Paris Part 6 – Kicking around town

/ Shane / 3 Comments

One quick thing that I forgot to mention yesterday: Ladurée! Ladurée is a super fancy macaroon shop. The French version of a macaroon is a bit different than what I think of as a macaroon. It’s like a fancy cream filled sandwich cookie that comes in different flavors (and colors!). We had planned to visit Ladurée on the super-posh Champs-Élysées, but they had a dealership at Versailles, so we ended up going there.

I say dealership because buying these cookies was quite the experience. We got an English-speaking shop girl to personally oversee our purchase, and to put the cookies in a nice box, suitable for keeping (we still have it, even though the cookies didn’t last 30 minutes). It was very fancy, and a very big deal. Well, we didn’t buy them as a gift, we just ate them. And they really were delicious! They weren’t so good as to justify the price, but we specifically wanted the best in France. Afterwards we bought cheaper ones at a regular pâtisserie, but I can’t compare the two because Evie didn’t let me have a bite. I’m guessing they were pretty similar.

On Friday we decided to just sort of hit some random museums and things around the city that we had been meaning to get to.

Part 6A, Guillotines

First up was the Carnavalet Museum. The focus of this museum is the history of Paris. I don’t know if we would have went to this museum or not, except for one fact: we heard a rumor they might have some stuff on guillotines.

As you may recall, one of the main things that Evie was interested in seeing was a guillotine, and we hadn’t seen one up to this point (for some reason the French don’t seem to keen on remembering this bloody time in their history). So we thought we better go seek one out. And Carnavalet gave us what we were looking for! A model guillotine! Pictures of guillotines! (These pictures were no joke, there was one painting where someone had just had their head cut off and blood was spraying out everywhere. Evie loved it.) We didn’t see a full sized guillotine, but Evie got some pictures in front of the model ones, and she seemed satisfied.

Part 6B, Falafel

For lunch we headed over to the Marais neighborhood to look for some falafel. Falafel? you say. In Paris? Oh yes my friend, falafel. We were looking for L’As du Falafel, which is supposedly the one place in Paris that Lenny Kravitz goes out of his way to eat at. What’s good enough for the stomach of Lenny Kravitz is good enough for me. However, when we got there, we found out it was closed. This turned out to be only a minor set back, however, because the rue des Rosiers is apparently FULL of falafel restaurants (I suppose because it’s the center of the big Jewish neighborhood in Paris?)

So, since we were already in the mood for falafel, we ended up in line for King of Falafel. I have to say, this wasn’t just any falafel sandwich. There was artistry involved. I feel kind of funny saying it, but I think this was the best thing I ate in Paris. It was delicious! Well worth the trip! (to the neighborhood I mean, it’s probably not worth flying all the way to Paris for) Highly recommended. (Hmm hmm, yes, we ate at all the fanciest French restaurants in Paris. Have you heard of, oh what’s that name again? I’m so bad with French. Ah yes, King of Falafel?)

We at our falafel at a park and Evie made friends with two British girls (“Her name is Olivia, but her name is really Livie!”). They invented some kind of game that involved throwing a ball backwards over your shoulder into a sandbox. For our part, we mostly just tried not to drip purple cabbage juice all over Oliver.

Part 6C, Genital panic

Once our lunch was done, we headed over to Centre Pompidou. The Pompidou houses modern art, but is know as much for the outside of the building as the inside. Basically the building is “inside out” with all of the structural elements, like the pipes, escalator, etc. are on the outside, and each one is painted a bright color.  Consequently we spent a while outside admiring things.

The outside was pretty cool, but it quickly was overshadowed by a large flock of pigeons that someone was feeding nearby. Evie once again chased the pigeons all over the place, but this time there were hundreds of them. Terrified pigeons were flying all over the place, but they just couldn’t resist that delicious French bread (who can?) so they kept coming back.

Finally we decided to go inside. As I mentioned, the escalator is on the outside of the building, so riding it up to the top is pretty cool, with a good view of the city. I always like modern art, so overall I enjoyed the museum a lot (it’s a nice change of pace after all of the “old” art museums you go to in Paris). However, our visit wasn’t without incident.

The first room we went into was entitled “genital panic” and, let me tell you, the name was appropriate. There were a lot of genitals, and I was quite panicked, pushing Evie in the stroller. Most of the exhibits in this room were extremely, as Sara put it, “intimate”. How do you answer your 3 year old’s questions about a video of a naked woman hula hooping with barbwire, such that every time it goes around it cuts her? You don’t, that’s how, and we got out of there as fast as we could without raising Evie’s suspicions that we were fleeing. (She was mostly unaware of what was going on, but probably would have taken an interest if she caught the vibe that we were trying to hide something from her!)

The rest of the museum was okay, but we had to check everything first, before allowing Evie to go inside. I felt a little better when we got upstairs and saw some groups of school kids.

Overall I think Evie prefers modern art that allows some interaction, at least at her age.

Evie: “Can I walk on this?”
Sara: “Yes.”
Evie: “Can I do somersaults on it?”
Sara and me together: “NO!”

Part 6D, Trains, art and food snobs

After this, we finally headed over to a more traditional museum, Musée d’Orsay. Although it’s pretty famous, this was not nearly as crowded as the Louvre. The Orsay is actually in an old train station, and I found the building itself to be the most interesting part. I really liked the big open center part with the statues, in what would have been the main concourse. The rest of the art was like, famous and stuff. I don’t know. Maybe I was just starting to get museum-ed out.

On the way home we stopped off at the Bon Marché, one of the first department stores, since it was right next to our apartment. Actually, we really only went to the Grand Epicerie, which is sort of like an enormous fancy food store. It’s hard to describe how this place was different than like a supermarket, but it was more like a bunch of independent little French stores that happened to be under the same roof. They had like different little areas for cuisines from different countries. I later heard from some Frenchman that the Grand Epicerie is one of the best in Paris, if a little pricey. We were looking for something to bring home for dinner, and we didn’t really find too much, although we did wander around looking at all the delicious foods.

The longer we stayed in Paris, the more snobby we were becoming about food, even Evie. We were so used to getting fresh bread every day, that when she had to eat some bread for breakfast the next day after we bought it she said, “this bread is too thick, it needs jam!” We ended up throwing it out and going down to get new bread.

I told you we were becoming French!

One final note, as the week was wearing on I noticed that Evie just started talking made up nonsense, and it was happening more and more! She would say a sentence and then add a few words of gibberish on the end. Or you would ask her a question and she would answer in gibberish.

Me: “Do you want to eat any of this?”
Evie: “Blarsigite. Woof woof!”
Me: “Answer in English please.”
Sara: “She said ‘woof woof’…”

This was fascinating, because it was clearly in response to being around so much language that she didn’t understand. I was wondering how she would react to being in a place where people were speaking another language, but she really hadn’t had much of a reaction. I guess it was finally getting to her!

Paris Part 5 – The Château

/ Shane / 4 Comments

Thursday meant more work for me, so I again slept on the couch to avoid waking everybody in the morning. The meeting was at a French company and I was the only one who didn’t speak French. So I was sort of useless here (I prefer to think of myself as eye candy). I did have this moment where I was like, “Whoa, I’m here in a country where I don’t really speak the language on business. I’m an international businessman!” but it passed quickly.

My meeting was close by the Château (castle) of Versailles, where the Sun King, Louis XIV, built an enormous palace and moved the French court. So Sara took the kids on the train and we met there for a picnic lunch (the sandwiches sat in my backpack at my fancy schmancy international business meeting). We spent the rest of the day there, which meant I was stuck in my suit. I shed the jacket and tie, but my shoes weren’t exactly the greatest shoes for tromping around in.

Part 5A, Versailles

The château itself was pretty cool, but I’ve seen palaces before, and this wasn’t a lot different. But the grounds, on the other hand, are flat out amazing! This Louis XIV was immensely rich and powerful, and he kept a huge staff to keep his grounds constantly beautiful. The palace is situated on about 200 acres of land which includes fountains, flowerbeds, decorative hedges, statues, and even an area with a forest of orange trees in containers so that they could wheel them inside during cold weather. Even now it must take a huge staff of people to care for all of this, but imagine what it would have taken before modern conveniences! I imagine there was a grumble or two about hauling gallons of water up to water those stupid orange trees. I guess it’s no wonder the French revolution came just a few generations after.

Evie and I used the “free” bathroom, and I gave her some coins to give to the bathroom attendant. In Europe it is pretty common to pay to use the bathroom (it seemed common in France, but not as common as it was in Italy). Often there is a bathroom attendant who does nothing all day except clean the bathrooms, and your money is sort of a tip to him (it might even be his wage, I don’t know). I saw the bathroom attendant working his butt off all day, and I saw the coins left by others, so I figured we’d toss some on as well.

After she gave him the money, he asked me (in French) if Evie was from Spain. When I answered that we were from the United States, he gave a big booming laugh and clapped me heartily on the back. I don’t know if it was because I answered him in French, which is probably not very typical of Americans, or if it was because we actually paid for the bathroom, which is also probably not very typical of Americans (or maybe just because Evie was dressed so stylishly), but he seemed to find us quite amusing.

Evie and I mostly spent the time pretending we were kings and princesses, respectively. Like, “Oh, I think I will use this room for dancing. What do you think, Princess?” “Oh yes, will you invite me to the dancing, King?” Evie’s favorite parts were the bedrooms. I guess there’s something particularly exciting about seeing where a King/Queen/Princess actually slept. Maybe it’s because the tour covers a lot of rooms that don’t mean much to a kid (dancing rooms, sitting rooms, drawing rooms, meeting rooms, war rooms, etc.), so a bedroom was sort of the only tangible thing she could understand.

Speaking of things that were confusing, when we were walking through the château, we kept encountering very, very strange pieces of art that didn’t belong. Next to some beautiful old ornamental candle holder, you would see a giant fiberglass man-eating plant, or *ahem* a generously proportioned anime babe (whose clothing was not generously proportioned). As it turns out, Versailles had apparently teamed up with famous anime-style artist Takashi Murakami to put some of his art on display. It definitely added a weird, surreal aspect to the tour.

We also took the little train out to the Domaine de Marie-Antoinette, and it was surprisingly cool! The story goes that Marie-Antoinette wanted to “live as the peasants did” so she built this little estate on the grounds of Versailles. I thought, okay, who needs to see a farm? However, that’s not what it was at all. Marie-Antoinette was so rich and protected that she was completely disconnected from reality (this is the “let them eat cake lady, after all), and her “peasant farm” was sort of how you would imagine such a thing if you had only had it described to you through fairy tales (and if you had an army of loyal servants to do the upkeep an make it seem nice). It was actually a really cool place, and definitely worth checking out (at least it is if you have the museum pass and don’t need to pay anything extra to go see it!)

We really liked Versailles. Sara and I both agreed that it was our favorite part of Paris. If you’re considering going out there (it is a day trip from Paris), I would say you should definitely do it. It was well worth the trip.

Part 5B, A long day

After a stressful train-ticket-buying experience, we managed to get back on the train to Paris. It was packed and we had lots and lots of bags. We were getting a lot of dirty looks from people for taking up so much space, but I don’t know what we could have done about it. We had to sit in two different seats with a kid on each of our laps and our bags, stroller, etc. pooled all around us. When it was time to get off the train we had to gather all of that up, manage the kids, and push past everybody to get off of the train before the doors closed. We barely made it on time. This, of course, was followed up by a long walk home loaded down like a pack mule. We were exhausted.

We weren’t the only ones who were suffering. Oliver had developed a bad rash over his entire body, especially his chest, back and face, and he was just sort of not in a great mood. As I said he wasn’t really digging the ergo anymore, and didn’t really want to be carried around all day.

This was the first day we started bribing Evie with a coin for her “collection” if she made it through the entire day without causing any trouble. There’s nothing Evie likes more than money (including, as it happens, foreign money), so this was a pretty effective motivator.

For my part, I spent a lot of the day silently congratulating myself on how excellent my French was. It’s been more than 10 years since I took French, but I found myself able to read most of the signs and understand most of what was said to me. Sara, however, was not impressed. This was mostly due to the fact that 1) I wasn’t great with answering her specific questions about menu items, which are full of idiomatic expressions (for example, you might be able to understand English perfectly well, but still not understand what “over easy, scrambled, or sunny side up” means in terms of eggs), and a lot of times I would freeze up when I actually needed to speak. There were numerous occasions where I understood the person perfectly well, but still couldn’t respond. Then, after the situation was over, I could think of all sorts of French I could have said. Oh well.

Paris Part 4 – Striking out on our own

/ Shane / 2 Comments

Wednesday was the first day totally on our own, not meeting up with anybody who spoke French. Actually, it was kind of nice. We didn’t have to meet anybody at a certain time or anything, so we were able to go at our own pace.

Part 4A, Museum Day

So where did we go? First up was the world-famous Louvre.

The Louvre is huge and crowded! I’m sure there are tucked away corners that you can catch your breath (seriously, the place is huge), but we were looking to get in, hit the major sites, and get out. Apparently so was everybody else, especially the tour groups.

The museum pass saved us from the massive line. We tried to go in the side entrance that nobody knows about, but they told us we couldn’t because we had a stroller (I think maybe it was just because they thought we would want to use an elevator, but there was a little language problem). No problem though, we strolled passed the entire line with our museum pass. Sayonara, suckers!

This is Paris tip #6: buy a museum pass! Even if you end up losing money on it, it is well worth it to skip all the lines! (I guess you could consider this tip 2A, since it is very much like buying a timed ticket for the Eiffel Tower) On top of that though, if you make any effort whatsoever, I can’t imagine you would lose money on it. I think we saved over 50€ (about $70) in museum admissions. Well worth the money!

We saw Winged Victory, the Venus de Milo, and La Jaconde (a.k.a. Mona Lisa). Evie had a running commentary on everything.

On Winged Victory: “Lets keep our eyes open for her head!
On Venus de Milo: “I liked the statues WITH arms.”
On the Mona Lisa: “Why is she smiling?” – Good question! People have been wondering that for years.

I think the thing that Evie got the biggest kick out of was the Mona Lisa. I think that was the only one that was famous enough for Evie to have encountered before in her short little life. She definitely recognized it and gave an appropriate “Ooooh!” when I lifted her up high enough to see it over everybody’s head (did I mention it was crowded?)

One thing that really annoyed me at the Louvre was the disrespect. Here we are amongst some of the most famous, priceless works of art in the world, and people just can’t stop touching it and taking flash photography. “This vase lasted 1,000 years, so I must get a picture of me touching it!” How do people not realize that *everybody* thinks they are the one special person who is allowed to break the rules? And if every person touches that vase, it’s not going to make it another 50 years, much less 1,000.

And there are signs everywhere about flash photography. If you don’t know how to turn off the flash on your camera, then just don’t take pictures. It’s not that important. Buy a post card, the picture is going to look nicer than your blurry, cheap, 50-heads-blocking-my-shot picture anyway. But I saw you taking picture after picture, just flashing away. “Oh well, the rules don’t apply to me, but I’m just one guy! What kind of damage can my one camera do?” It turned my stomach. (I would also like to say that I don’t know what percentage of the people doing these things were American, certainly some percentage, but not the majority. I’m looking at you Asia.)

After we were done with the Louvre, we needed some outside time, so we ran around in Tuileries, the big open park outside of the museum. It’s actually worth going to Tuileries even if you aren’t going to the museum, it’s a pretty nice park. In particular, you can see kids renting batteau (boats) and floating them in the pond. They have these really long sticks to push them away from the edge if they get too close. Evie liked watching the boats, but we tried not to hang around there too much because we didn’t want her to figure out that you could actually rent the boats.

Next we had originally planned to go to Musée d’Orsay, but we thought that might be a little much to do in a day. So instead we decided to go to the closer and smaller Musée de l’Orangerie. It ended up being a wise choice!

We couldn’t completely skip the line with our museum pass, but we were able to go in an expedited line. This was really a gem of a museum. It was small, but the big draw are the extremely large water lilies by Monet. Everybody was really nice here. They practically forced us to take our stroller in (at many museums you have to check them) and stoic security guards would break their cover to tell us how to get to the secret elevators. We were pleasantly surprised at how nice of a museum it was! Unfortunately, both kids fell asleep before we got to the water lilies. However, that did justify us going to l’Orangerie instead of Orsay.

Part 4B, It’s all about the kids

Next up, we went back to Champs-Élysées to make another attempt to catch the marionette show. Evie LOVED it! I thought I could sit by her and sort of explain what was going on, but I couldn’t understand anything. A true French marionette show requires a lot of participation by the kids, and Evie was right there with them yelling, “Oui! Oui!” when the other kids were yelling, even though she had no idea what she was saying. She was just giggling away. It was awesome! I would never have guessed she would have liked it so much. All French marionette shows star a particular puppet named Guignol (pronounced something like “Geen-yol”) and there is always a lot of shouting for Guignol. This became a MAJOR theme of the trip, shouting “Guignol!” at each other probably a hundred times a day.

Evie also managed to snag a crêpe on the way, which she ate on a park bench. She loved “French pancakes” (it was a traditional one, with just sugar) and made grand plans for eating more of them. She was literally only eating bread-like things at this point, but she was willing to add crêpes to the line up, next to baguette and croissants. Eating nothing but bread is a crumby, messy way to go through life. Evie didn’t really hold herself responsible for that. We were complaining about the state of the floor under the table and Evie declared, “Someone even put crumbs under MY chair!”

For Oliver’s part, he was getting really sick of riding in the ergo (the baby carrier we use). I think it was hot and sweaty, and he’s not used to being so tied up for most of the day. At home he gets some time to spread out and play a little bit. He was starting to get fussy every time we put him in there. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a lot of options (though we put him in the stroller now and again, when we had the chance).

Part 4C, Nous sommes Français

At this point I really felt like we were getting into a rhythm and starting to assimilate: we went shopping for toilet paper at our “usual” grocery store, we were eating stinky cheese and baguettes, and getting to know the people at the boulangerie (another 3 trips! I expect a personalized thank you card!)

A side note about the apartment: it feels really chintzy to leave everything almost used up. There were only 2 half rolls of toilet paper. Every cleaning supply (including dish soap) was just a finger’s breadth from the bottom. It could be coincidence that every single last thing was just about to run out when we got there, but I somehow doubt it. I really don’t want to accuse someone of emptying out dish soap and stealing toilet paper, but that’s what it felt like. Another scam somehow. If you don’t want your place to seem sleazy, just go through ahead of time and spend the $10 and stock up on a few things. It will be money well spent. (Too bad we gotcha and took home the rest of the toilet paper we bought! Looks like the shoe is on the other foot!)

One more thing to mention: if French people see us coming, they should run. We’re an omen of death.

Two times during the day we were witness to some horrible incident that involved an ambulance. The first was while Sara was waiting in line in the Louvre gift shop. An old man collapsed like a ton of bricks and smashed his head onto the stone ground. She did eventually make it out of there, but there was quite a scene with a ring of people around the guy, trying to make him comfortable until the paramedics got there. We didn’t wait around to see what happened after that.

However, a short while later, while we were waiting in the park for the marionettes to start, we heard some kind of commotion. Our best guess is that someone had found a body lying behind some hedges. Maybe a homeless man? Or maybe something happened to someone that the guy was with? We’re not sure. Anyway, he alerted a security guard who got the police who called for an ambulance, and there was another big scene. We couldn’t see the person from where we were standing, but there was definitely someone on the ground. Before the situation could resolve itself, we had to go in for the puppet show.

The moral of the story is, if you’re old, don’t come anywhere near us! (Maybe this death aura only applies in France, but better safe than sorry)

Paris Part 3 – Working hard for the money

/ Shane / 2 Comments

On Tuesday I had to do what we actually came to France to do, namely, work.

I had to go to Brussels for the day, so I had to get up very early to take the train. In order to avoid waking everyone up, I slept on the couch in the living room (side note, probably the biggest benefit of renting an apartment versus a hotel room, having a separate bedroom). Unfortunately, the apartment did not come equipped with an alarm clock.

My phone didn’t work there, but Sara’s did. Unfortunately, it was on Chicago time, so I had to calculate what the correct time would be to set the alarm. I didn’t completely trust that, so I set a backup alarm in the form of a borrowed French cell phone. However, it turns out that the time wasn’t set right on that, and the alarm went off about 30 minutes after I fell asleep. So I had to re-set the time, using all-French menus, and I wasn’t feeling too sure about everything. All this anxiety caused me to not get very much sleep.

However, everything worked out well, my alarms both went off (on time, and yet, too early!) and I caught my cab for the train station. The cabbie found out I was from the states and proceeded to ask me questions about L.A. the entire way to the train station.

Part 3A, Alone in the City

In the meantime, Sara took the kids out all on her own. They spent some time walking around before eating lunch by the Panthéon. They met a man who was so delighted by Evie that he started blowing her big, French mwa! mwa! kisses. Afterwards, they visited the Center de la Mer (an aquarium), and finally ended up at the Jardin du Luxembourg (Luxembourg Garden).

Jardin du Luxembourg is sort of like a weird kid’s paradise (weird that it is a paradise for kids, not a paradise for weird kids). There are huge playgrounds, but you have to pay to play on them. It’s not too expensive though, and it’s worth it because the stuff they have to play on is truly awesome, and unlike anything I’ve ever seen on a playground in the states. There are food vendors and carousels, and just a lot of cool kids’ stuff. People said that was a good place to take kids, and they were so right. Best place for kids in the city. Plus it was close to our apartment.

And, in the irony of all international travel, Sara ran into someone from music class at one of the playgrounds (the one with the miniature Eiffel Tower that you can climb on)(and by miniature, I mean not that miniature!)

Part 3B, healthy, wealthy and wise

Brussels went really well work-wise, better than I could have expected. I didn’t have much (any) time to see the city, but what I did see of it was not very impressive. Sara had been debating about whether to come to Belgium or not, and, in retrospect, I think she made the right choice in staying in Paris. I don’t think there is much of a comparison.

We finished our business early, and we had about 3 hours before our train left. Rather than wait around with nothing to do, we hopped on a train just as it was leaving the station. Now, the train tickets work like plane tickets: you have assigned seats on a certain train. If you want to change that, you have to change your tickets (and probably pay). So, being the goody two-shoes that I am, I was a little nervous about this ordeal. “Don’t worry about it,” said my boss, “most of the time they never check tickets anyway. And besides, the next stop is Paris. So if they throw us off, we’ll be in Paris anyway!”

We couldn’t go to our seats, since we didn’t have any, so we were just sort of hanging around in the hallway like vagabonds. A conductor came through and, just as I was about to get nervous, someone else stood up and blurted out, “I don’t have the right ticket, I was supposed to go on another train later.” The conductors took him off to be guillotined (I assume), and we were safe for the moment. But it was very obvious that we didn’t have the correct tickets, or there would be no reason for us to be standing around where we were. “If he comes back, just act American, like you don’t know what you’re doing!” said my boss. A few minutes later, the conductor came back and told us there were seats further in the car. Hey, he told us! So we were home free.

We were sitting in the very last seats in the very last car, which would explain why the conductors didn’t get back to check our tickets until we were just moments from pulling into the station in Paris. I started speaking loudly in English to sort of set the tone, but they immediately started conversing with my boss in French. It went something like this (except in French):

Conductor: “These are the wrong tickets. You shouldn’t be on this train.”
Boss: “I’m sorry, I didn’t look at the tickets. I live in the United States…”
Conductor: “But you’re speaking French.”
Boss: “Yes, but I’m not…”
Conductor: “But you’re speaking French.”

For my part, I just tried to look dumb and concerned, as if I had no idea what they were saying. In other words, American. The conductor seemed pretty annoyed. He told us that it was going to be a 93€ ticket (about $130). Yikes! I think the only thing that saved us was that we were so close to Paris, that he didn’t want to take the time to write the ticket up. Whew! So our luck held, and we got home 3 hours early.

Of course I had the ring the buzzer like 10 times to get Sara to open the door, since she wasn’t expecting me so early. But at least I didn’t have to sit out on the stoop for 3 hours.

Part 3C, General Musings

Another day, another 3 trips to the boulangerie. I bet they’re missing us now that we’re gone. We started noticing that the final price was always less than we expected. Obviously we weren’t complaining, since it was cheaper, but it always surprised us. Eventually we figured out that the food got cheaper through the day, as it became less fresh.

So this leads to Paris tip #5, don’t buy your food in advance! It’s so much better fresh, and everything is set up in such a way to make it easy for you to get things fresh. And on top of that, it gets cheaper through the day! So don’t go in the morning and buy bread and deserts for supper, wait until you’re on your way home (the downside is, you have less selection at the end of the day).

French kids must love carousels. They are everywhere!

Going out of the country with kids definitely changes the whole dynamic. People everywhere go out of the way to talk to you or help you (or judge you for not having socks on your baby…some things are the same no matter where you are)(And can I just mention, he had socks but he can kick them off like nobody’s business! The streets of Paris claimed 3 socks from us.)(And by the way, it was like 70!), even when they can’t speak English (although, it turns out, very, very few people in Paris can’t speak English). Evie and Oliver can charm people across language barriers. This made the trip just totally different than when Sara and I have been out of the country on our own. Much more social.

One other thing to mention, and that is in relationship to the homeless people of Paris. First off, there’s not nearly as many as you would expect in a city the size of Paris. I probably saw less than I see in my neighborhood. Second off, the vast majority of the homeless people have dogs! This was strange to me. It just seems like you’re struggling to take care of yourself, why add another dependent? On the other hand, maybe the dogs are so cute they make you so much extra money, that they end up more than paying for themselves. This seemed to be the case. Finally, the poor people of France seem to be extremely hard working!

Everywhere you go, you see people selling crap, playing the accordion in the metro, or at the very least trying to run some scam about how they are deaf and dumb and need help. Very rarely do you see people just standing around begging (the traditional mode of bums around my house). The only ones I saw truly begging were a few outside of churches with some obvious physical ailment (in other words, people who, in a sense, truly deserve it). I think my favorite were the ones who collected chestnuts from the ground and then roasted them in trash cans perched in their shopping carts. I don’t know how much they were selling them for (or who would buy them), but you have to admit, that is ingenuity!

Considering the size of Paris, and the amount of it that we covered, it was amazing that we never really saw a bad neighborhood or a situation that felt unsafe. I had no problem taking the metro or walking all over everywhere, day or night. Good work Paris!

Paris Part 2: Tour Eiffel and (almost) scarring my kids for life

/ Shane / 3 Comments

Monday morning felt like the first real day. We woke up more or less fresh, ready to face the day. On Sunday, pretty much everything in the neighborhood was closed. The place was dead. On Monday things started to liven up a bit (although only about half way… apparently it is a French tradition and about half the places are closed on Mondays as well). In particular we were able to hit up the boulangerie / pâtisserie that was two doors down from our house.

A boulangerie is a bakery, and a pâtisserie is a pastry shop. Most places, including this one, are both. These things are all over the place in France, and I would say maybe they are the best part about Paris. The pastries, tarts, deserts, etc. are absolutely amazing, and taste as good as they look. They’re not that expensive either!

And the bread…oh man, do they have good bread.  How good can bread be? Well, ask Evie, who pretty much ate nothing but bread from this point forward. In fact, Evie couldn’t even wait until we got home with the baguette, and nibbled the end off before we got there. I don’t blame her, it is addicting!

Actually, nibbling the end off your baguette is sort of another French tradition, and you can see people all over the city carrying baguettes with little nibbled off ends. It’s kind of funny, because it is such a stereotype to have a baguette in France, but you really do see people all over everywhere carrying them.

Part 2A, Tour Eiffel

Anyway, the first stop in the morning was the Tour Eiffel (or Eiffel Tower for you English types). Here’s Paris travel tip number 2: a timed ticket for the Eiffel Tower is a must! You buy it online, ahead of time. We had some trouble with the trains in the morning and ended up puffing up to the base of the tower just as our time was coming up (and we had specifically gotten a later time!). No problem! We strolled past the long line and right up to the ticket taker.

There’s not much to say about the Eiffel Tower. You know what it looks like, and taking the elevator up is pretty much like going up any touristy destination, such as the Sears Tower, or the Empire State Building. You have a nice view of Paris, but Paris is a city designed to have nice views: pretty much every major attraction involves climbing a bunch of stairs to the top for a good view. That being said, Paris is truly a beautiful city, and you never really have too many views of it.

So going up the tower was really cool, and a must do for any tourist to Paris, but at the same time there wasn’t much to say. We only went up to the 2nd level, not to the very top (the top requires an extra ticket and an extra wait in an extra long line), and I think that was fine. I’m not big on heights anyway.

The other thing to say about the experience is that the base is crawling with people trying to sell you souvenir Eiffel Towers. I cannot imagine how there can be so many of them! They are all selling the same junk for the same price, and nobody is buying from them because they are so annoying. I don’t know how they can make any money.

Afterwards we went over to Trocadero for pictures of the Eiffel Tower. This is Paris tip #3. When you’re at the base of the tower, you’re too close for good pictures. Walk across the Seine and up a bunch of stairs and you’ll have just fabulous views of the tower, for free no less. I think these were some of the best pictures we took on the trip.

Part 2B, Sacré-Coeur / Montmartre

Next we went over to Sacré-Coeur (Sacred Heart), which is a really big, cool church set high on the hill of Montmartre. It ranked up there with some of the cooler churches we saw in Italy. In particular, it was very dimly lit with hundreds upon hundreds of candles lighting it. It was a pretty spectacular effect. (Of course the candles are paid for and lit by tourists, but it still looked good.)

Afterwards we walked around Montmartre, which is an area that always has been and still is dominated by artists. You may have heard of some of the more famous ones who used to hang out here like, oh I don’t know, Dalí, Monet, Picasso or van Gogh to name a few.

This was a really cool part of the city, with old cobble stone streets, an open-air artist’s market, houses previously owned by famous artists (see above), and street musicians. There’s a certain pride to the artistic history of the place, and the street musicians we saw certainly upheld the tradition: they were awesome! We caught some gelato and listened for a while. We debated buying a CD and now I wish we would have.

We also took a break somewhere in here, and Evie and I rode a cool 2 story carousel (the French are apparently really into carousels), and Evie took plenty of time to do some pigeon chasing. There really aren’t that many pigeons in Paris, all things considered, but they do tend to congregate where there are tourists, because there is usually food there. They are quite bold. I don’t think anybody really objected to Evie chasing them around for a while.

Finally Evie fell asleep…on Aymeric’s (my boss) head. He had been giving her a ride on his shoulders and she just conked out, resting her head on the top of his and snoozing away. He said that he felt her sort of nod down a few times and then just smash into his head.

We were walking around Montmartre, looking for famous houses and windmills, when we eventually realized we had accidentally wandered into Pigalle. For those not familiar with Paris, Pigalle is sort of like the red light district. So of course, Evie immediately woke up. I don’t think she managed to see too much. The stores and things are shockingly obscene, but only if you can read the signs. I would say there was less to actually see than I saw on the streets of New Orleans. Still, it was the middle of the day, and I’m sure nights are a little more…rowdy. We also crossed the street and realized we were standing in front of the famous Moulin Rouge; a fortunate accident.

After this we went to Aymeric’s cousin’s house to use the computer and find out that we had not, in fact, paid the security deposit. I dashed off a quick email apologizing to the land lord (Did I say quick email? Did you know that the French keyboard is subtly different than the American one? It took me like 15 minutes to type a 3 line email).

Part 2C, Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose:

Even in France, Oliver gets lots of pointing, smiles and goofy faces made at him. When we were riding the metro, he kept grabbing a lady’s paper out of her hands. She loved it. Evie, on the other hand, gets lots of “what’s wrong with that girl, is she sleeping?” faces. Every afternoon she would just pass out, boneless. You would think kids in Paris never sleep, the way some of the people were looking at her. Like, “Does she have some kind of condition?” She was pretty out of it though.

Just in general, you notice a lot of differences between the way Europeans live and the way we live at home. Kids are living in the lap of luxury in Paris. Every kid is dressed up in super fancy, expensive duds, sitting in an expensive stroller. We kind of got the impression that kids are a big status symbol, at least among the people with money. So maybe we were being judged more on the quality of our little umbrella stroller that didn’t allow Evie to recline, more than the fact that she was sleeping.

Maybe the kids are just dressed like the parents are dressed. Paris tip #4: don’t come wearing your Abercrombie sweatshirt and your grubby jeans and expect to fit in. These people know how to dress. I think that they tend to buy less clothes, but more expensive items. Even teenagers are awesome at putting together an outfit, and putting on makeup. And everybody is thin! There really were times when I thought I was walking into model-land. Tourists were easiest to pick out by their dress than anything else. So I guess it’s no surprise that every kid was dressed to the nines.

Also, everything in Paris was smaller. Tiny cars, tiny apartments, smaller portions. The apartment we rented was significantly bigger than the one Aymeric’s cousin lived in, and believe me, it wasn’t big. And you know what? It was the perfect size for what we needed. It was really just sort of refreshing to see people living like that, and not just sort of urban-sprawling all over the place.

Although I still don’t understand why the toilet and the rest of the bathroom are always in separate rooms…