We set our alarm for 5:00 this morning, but neither of us actually woke up to the alarm. We're kind of out of practice. It's been a long summer and K was out of the office for over six weeks. Other than Sundays, we haven't used an alarm for a long time. Anyway, when we actually woke up at a little after 6:00, we got moving fast and were on the road by 7:00. On the way we hit up a cute little French bakery for some croissants and bread for breakfast. I've never been much of a fan of croissants, unless it's got chicken salad in it, but I've got to admit, they're growing on me. And I'm learning that, when in Rome (or France....or Luxembourg), do as the Romans (or Frenchmen....or Luxembourgers....)
Anyway, our mini road trip was great. The French highways provided entertainment for us. There were these painted three dimensional shapes for miles along the sides of the road. The kids kept their eyes peeled looking for more shapes- and learned the names of a few three dimensional shapes along the way too. As cool as we thought they were too, we just hope the 22€ toll we had to pay to drive on that highway was not in place to finance the outdoor art project! Seriously, we both about had a heart attack when we saw how steep the toll was.
On the way we listened to the 2012 Primary theme songs sung in French. Our Primary President gave me a cd last week at church because she said Miss A seemed uncomfortable singing in English in Primary when most of the other kids sing in French. Miss A admitted it was true, so we're working on helping her learn. When that got old, we jammed out to the "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" soundtrack. I found an old cd in the car that hadn't been listened to for ages. Some fresh material is a good thing. The trip from our house to the hotel in Paris took about three hours.
After checking into the hotel and dropping our bags, we headed out to check out the city. K has been reading Frommer's Paris 2013 guide in preparation for our quick trip and has been giving me daily tips over the last week or so. One of the things he told me several times is that Paris is not safe like sweet little Lux. There are pickpockets everywhere. Don't carry a purse and keep your things close by. I took his advice seriously and locked my purse in the safe at the hotel before we left. We headed out to the subway station and waited in a huge line to buy tickets. While we were waiting, all of a sudden we heard a big commotion behind us. We turned around and saw a guy grabbing another guy's backpack and another guy punching the backpack grabbing guy. Then a whole bunch of guys took off running trying to catch the thieves. And everyone waiting in the ticket line suddenly turned their backpacks around to the front and held on to their bags a little tighter. And we pulled our kids a little closer.... Crazy thing is, a few minutes later, two of the guys came back with one of the wallets that had been stolen. Turns out two of the guys were undercover police officers. Pickpockets picked the wrong guys to mess with today!
After we made it on the train, we rode to our first stop-the Eiffel Tower, of course. Miss A has been asking for months to see it and was not disappointed! We were all a but disappointed though that the elevator tickets to ride to the top are sold out online for the next few months and the physical line to buy tickets there was so long it would have taken a few months to get through, so we'll just have to try again for our next visit. Did you know in 2013 they're opening an ice skating rink on the first level? Maybe we'll try back then.
Here is Miss A's first reaction to the tower- she's trying to be the tower, of course!
Have you seen Despicable Me? Our kids watched it recently, and at the beginning there's a part where tourists are visiting the pyramids. The guy says, "Take a picture. I'm holding the pyramid in my hands.". Well, Miss A thinks it's funny and wanted to get a picture holding the Eiffel Tower. It's not perfect, but it's our attempt :)
Being goofy and having fun!
After checking out the tower, we jumped on one of those double decker sightseeing buses. This was way cool, except that the top deck didn't have any open seats for the first 30 minutes of our ride, which was a major tragedy for the 2 and 5-year-old in our party.
Thankfully, some seats opened up eventually. We even got a whole row all to ourselves. Totally worth the wait! We saw all kinds of cool things, but I can't really tell you what any of them are because I was too busy trying to keep Miss H from jumping out of the bus to get to wear the headphones. I think K wore them for a few minutes. Maybe he can fill in the holes for me....
Here's the evidence. She seriously was trying to climb out. I don't think she has that depth perception thing down yet.
Isn't this funny? The Parisians want a beach so they put a strip of sand down the side of the river Seine and call it the seaside. Whatever floats your boat, I guess.....
After an hour or so of looking at Paris, Mr. L was tuckered out. Being the champ that he is, he decided to make lemonade out of life's lemons and take a Parisian nap...
But it didn't last for long, and seeing how Paris is sooo romantic, Miss H woke Mr. L up with a sweet little kiss. It makes a mama's heart happy to see sibling love. Of course what you don't see is her trying to poke his eyes after the cute kiss.....
We got off the bus at the Arc de Triomph. You have to walk through a tunnel that goes under the ground to get out to the middle. Then, if you want to go to the top, you have to climb hundreds of stairs all the way up there. Unless.....you have little kids and a stroller in tow. Then, the very nice ticket taker escorts you to the elevator and tells you to wait for the attendant. How great is that? We probably wouldn't have all made it otherwise.
The view from the top is pretty impressive!
Remember how we were warned about the pickpockets? On top of the Arc, I wasn't watching the stroller very well, so I took my wallet out and was just holding it. Miss H is ticked here because I won't let her play with it, so cooperating for a picture is totally our of the question.
Miss H had her own triumph while on top, so I had the rare privilege of changing a diaper on top of the Arc. How many people do you think can say they've done that??? I'm telling myself it's a relatively small number ;)
After the Arc, we needed some chill time so we headed back to the hotel for a little R&R before dinner.
Miss H didn't quite make it all the way back before she crashed.
With our batteries recharged, it was dinner time! We ate at Framboise Creperie.
We all tried new things, but found it was all pretty tasty! Even picky Miss H liked the crepes (funny though because yesterday I made crepes for breakfast filled with Nutella and banana and she wouldn't touch those!).
We took a leisurely stroll back to the hotel after dinner. And stopped for ice cream, of course.
And when we got tired of walking we jumped back on the subway. Mr. L told us tonight that one of his favorite things about today was riding on the train with the rainbow seats. It's true, they really are rainbow-see?
And now it's bedtime. One day down in a crazy big city with three little guys in tow. We had a blast! Tomorrow's a new adventure!
Location:Paris, France
Hooray! I'm glad you guys made it out there!
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