Getting to Paris - and back!

I have been meaning to post about Paris for awhile now - honestly, I've been putting it off because sometimes, it's just hard to find the right words. We feel so blessed to have the opportunity to travel and see places that we have only read about or seen in movies... sometime's it's all a bit overwhelming. It's overwhelming to see such amazing things and try to capture them into words. Overwhelming to deal with the language barriers everywhere we go! It's overwhelming to think that we are almost. home. Overwhelming to mentally process the "to" and "from" parts of traveling in Europe... I could go on and on.

While we are incredibly grateful for every opportunity we've had here, we are also eager to be home. Our travels are coming to an end. This particular trip was a fantastic way for our time here to draw to a close. Paris was really amazing - truly better than either of us expected it to be! Just before we left, we were both dreading the trip a little bit. (Terrible, I know! Please don't hate us for that!) Here's how it looked, though. Honestly, wouldn't you have been a little anxious, too?

• Train ride from Como - Malpensa Airport (including one train change).
• Shuttle bus from Terminal 1 to Terminal 2.
• Flight to Paris.
• Taxi to hotel. (Should have just taken the metro, would have been cheaper and easy. Hindsight is 20/20. We learn a lot of lessons in hindsight! ;)
• Stay in Paris, walk, walk, walk!
• Train to Caen, switch trains to Bayeaux.
• Stay in Bayeaux.
• Train back to Caen, switch trains to Paris.
• Metro ride to airport, one switch.
• Flight to Milan.
• Shuttle to Terminal 1.
• Train to Como (including one train change).
• Sigh of relief! 

Obviously, we didn't grow up using public transportation... because every time we approach one of these trips, we have to take a deep breath and brace ourselves for the million-little-steps-involved. It takes a lot of patience. Especially when you're traveling with a 14-month old! (Hard to believe she's already 14 months old?!)

Believe it or not, we have made lots of progress and don't find the process quite as overwhelming as we used to... It hasn't been the "piece of cake" we thought it would be originally, but we are getting the hang of it!