Trip to Paris

As Sue's already posted, we had a trip to France a couple of weeks ago.  When we told the kids that we were going to spend a year in Europe we told them that they could each pick a spot for a trip.  Although I'm not sure Henry's still decided (I think LegoLand in Germany gets the nod), Grace, without hesitation said, "the Eiffel Tower in Paris!"

A good friend of mine, and a close research colleague teaches in Paris (at this ultra-selective university, Mines ParisTech -- to say it is the "MIT of France" kind of understates how selective it is).  He invited me to give a seminar to his research group and so the date was set for our trip.

We flew up on Thursday afternoon and Sue and the kids would fly back on Sunday while stayed through Monday and Tuesday to work, flying back Wednesday (the day before the American Thanksgiving, which is the subject of the next post, hopefully!).  That sounds like a "long weekend," but with needing a connecting flight to Paris, the train ride between terminals at Charles de Gaulle airport, the train from CDG to the city, the subway (with a connection!) from the train station to the neighborhood of our hotel, and then a 10-minute walk to our hotel ... well, Thursday and Sunday were really travel days.  But still, two full days in Paris ... you can't complain.

Ok, well to avoid this being a marathon post, I'll try to hit the highlights, which, of course, start with the Eiffel Tower -- the center of Grace's attraction to Paris.  For those that have been there, we went up to the second level.  As recommended in a book Sue read, the view from that level is really great and it is an open platform vs. the ride to the tippy top, where you have to stay inside.  And, although we didn't go to the top, I'm pretty sure the book was right about this recommendation.

And before I go any further in terms of what we saw, we have to talk a moment about Eiffel Tower trinkets.  This turned out to be quite the obsession of our children.  And apparently, this is a very big joke amongst Parisians.  All I can say, at least they are cheap (the first ones we bought were sold to us by a very friendly, quite persistent and effective salesman, at the low, low price of 5 for 1 euro!).  But I think these little ET keychains are an entry drug to larger, more expensive, larger margin ETs.  And, as you can see, we left with quite a few!


And in the picture you may have noticed a non-ET.  Well, that is none other than the Arc de Triumphe (on the green book).  Henry, as we pretty much guessed, loved to go somewhere with 8 "lanes" of traffic moving around a circle with a control logic all its own.  And so, he had to have an Arc!

So, after the ET and AdT, we headed back to the hotel for a dinner after a quite full day.  That brings us to Saturday.  We just had to get the kids to a museum and Sue, with her handy tips from the books, read that a good strategy was to go to the museum gift shop before you go in, let the kids pick out a postcard of a painting they like, and then have a scavenger's hunt in the museum.  What a great idea, huh?

As the museum of our affection we chose the Musée D'Orsay.  All the books say it is one of the more appealing "great" museums for kids and it isn't huge, like the Louvre, say, which might talk ALL DAY to find four paintings.  The only problem with this plan is that even in late November, Paris is packed with tourists!  We noticed this on Friday at the ET, where we waited a good hour or so to get tickets to go up, but Saturday at the MDO, wow, that was quite a line.  And, as it turns, out we had made plans to meet my friend for lunch with his family.  Anyway, to make a long story short, we balked the queue, my friend came over early and we walked around the River Seine and the Louvre Gardens on a beautiful late fall day in Paris.  We ended up at the food court area under the Louvre, which turns out to be a sneaky way in to get tickets.  And, in fact, we could see that we wouldn't have to wait at all to get tickets to go in.  So, no MDO, we're going to the Louvre!

But remember our little scavenger hunt game?  And my note about how it would take ALL DAY to find four specific paintings in a big museum?  Well, it did!  But it was fun, mostly.  And the reason I picked my painting to show off (besides the absolute massive size of it!) was that Henry was in a bit of a sour mood when we found his sculpture (very interesting choice, by the way) and we never did find Grace's and Sue's (the gift shop, it turns out, has so many postcards some of the paintings aren't even in the museum -- note to self for next time!).

As we left the L, we had a very nice surprise.  Sue (again with her books!) had read that on nice days in the summer you can go to these small ponds and rent a toy boat to sail around.  When she read this in cold Graz she had written it off as something that we'd be able to do in Paris.  But the weather was unseasonably warm while we were there (upper 50's) and sure enough, we stumbled onto one of these places.  It was really quite nice.  Sue said that it was meditative to push the boat out and wait for the wind to bring it back to the side ... she though she could of done it all day!

And we should have probably gone back to the hotel then.  But you know how it is, you're there, you're pretty close to some other major site, and you rationalize it (there will be a lot of restaurants over there and we've been to the ones by our hotel already).  Anyway, we went to Cathédrale de Notre Dame.  It was nice to see, but no one had the energy to climb stairs to the top or to walk through.  Dinner was a little "down" due to our energy.  The only thing that picked the kids back up was a trip through a few shops to buy yet another ET and the coveted AdT!

Sunday, was all about getting Sue and the kids to the airport on time.  We kind of overdid it, and I think they got there almost 2 hours ahead of their flight.  Sue said the trip home went well except for their luggage not making it (it was delivered later that evening).  But the nice thing about getting Sue and kids to the airport early was that I had the afternoon to explore a little more (the only thing I had to get done that day was finish my presentation).  I walked across town to Sacré Coeur (Sacred Heart) on a just beautiful day in Paris.  I climbed to the top, but even though it was a clear, sunny day, I could barely see the ET -- not sure if it was moisture, smog, or both.  But it was a pity!


I had a great time with my friend, making some progress on our research, meeting with folks, and, of course, eating some great food.  I'm not sure why, but I was especially focused on the smaller animals, eating lamb, duck, rabbit, frog legs, and a huge batch of shrimp, prawns, crabs and lobster.  But what did I take a picture of?  One of the best desserts I've ever had in my life ... profiteroles ... think creme puffs with ice cream inside and the best chocolate sauce on top!


My seminar was a big hit and my travels back were good.  I got back in time to go with Sue to a parent-teacher conference with Grace's teacher (went fine).  And then, the next day was Thanksgiving ... more about that in another post :-)

Russ