A few months ago Gordie and Janet phoned me up and invited me out to lunch: they were planning an extended trip to Europe with their two daughters, and wanted to poke me for advice on travel with kids. We had a nice chat, talking about everything from school work to SIM cards, and the more they talked, the more jealous I became. We’ve traveled, but never for such a long and indefinite period as they were planning.

And now they’re there. And, what’s more, all four of them are writing posts on a family travel blog. Not only can you learn lots of interesting things about Europe and families and travel in their blog, but you often get two or three perspectives on the same event from different members of the family.

So here’s Robin on their new Paris apartment:

The bed that Sarah and I got given is not a bed at all. It is a couch, a very small couch. It is supposed to pull out but this one; you just unfold the cushions and sleep on those. It is too small for two girls so I pulled the blanket off of Sarah and put it on the floor with a pillow.

Sarah did not wake up at all when I took her blanket so I got away with sleeping on a nice soft blanket. The blanket pattern is a tiger. It has orange and black stripes. The bed inside my parents’ room is, in fact, a bed—a reasonably hard bed, but a bed.

And here’s Gordie:

Here we sit in our Paris apartment. The apartment is quite small. There are three rooms: a bathroom, a bedroom, and (for lack of a better description) a multi-purpose room. The multi-purposes for the room include entrance, kitchen, dining room, and spare bedroom. The room is about 50 square feet. The bedroom is about the same size and the bathroom is about 12 square feet. Including the hallway, the apartment might be 150 square feet.

Gordie’s got the important stats, but, I gotta say, Robin does a better job at capturing the essence of the place.

I look forward to more tales of their adventures.