicit about what we were going to be doing and when and emphasized the fact that all museum trips were followed by park/playground adventures in the afternoons, we would have gotten more cooperation out of them over the long haul. Our bad!
3. I've said it before and I will say it again, never, EVER leave without copious ziplock bags! I brought some but then hid them in our luggage so smoothly I didn't discover them until the last day, so I first had to borrow some from our Barcelona apartment and then had to break down and buy a box from Monoprix in Paris so I wouldn't go insane without them. When packing your own lunches for on-the-go budget eating in an expensive city, plastic bags are essential! (I ended up leaving the unused half a box for the next visitors--you're welcome!)
4. Paris is wonderful, but Barcelona is more my kind of town. After about a day there, the husband was ready to move back after retirement, and he doesn't even speak Spanish! Fabuloso!
5. Note to self: coming back home at 9:00pm and then having to get your kids up at 5:30am for school the very next day is not such a good idea....oops!
1. Airbnb is AWESOME!!! Our two apartments were perfection and together cost us less than half the nights in one hotel room would have and instead we had kitchens, living rooms, washing machines, separate spaces for the kids, fantastic locations right in the heart of both cities, neighborhood bakeries steps away, and hosts who waited for us even when our plane was delayed. When I knew we were going to get in late, I was worried for a while about putting someone out and realized that is the one difference between hotels and Airbnb: in the first place, you just call the front desk and tell them what's going on, and in the second place, it's someone who doesn't do this for a living you're dealing with, which felt a bit odd. But when we arrived, our first host's friend, who had been assigned to greet us, couldn't have been nicer and wasn't bothered by our lateness in the least! And the space! I would trade just about anything for that kind of space!
2. We need to prep our kids a bit more for museum trips. They were troopers and really managed to stay interested much longer than I thought given how little we had prepped them for some of our outings, but I think if we had been more explicit about what we were going to be doing and when and emphasized the fact that all museum trips were followed by park/playground adventures in the afternoons, we would have gotten more cooperation out of them over the long haul. Our bad!
3. I've said it before and I will say it again, never, EVER leave without copious ziplock bags! I brought some but then hid them in our luggage so smoothly I didn't discover them until the last day, so I first had to borrow some from our Barcelona apartment and then had to break down and buy a box from Monoprix in Paris so I wouldn't go insane without them. When packing your own lunches for on-the-go budget eating in an expensive city, plastic bags are essential! (I ended up leaving the unused half a box for the next visitors--you're welcome!)
4. Paris is wonderful, but Barcelona is more my kind of town. After about a day there, the husband was ready to move back after retirement, and he doesn't even speak Spanish! Fabuloso!
5. Note to self: coming back home at 9:00pm and then having to get your kids up at 5:30am for school the very next day is not such a good idea....oops!
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