France - Getting There, Part 1

The adventure to France begins!

We flew a 7 hour flight Ottawa to Frankfurt followed by a 2 hour hop from Frankfurt to Marseille with two littles – a 3 year old and a 7 month old. Honestly, it couldn't have gone better; they both fell asleep during the beginning of takeoff! Sure, there was some wakefulness mid-flight but nothing some kids' shows and baby bouncing couldn't handle, then they both drifted off again before landing. Heavenly.

Some observations:
It would appear that when you're going to Europe, Air Canada actually feeds you! There was a green bean and cabbage salad, chicken and rice for hubby and pasta with smoky, cheesy tomato sauce and for me, a bread roll, a slice of chocolate cake and – get this – complimentary wine! Two individual bottles each. Talk about a dramatic difference from domestic travel, my goodness.

After dinner, I cuddled up with the complimentary blanket and pillow and watched tv with the complimentary earbuds.

Also, the recent remake of Annie deserves to be watched with a much better sound system than that provided by complimentary earbuds.

Hubs and I each got an hour or two of sleep.

We landed in Frankfurt airport - which we were warned would be crazy -  around 7am local time.

It was crazy, but in a very organized way. We somehow got through customs, security again, and to our gate in time to change into fresh clothes (to give ourselves the illusion of starting a new day, psychology and all) before boarding a bus across the tarmac to our plane.

As if the language barrier wasn't enough, we got our first indications that we weren't in Canada anymore. Near our gate, we passed a glassed-in smoking room (with excellent seals/ventilation/whatnot, I must say) and a coffee shop serving coffees with the option of alcoholic add-ins (coffee and brandy anyone?) or bottles of beer along with assorted pastries.

On the Lufthansa airplane, I was surprised to be handed a small red thing with the friendly comment of “I'm sure you know how to use this” and the stewardess seemed equally surprised to find that I had no idea what she was talking about and that I'd never encountered any such thing flying in Canada! It was a small child's seat belt that attached to my seat belt.

Obviously not my photo. Borrowed from a web search.
No copyright infringement intended,

We were also provided with differently designed life vests for the wee ones in advance (just in case) along with a diaper and a jar of apple baby food for the li'l Velociraptor, as well as some chocolate and Haribo gummies for the li'l Monkey to chew on during takeoff and landing.

Label and ingredients roughly translate at follows:
Milk Pudding - Semolina [and] Fruits
No Added Sugar
After 4 months
Ingredients: Milk Preparation (Milk 35%, Water, Corn Oil),
Fruits (Low-acid Apple Juice from Concentrate, Pear Juice
from Concentrate, Apples, Pears), Wheat Semolina 5%, Rice
Starch, Wholegrain Cereals (1%) (?) (Wheat, Spelt, Oats),
Calcium Carbonate, Vitamin B1, Vitamin A, Vitamin D.
Note: Gluten

Once in the air, we grown-ups were also provided with something to nosh. I had a half sandwich of turkey salami and some sort of quark-remoulade spread which was new to me but tasty - like something between mayo and cream cheese with spices and chopped bell pepper. Hubby had a prepackaged bowl of muesli. Beverages offered included the option of wine. We both had coffee. It was delicious.

Today's language lesson: German.

Erd = earth

Nuss = nut

Beere = berry

Erdnuss = ground/earth nut = peanut (bad)

Erdbeere = ground berry = strawberry! (yum!)

I was also quite proud of myself for riddling out the meaning of a few words, such as sonnenblumenkerne. Any guesses?

Hint: German has a lot of compound words.

We landed in Marseille around 10am local time. 4am to us. Thank goodness for coffee, copious sunlight, and naps!