Paris Part I – Frappé La Rue

Preface: When my Dad first got together with Michelle, he worked really hard at improving his French. Michelle is French Canadian and so Dad really wanted to improve for when he went home to meet her family. Through hard work and perseverance my Dad’s French improved dramatically, and now he is pretty darn good. However, when learning any language, there are times when a common phrase just doesn’t translate. The title of this post is born from just such an instance.

We were heading out on the long trip to Quebec to see Michelle’s family. Everyone had used the washroom, double checked that they had everything and was safely belted into the car. My Dad looked back at all us kids and said,

“Ready? Alright! Let’s frappé la rue!”

His declaration was met with blank stares and then a burst of laughter from the French speakers in the car. See, “frappé” could translate to “hit”, and “la rue” to “the road”. So my Dad thought he was saying, “Let’s hit the road!”…

Ever heard the saying “Lost in Translation”? Yup…

That day an inside joke was born. So that whenever we are about to embark on a trip as a family, someone will announce, “Alright, let’s frappé la rue!”

Therefore, it is only appropriate that I start this post with the same declaration. Because, “frappé la rue” is exactly what we did. On Friday at noon we picked Michelle up from work, made a quick stop at home and then hit the road, direction Paris.

See, the signs we whizzed by on the high speed European highways confirmed it…



All in all the drive went very smoothly. My pint sized travelling superstar did amazingly.



Four hours on the road, including a traffic-jam right at the end as we drove into the Paris city center, and still smiling! My Dad declared that Madeline was welcome to travel with him anytime. She didn’t start to fuss until the very end, when quite frankly, we were all ready to start whining and crying.

After fighting our way through the CRAZY Parisian traffic, I mean honestly the traffic was terrifying at times, we arrived at our hotel.



The New Hotel.

Umm…. I can’t say it was new, or really anything close to new, but the location was IDEAL. Here is the view from our room.





This is Gare du Nord. One of the main metro/train stations in Paris. So it was a piece of cake to get to our desired locations all weekend.

Well, mostly a piece of cake.

Oh, what the hell. I know my siblings are reading this and shaking their heads. You guys know full well we got lost more then once. It’s not a family vacation unless we get lost!

I’ll be sure to fill you in with the complete details of that adventure and our first day in Paris in my next post.

Enjoying every minute!

Mandy:)