Paris Part 1

Imagine boarding a train late in the day and arriving 3.5 hours later in Paris in time for dinner.

Last Thursday night, I left work a little early and we did just that.

It just so happened that my Parents were also in Paris, so they met us at the train station - which was quite confusing for the boys - and for me since I hadn't seem them in weeks, but meet up with them in PARIS? Who are we, the Kennedy's? They helped us get settled in our 10x10 hotel closet/box and took us out to dinner.....IN PARIS. PARIS!

As the sun was setting, we walked through the streets near Notre Dame as we looked for a place to eat. It was breathtaking.

We ended up at one of the very common indoor/outdoor cafes where we all ordered something French enough that we had we had to point to the menu to order correctly. I still ordered wrong....I mistook "Parma" for "Parmesan", but it was in fact "Ham"....it was still good, because for the love of Pete, were were in Paris.

It was difficult to sleep that first night. Mostly because we slept with the patio doors open and the streets below buzzed with mopeds and motorcycles. But mainly because I knew WE WERE IN PARIS. The next morning, I was the first one up with the sun. It was quiet. Just me, and the Parisian sunrise.
Our room. Oh, our room. Like most Hotel rooms in Paris, it was very small and old, or as the French might say, quaint and historic. But when you find yourself asking your 5 year old to "switch places" with you, lets just call it what it was.....freaking small. We knew we were not going to be spending much time in our room, but we actually exceeded those expectations because we were out by 9:00am and didn't return before 10:00 any night we were there.

As if Paris knew exactly what our needs were, our hotel was one block away from the Breakfast In America diner which served American-style breakfast all day/night. Of course, this feels a little ridiculous since we were in PARIS, but it ended up being a huge blessing for our kids. Not known for their adventurous appetites, a belly full of American Pancakes drenched in good ole Aunt Jemima was the best way to start our very long days of sightseeing.

Forever locked in Paris:
My parent purchased a two-day Hop on Hop off bus ticket which they only got to use one day of, so this ended up being the perfect way for us to tour Paris in fast forward.

First stop - Notre Dame. This was the landmark that I was most excited to see in Paris and did not disappoint. It is so difficult to describe. It is beyond enormous. I could not help but touch all of the walls and columns that I passed imagining all of the people that also touched them before me. It was an incredibly spiritual place, obviously...but even more than I expected. Of course, I was quickly snapped back into reality as Charlie continuously screamed throughout the church because he did not want to be in his stroller as we passed sign after sign which read "Quiet Please, Place of Worship". So we toured most of Notre Dame in x4 speed. Nonetheless, it was magnificent.

Back on the bus, we rode on the top level which gave us a perfect view of Paris and all that it has to offer. I couldn't photograph fast enough.

A Patisserie:
Charlie listening to the tour:

Next stop - The Opera House. The Opera House made me unexpectedly emotional. The only word I can think to describe it is REGAL. Built in 1875, it served as Paris' primary opera house until the mid 80's and I later learned was the inspiration for Phantom of the Opera. Stepping from the hall into one of the many private mezzanine booths, it opened up into the 2200 seat opera house. It. Was. Amazing. History flashes before your eyes and I had chills even imagining what it must be like to watch the ballet or symphony in the opera house, but most of all, what it would have been like to play there. It was almost too much.

The boys loved the balcony...thinking its purpose was to race from end to end.

Next stop - Arc de Triomphe. As we traveled down the long and beautiful Champs-Elysees, I remember seeing the enormous arch and thinking "oh, there's the Arc de Triomphe" in sort of a non-chalant way.

And then was like: OH MY GAD....you know your life is good when stumbling upon the Arc de Triomphe is like stumbling upon Washington Square in Tigard, Oregon. At some point, the sights start becoming very surreal. It was much bigger than I thought it would be, but the coolest part of the sight was the perfectly executed symphony of cars, buses and motorcycles that circle the Arc de Triomphe bumper to bumper, moving from outer lane to inner lane back out to outer lane to exit. There is a known flow around the 4 lanes that circle it. As a foreigner, the traffic around the Arc is down right scary, but the French know exactly what they are doing and it was kind of fun to watch.

Next stop - lunch. We were starving and the kids were starting to go from a 7 on the crab-scale to a 9 on the crab-scale. So, why not dine at the nicest Brasserie overlooking the Eiffel Tower? We love living on the edge.

As we sat in the upscale restaurant, weary, hungry and doing what we could to keep our kids from punching holes in the walls, breaking wine glasses and throwing food, I looked around. It must have been filled with famous French business men and women and movie stars. These were somebodies. And these somebodies all wore sunglasses regardless of whether the sun was shining. Honestly, I couldn't believe they let us gutter rats into such a place, but they did. This was the first time I learned that to be a beautiful French woman, you must appear to be very annoyed, constantly. Or maybe they were annoyed that we were sitting within ear shot. Caesar salads and 9 euro Coke Lights - very tasty, but absurdly expensive.

Maybe we were paying for the view, in which case, a 9 euro Coke Light is worth it:

My little French rock stars:
The lines at the Eiffel Tower were exactly as every person before us had describe.....really, really long. As in like several hours long. It was very windy and threatening rain that day, so we convinced Henry, who had up to this point said he "wants to go up in the Eiffel Tower" about 5 billion times, that we would return the next morning first thing so that we didn't have to wait in lines. Instead, we played in the park and cooed over the tiny, well-dressed French girls who somehow seemed smarter since they were speaking French. And we only had to put up with one more night of the nails-on-the-chalkboard "I wanna go up on the Eiffel Tower!!!".

We did in fact return to the Eiffel Tower Saturday morning, but we were late (we navigated the underground Metro - which started out as an intimidating venture, but in the end, we LOVED) and had to stand in line for about 1.5 hours. Except when we finally got up to the ticket window, saw that the "TOP CLOSED". It was somewhat of a Wally World moment and Nate was fully channeling Clark W. Griswold.

The second level was well worth the 1.5 wait.

If not for the view, for the amazing ice cream that they served.


I'll just mention here that traveling abroad with two little kids is one of the hardest things I have ever done. Going on only 6 hours of sleep, sleeping in a small french matchbox, eating non-standard, non-child-friendly food, and napping upright in a stroller can take a toll on a 5 and 2 year old. We pushed our kids to their limits, no, beyond their limits, but....I think we learned that sometimes, even though the Eiffel Tower was crowded like a Central Train Station, it is worth just stopping, sitting down in the middle of everything and everyone and enjoying unbelievable ice cream can remind you of where you really are and who is really important. And while I am sure we looked completely ridiculous huddled in a small circle sitting on backpacks and umbrella strollers eating ice cream, it was one of the happiest moments of our Paris weekend.