Paris "trip report"

[sarkin]

It's taken me some time to put this trip report together - there's so much to say about Paris, about our families and friends, and about traveling with MC - I'll just have to start somewhere and see where it leads, which is not unlike the approach we took to visiting Paris (knowing we weren't going to get it all done).

Our trip was great, and it was much easier to eat safely than I had feared. (When I say feared... I almost burst into tears when it was time to go to the airport - that's when I realized how apprehensive I'd been throughout the planning and packing.)

What worked: For the plane, I had packets of Justin's Almond Butter, Edward & Sons Rice Snaps, and Danielle's chips (coconut and pumpkin - both new to me, and both terrific... hope to find them at another store besides the wildly overpriced one in our neighborhood). I also had a packet of freeze-dried pears, which I think are safer than regular dried fruit for those concerned about histamine. I packed a jar of Once Again almond butter in my luggage. Near our hotel was a small supermarket, where we stocked up on bananas; I found a better market and bought some rice cakes, including some with non-dairy chocolate (very good!). I also found a bio/organic baby food applesauce/apricot, very tasty - so breakfast was taken care of.

I used my 'chef cards' starting with lunch the first day. They worked like a charm, but also gave rise to the biggest regret of the trip: we so wish we had video footage of the waiters responding to the chef cards. They were: horrified, alarmed, sympathetic - the first time, the chef was at the table within a couple of minutes. In many cases, they substituted a salad for the dairy/potato dish that came with a main course (that wouldn't work for everyone, but has been fine for me). A couple of times, a sauce was switched. (At least once when that happened, I definitely got the better meal.)

When my high-school French kicked back into gear, I occasionally used it instead of the chef cards - my 15yo nephew was vehemently opposed to this, either because he really enjoyed the drama of breaking the waiter's heart on my behalf, or maybe he truly loves me and cares about my health ;) Only once was that a mistake - I believe I never was glutened at all, but did get lightly 'buttered' on one occasion. I took a Pepto Bismol immediately...

But the next day, I felt pretty lousy. Not terrible D, but definitely heading in that direction. I started to panic, and left my brother & his kids waiting to see the Catacombs, and dragged my husband to the nearest restaurant. Bathrooms were only for customers - so my beloved sat down and ordered us mineral water while I dashed to the W.C. I think I took 2-3 more Pepto that day. It could have been much, much worse.

We walked for miles, and climbed a lot of stone steps - I definitely felt the fatigue after even the butter incident, and became concerned about mast cell problems when I developed a lone hive. And then I *almost* got one of my classic old ear infections, plus a small mouth sore and what might be a stye - all annoying, and concerning, but luckily none tipped over into a disaster. I bought some cetirizine (antihistamine/Zyrtec) at the pharmacy, plus hydrogen peroxide for my ear, and used warm compresses on my eye, and mostly we just had a fabulous time.

I ate more potato chips than I usually do, because I was skipping most desserts and didn't want to find myself constantly hungry at times other than when everyone else was ready to eat. I used spoonfuls of almond butter the same way. Not gourmet fare, but it worked (and we ate both fancy and very homey food - mostly in the middle, all of it delightful).

Mostly, our core group was 13 people - my brother and his 15yo son and 20yo daughter (I had real quality time with each of them, and am so grateful, as they live in Sweden and visits are rare); my brother-in-law, his wife and four kids (5yo son, and 9/11/13yo girls); my in-laws, who have been divorced for decades and live far apart, but are warmly friendly; and my husband and me. One night, the in-law group was tired, and did something low-key for dinner, and I dragged "my" family to the only GF restaurant it Paris.

It was great! Really great. Everyone had a wonderful meal; there was only one dessert that was GF *and* DF, but it was delicious (strawberries, coconut...yum). I was amazed by the GF couscous - it was a mix of rice and corn. I have since learned that it's not uncommon to find 'semoule de riz' in France... good to know. My experience was that restaurants were pretty clued up about gluten, much more so than various celiac resources on the Internet had led me to believe.

I'm going to rewrite my chef cards, first in English, to make them shorter and simpler. The ones I adapted from the http://www.celiactravel.com/ put a lot of emphasis on how serious the risk is, and I don't want to take that out entirely. But I like Ant's approach of listing the YES and NO foods very clearly and simply, maybe using colors to distinguish them for busy kitchen staff.

If anyone has a France trip on the agenda, I am happy to post the text of my current cards (GF/DF/EF), and am competent to help adjust them for other foods (though not fluent).

For the first few days, I actually felt better than I had been feeling at home. I don't know whether that means we need to re-decontaminate the kitchen, or maybe the relax of being on vacation after a frenzied week leading up to our choral concerts was to blame? I recently read that singing can contribute to mast cell problems, believe it or not. I gave up gluten and dairy without batting an eye, but I think I'm willing to put up a fight for music.

Paris is a great walking city, and the Metro is easy enough to figure out, fast, and reliable. And the French are incredibly friendly and warm, despite their reputation to the contrary. It was also amazingly an kid-friendly city. We ate out many times in that group of 13, and it was just as easy as could be, even in pretty small restaurants - once we split over two tables, which gave me a chance to catch up with my wonderful SIL, while her kids sat with my brother's "big kids" and felt very grownup indeed. My nephew Anthony has always been the baby in his own family - he really enjoyed being the big boy to the younger kids (especially 5yo Matthew - who spends a lot of time with his sisters and really appreciated a buddy).

I could do a whole 'nother post twice as long about Paris sights and adventures - maybe when I get those pictures from those who wielded the cameras!

It's also great to be back in beautiful Brooklyn. (Yes, Paris is prettier, but there's a lot of loveliness here - in fact, a neighbor is convinced that Brooklyn now is culturally not unlike Paris in the 1920s.) We are making a point of enjoying our hometown - loved our visit to a wacky art opening at the Textile Arts Center last night. The artists made hundreds of garments of ambiguous shape... and odd numbers of openings (armholes? neckholes? around the waist??), and some with inexplicable straps. There was quite a group there, so we not only tried on a lot of things, often several at once, but watching other people struggle in and out of them (sometimes two people in a single garment) made it even more fun. It was even better than it sounds - and then we had dinner in a local restaurant that's new to us, where I had a fabulous, imaginative (and totally safe) meal with my husband and our friend who came out to the art opening. The owner waited on us (and we remembered him from a previous restaurant gig), and when I told him my dietary restrictions he said, "that's all? I thought you were going to make it hard!"

Anyone not up for planning a Paris trip, you might consider a visit to Brooklyn!

Love,
Sara

p.s. The eye stye is still not gone. It seems to be getting better, but if it's not showing a lot more improvement after the holiday weekend, I might have to break down and consult a doctor. I so don't want to! I am guessing that the combination of MC, jet lag, and just generally being off-kilter all contribute to coming down with it, and to having it hang around a few days longer than it should. I might add as a travel note - I recently read a recommendation to treat an airplane like a huge infectious risk - the seat backs, tray tables, bathroom door handles, and everything else are best assumed to be crawling with germs. I may well have picked up this eye thing on the plane. Antiseptic wipes are not my style, but I think I'll add them to the MC travel toolkit anyway.

[tex]

Sara,

Thanks for the recap. That was fun, (and probably about as close as I'll ever get to visiting Paris), since, like Timoshenko, (arguably, the greatest engineer who ever lived), I don't believe in flying.

Are you taking an oral antihistamine? The stye may well be allergy-related, in which case, a good antihistamine might help to get rid of it.

Love,
Tex

[sarkin]

Thanks, Tex!

Flying is a pretty crazy idea, I must admit. My husband has this great idea for when our car dies - we take the Queen Mary 2 to England *with the dog* and then visit friends in England, maybe my brother in Sweden (unless he meets us in England), then travel through Europe visiting friends in various places, plus places we just feel like seeing. At some point in this wonderful tale, we will have bought a car (the "reason" for the trip?). Then, we come home with the car and the dog. It is a notion so utterly lacking in practicality, I can't quite tell whether he's kidding. In any case... that would be a fine way to get to Paris. If you ever have a giant amount of money and time on your hands (or if we ever do... but I notice I never have both of those things in enormous quantity at the same time!)...

I have taken a few Benadryl - they knock me out something fierce, so I'm probably not taking as many during the day as I should. I have a few cetirizine left from our Paris trip - I should have thought to use them up instead - I'll switch right now. The Claritin/generic I tried made me quite peculiar - sort of reset my inner gyroscope to "all wrong" (if you know what I mean).

I suspect I didn't jump on the antihistamines soon enough, and now have a little infectious thing going on, along with the allergic component. I did put some Benedryl liquid on/near it (it clearly states not to use it around the eye, but I was careful, and it did help). A friend recommended raspberry leaf tea warm compresses, and it does seem to help more than plain water. I've also used a little Neosporin ointment. It seems to be getting better, but not fast enough to be really reassuring.

I hope I can pull at least a few photos together - our nieces and nephews are adorable.

Love,
Sara

[MBombardier]

Wonderful, Sara! I was looking forward to hearing about your trip! My father was stationed in Bonn for three years when I was a child, so we traveled all over Europe. We stayed at La Blanch Fountaine hotel in Paris (so funny I remember that) which was at the end of a street of strip joints that we had to pass every day. There were slides of the strip teases on the front of them that we all studiously tried not to look at, lol. My mother told me that I amused her by traveling around the edges of the rooms at the Louvre and looking at every single picture. I don't remember much, of course, except the wonderful Mona Lisa. Even at my tender age, I greatly anticipated and greatly enjoyed seeing her.

I also remember my brother and me going all the way to the top of the Eiffel tower by ourselves. In the 60's it was much less well-maintained (I'm sure) than it is today. We had to climb rickety metal stairs, and when we got to the top, we were the only ones up there. The metal plates were not bolted well, and I stood on two of them and looked all the way down to the ground between my feet. There was only a metal railing fence around the edge. I've wondered many times if we went up past the public access part, higher than normally allowed. My brother and I discussed how much damage a dime dropped from that height would do, and decided not to do it. Amazingly. We were pretty into experimentation back then, but a dime off the Eiffel tower and eggs tossed from the third-story balcony to see how high they bounce are a little different.

Europe seems so much more accessible these days than I have felt it to be for many years. Some friends and six of their children just got back from three weeks in Italy. Another friend of mine, who has dual British-American citizenship, just suggested that we go to England and visit her sisters. Thanks for sharing this--your good food experiences make me even more interested in going back to Europe some day!

[nancyl]

Hi Sara,
I loved hearing about your trip to Paris. We were there in 2009 and loved it. Our decendants came from France and I acutally went to the church in Paria where my gr gr - - - - - grandmother was baptised in 1649. That was amazing. We also went to London and Normandy. I will be asking for help with those cards, but not for France, for Italy. We are going next April. Although, I did research on Rome and they are very aware of GF and I've also heard they have amazing GF pasta. They test all the children for gluten before they enter school. Not sure how they do it or how accurate it is.

Tex, you don't know what you are missing. My Dad was like you and never boarded a plane. Ever think of a cruise? We are cruising from NJ to Rome.

Nancy

[hoosier1]

Tex,

I am chuckling about your flying comment. I know of an engineer who won't fly. Travels only by car. But I understand.

Just last week, a local doctor and his wife died in their private plane. He was the pilot. And 8 years ago, he crashed his former plane and killed his first wife and two kids in that incident. The crash from last week left his 16 year old son orphaned amd in critical condition... And he survived the first crash 8 years ago. So tragic but both times pilot error. This story has been all over the national news.

As I see all those people texting as they drive, I still feel safer in the air.

I don't believe in flying anymore, merely because of the inhumanity in dealing with the airlines. After 3.5M miles, it gets old. But this year, I am flying charter half the time and that has not only helped me to keep my sanity, but it is also GI friendly because the plane runs per my schedule only and I spend less time in hotels.

Gonna be in Denton, TX in a few weeks again. Back in Texas.

Regards,

Rich

[Gabby]

Hi Sara

Sounds like you have a great trip. Thanks for sharing. I've never been to Paris but would love to go. I have always heard that the French are rude to Americans because few of us speak French. I had a little in high school but have forgotten most of it. So I shouldn't be so worried about that?

I have done a lot of flying and agree with you that planes are dirty places. One thing you have no control over is the air. Years ago I started coating the inside of my nose with Vaseline to keep it moisturised and I always try to beath through my nose. I really believe that doing helps prevent catching colds and other viruses that are in the air.

Looking forward to pictures

Gabby

[mbeezie]

Thanks for the trip report Sara. I always enjoy reading how others manage travel to foreign countries. I'm somewhat surprised that there was only one GF restaurant in Paris. Hoping that changes in the next few years - we are planning to go when our son is in high school.

Looking forward to seeing some photos.

Mary Beth

[tex]

Tex, you don't know what you are missing. My Dad was like you and never boarded a plane. Ever think of a cruise? We are cruising from NJ to Rome.

Oh, I've flown before. Several decades ago I made several trips to the Mid-West. I flew to Mount Vernon, Chicago, Peoria, and a few other places nearby. Back in those days, air travel was still pretty civil, and it was an enjoyable way to travel. These days, it sucks, IMO.

As I see all those people texting as they drive, I still feel safer in the air.

Haven't you ever wondered what the guys in the control towers are doing, to kill time. And I would hope that the pilot finishes texting his girlfriend, before it's time for the landing approach. Otherwise, I can't argue with your assessment of the situation.

I don't believe in flying anymore, merely because of the inhumanity in dealing with the airlines.

Exactly. These days, airline passengers aren't treated much better than cattle in a "bullwagon", (an 18-wheeler designed for hauling cattle).

Timoshenko was a smart cookie, and he always took the train. I've forgotten a lot that I learned about engineering mechanics, but I haven't forgotten his position on flying.

Tex

P. S. Mary Beth - I'm just joking, of course. And certainly, none of what I said applies to your DH.

[Gloria]

Hi Sara,

It sounds like things went well most of the time. It does sound like you have some mast cell issues. Dang! I think it makes dealing with MC much more difficult.

I'm fortunate that we did our touring of Europe before I got MC. I don't think I could eat at many places with my present list of foods, even with a card. I'm glad you were able to find GF friendly restaurants. Like you, I've experienced the astonishment from the waitstaff. I'm glad you could respond with some levity.

When we visited France 13 years ago, I used a French-English booklet to give the waiter our order. I've never studied French and really must have botched the pronunciation. The waiter gave me a disgusted look and said "Never mind, say it in English." I can still see him standing with his pursed lips.

Paris is beautiful; you'll have some wonderful lasting memories, especially being with family.

Welcome back - we missed your posts.

Gloria

[hoosier1]

Tex,

I just read Timoshenko's bio. Had never heard of him before. Interesting man and career.

I enjoy conversations like this on this board. There are so many times where I simply get weary of reading about my IBD, which fortunately for now, and knock on wood, is under control. And I owe this gratitude to this board, and to Tex for admimistering it. Had I not found this board, I shudder to think how I would have been attempting to hold my life together.

I do understand the risks of an ATC controller not paying attention, but for me there is still a better sense of control in the air, and oversight. Perhaps this comes from my private pilot experience over ten years ago when I had a little Cessna single engine. Plus, anyone can get a drivers license. A pilots license is a much more arduous task. I just heard a statistics that one third of all drivers would fail the written test if they were to retake it today. Scary. But I see everyday when I drive. A lack of knowledge regarding the rules of the road. I ride a motorcycle too so that also explains my heightened awareness to my surroundings.

When flying under the control of ATC, ie, I am squawking an ID number to them as they hand me off from center to center, I know there is a system in place to attempt to maintain disgance ans control. And with the new real time weather systems even on light aircraft, there is no reason why planes need to go down due to weather any more.

Planes usually go down due to pilot error, unfortunatley. The human element. But if one chooses to not take risks when piloting a plane, even mechanical issues gan usually be dealt with appropriately in air.

It's a beautiful day in Indiana today. My wife and I are going on a motorcycle ride. Have a good holiday.

Rich

[tex]

Rich,

As I'm sure you're well aware, engineers are by nature, early adopters and risk-takers, but unlike most others, they typically have a very good understanding of the actual risks involved. Even so, be careful out there on those two wheels, because as you point out, the highways are filled with unqualified, often-distracted drivers.

It is a beautiful day. Enjoy your trip. I don't plan to venture more than about a mile from home, today. I'm takin' it easy, and planning to pollute the air with a little grill smoke.



Tex