Day 8 - The Royal Last Day

Bon Jour! Hope everyone is doing fine out there in blog land. I am signing on tonight in sadness and in gladness. We are sad our adventure has to come to an end, but we are glad to know we will be reunited with our dear Amy and Connor soon. We have missed them bunches. It is always hard to leave a good, no GREAT trip behind. Christian has had a whole new world (literally) opened up to him. I think I have created a traveling monster to be honest. Chip off the ol' block! If you want to know my philosophy on life then listen up, if you don't then skip a few lines and go to the next segment. Life is about experiences not stuff. Give a child a toy and they will forget about it in a month. Give a child a great experience and they will remember it forever. They will always want to share the experience, and they will never out grow the memory. There, that's it. No need for a lengthy rant.

On to the day...

Well, once again we were awaken by the friendly neighborhood trash collectors. What???? Where are the crousants? Oh man... guess we'll have to have some Chocapic. Better hold onto Christian tight so he doesn't jump all the way to Versailles. Yes, that's right, we were off the Royal palace of Versailles... were King Louis the XIV moved to after he decided the Louvre wasn't cool enough for his royal subjects. Give me a break. Versailles is a pretty cool crib and all, but the Louvre would have been just fine if you ask me. Versailles does have a great big, giant, enormous backyard (royal gardens). I'm talking can't see the end of it, giant backyard... with a lake. Actually, several lakes. Okay, enough rambling. This palace is the epitomy of gold and spice and everything that is really, REALLY nice. Kind of makes your head spin really. We started out walking through the royal bedrooms and I'm guessing the dressing rooms next to them. Full of paintings of dead French guys (Christian's thoughts) and golden vases and chairs that didn't look too comfortable to sit in for more than 5 or 10 minutes. Then we ventured into the hall of mirrors. WOW!!!!! As Christian and I walk into the enormous room he began to wonder what it would have been like to have this palace as our home now. Okay... this room is the Lego room. This room is Connor's bedroom. This room is where it would take you 20 minutes to ride your bike all the way around it room. (That would be the Hall of Mirrors) It took Christian a while to find the room that he imagined as the family room. Leave it to a boy to choose the "War Drawing Room" as the family room. Massive paintings of battle scenes surround you. Somehow I don't think the ladies would appreciate this quite as much as the gents.

After about an hour inside we (Christian) were getting a little restless and decided to venture out to see the royal grounds. First of all, how do they make to tops of all the trees flat like that? Do they fly a helicopter upside down and buzz the tops right off? Because it is winter most of the beauty of the gardens is gone until at least spring, if not summer. One can't begin to imagine how many hours a week it would take to keep this place looking pristine. A massive, horticultural wonder. Kids, go out and play in the back yard... we'll see you in a week.

Since it was our last day in Paris we decided to head back into the city and walk the areas we didn't get to see on the rainy days we were inside. We went back to the Louvre to take pictures of the I.M. Pei pyramid as well as the traditional structure. (It was pouring when we were there for our tour.) We also stopped for one last baguette. Christian decided to turn his into a light saber and battle Dad (the evil sith, Darth Mot) before he ate his. I had no chance. He is way too fast with a stick of carbohydrates in his hand.

Lastly, we took a quick Metro ride to the Saint Marten canals. This is where more of the middle class resides in Paris. Lots of kids playing, and we were even able to watch a cargo boat use the locks on the canal. (See how the Panama canal works to understand the process of the locks. It's very cool.)

And now the fun begins... packing. Ugh! Well, it has been great to share this with you all. I hope it gave everyone an idea of what we were doing. I don't think Christian will ever forget this trip. I know I wont. I want to give a great big thanks to Stuart and Lynn Embury for being such great hosts to us here. They are such wonderful tour guides and wonderful people. Also, a huge thank you to my dearest and most cherished wife Amy. Without her none of this would have been possible (her idea to do this). And thank you to everyone who helped us out with Connor this past week. We send our immense gratitude to you.

Merci and Au Revoir!

A quote from the authors: "There is no bad bread in Paris."

Day 7 - A more modern day experience.

Good day! Short blog tonight. I am tired and I'm surprised Christian is even upright. Today brought us more cold and rain outside so we took it upon ourselves to head indoors once again to view some fantastic creations of art... modern art. Well... more modern than we saw yesterday. It's still old, just not as old. But these are the faves of them all in my mind, and Christian's. Where did we go to see these great works you ask? La Musee de'Orday. This museum was made out of an old train station that was a working station back in the early 20th century. They made it a museum when the platforms were deemed too short for the new trains. This place rocks! Christian wants to know if we can buy it and make it our home. Uhhh... no. It is very cool though. I understand the desire.

This is where a lot if the most famous pieces of art known to modern man are housed. You must have Monet to buy Degas to make Van Gogh. If you run out of Monet you will be Baroque. Ha, ha... get it? Oh well... I tried to be funny. Christian loved this museum. He recognized several of the paintings right away. He said his art teacher, Mrs. Mergalman (spl.???) would love this place. Right away he picked out his favorite, a Vincent Van Gogh. It is a painting of his bedroom when he was staying in Provence, France. "Bedroom in Arles" is very recognizable to most. No other paintings are like it, but no other painter was like Van Gogh. He also loved the paintings of Degas, Renoir, Manet and, of course... Monet. Ahhhh... I could stay and look at these all day. What a shame we can only tolerate so much art in a day when we are 8.

After we took in some Rodin sculptures and some other great works we took off for lunch and then on to another climb... a climb straight up. If you are ever in Paris this is a must see. We climbed the towers of the Notre-Dame, all the way to the bells (no hunchback to be found). First of all, I don't know how many people have done this before us, but there were some serious crevices in the stone steps. And to make things more challenging, the spiral staircases were way tighter than the Arce de Triomphe. What a wild climb. Who needs a gym membership when you could do this every day. Christian loved to be right up close to all the gargoyles that surrounded the top. He also loved getting right next to one of the bells. HUGE bell!!!! BIG bell!!!! It weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of 8 ton. Don't drop that on your foot when you're cleaning it, Monsieur. I guess when we were up on the top they had high enough winds to close the airports and cancel flights for some time. Who knew? I guess we are so use to high winds in Loveland we didn't seem to notice.

Tonight we walked down to see the old Opera house in the ritzy part of Paris. I wasn't sure we could afford to look around at the shops that surrounded us. 20 euros per glance. No, not really. Very upscale stores though.

Well, tomorrow is our last day. We are torn... we miss Mom and brother a ton, but there is still so much to see. Check in tomorrow to see how much we can cram in. Good night! Oh yes, I almost forgot... Christian had his first eclair today. Mmmmmmmm!!!!!

Day 6 - A Masterpiece of a Day!

Welcome to another wonderful day of cultural experiences in Paris. This day brings us culture from all around Europe and the world. But first... a chocolate croissant. Mmmmmm, heaven. Kids, here's another reason to get your family to travel to Europe some day, your parents can't read the sugar content on the cereal boxes. Christian came back to the flat from the local market with a box of "Chocapic" chocolaty cereal. Guess how much sugar per serving this stuff has in it? Nope... higher. Nope... higher. Keep going. Okay... I'll tell you. 29 grams of sugar. YIKES!!!! No wonder Christian's bouncing down the Rue de Bowtie (the street we walk to the Metro in the morning). We are not bringing it home with us, and the next time someone needs to go to the store it will be Dad.

Once again the weather threw us a wet, lumpy sludge ball... rain. No worries, we are going to the Louvre today. One of the greatest exhibits of art known to mankind. You want to talk about a lot of space, this place has over 652,000 square feet of stone walled rooms for the masterpieces it houses. Speaking of houses, if the average size of a house in Loveland is 3,000 square feet you could fit over 217 houses inside the Louvre. That's a lot of floors to sweep. The Louvre was built in the 12th century as a fortress and later became the palace for Louis XIV. In the 17th century Louie moved out to some better digs (he moved to Versailles. We're going there on Wednesday). The Louvre became the place where he kept his art collection. It became a museum in the late 18th century. Many kings and emperors added to it's collection. Now, NOW it is one of the greatest collections of paintings, sculptures, artifacts and antiquities in the world. And you pretty much have no chance in seeing everything there unless you spend 5 full days there. Since we are still recovering from our trek yesterday we decided to see some of the more famous works that most you will be familiar with.

First of all, we hunted down probably the most sought after painting in the whole museum. This painting was created by a man from Italy back in the 16th century. His first name was Leonardo and his last name is not Dicaprio. It was Da Vinci. Leonardo Da Vinci is known as one of the greatest artists of all time, and this piece shows you why. Say hello to Lisa... Mona Lisa. Christian and I walked up and down stairs, through long hallways and finally into a room with a large group of people gathered around a small little painting. (that happened to be about 25 feet behind a wooden rail, away from the front row of the crowd. Binoculars anyone?) We feel pretty fortunate, most people in the summer never get within 25 feet of the rail. We got right up to it. As close as you can get without being carted off to the French slammer... forever. I have been told that any time of the day there are at least a half dozen undercover security guards in the crowd in case someone tries to make a break for the "Lady". I think Christian was intrigued, but not necessarily impressed by the painting. "Is that it? Wow." That's okay buddy, a lot of adults wonder what all the hype is about as well. It's a beautiful painting, but probably not my favorite. To each is their own.

Next, we stopped by the "Winged Victory of Samothrace". Does anyone have a pair of Nike shoes? This is the Greek goddess "Nike". No swoosh involved here. Just a massive piece of marble that was carved back in the early 3rd century B.C. Christian wants to know why most of the sculptures in the Louvre are missing their arms. "Is there a big room somewhere full of arms?" No, they are probably dust by now, or buried under rubble somewhere. After straining our necks looking up at the "Nike lady" we went to find the "Venus de Milo". Another great statue that has no arms. When you are walking from one piece of art to the next it's hard to remember every step you are taking you are passing other masterpieces. Oh... there's a masterpiece. And there's one. And there. And there. And there. You get the picture.

When we finally reached the Venus we felt like we had walked as far as we did yesterday. Walking on marble floors for over an hour will make your feel that way. It's hard on le feet and shins. (Not for you youth out there though. Just us old people.) Wow... we are close. The closest I have ever been to any great sculpture in my life. Christian quick... stand there so I can take you picture in front of it. What a great experience. Okay, we don't want to make you sleepy here. The Louvre was great, we saw a ton of fabulous art, and we didn't do much after that. Remember the rain? Yeah... back to the flat.

Tonight we had a great dinner at a traditional French restaurant. The waiters were right out of the movie "Ratatouille." No rats, thank goodness. Christian had snails... and happily ate them. That's my boy!

Christian is tired. This tourist stuff is hard work, and he has been staying up way, WAY too late. Time for bed for now. More tomorrow. Bonne nuit (good night).

Days 3-4 - The weekend report from Paris

Bon Jour!!! It has been a wonderful weekend, but boy are we tuckered out. Let's begin with Saturday... shall we? Do you know the phrase "you get what you get and you don't throw a fit"? We'll that was the approach we had to take with the weather on this first day of the weekend. I'm not sure if my core temperature is back to normal yet (and it's Sunday night)? We began the morning with a lengthy Metro ride to a flea market on the southwest side of Paris. The Vanves flea market is a treasure of lost items from times past... and a whole bunch of garbage in between. The kicker of the trip to this prize hunter's paradise was the cold drizzle that covered our souls throughout the morning. But, as you learn when you travel, it's better to be cold, wet and traveling than it is to be hot, dry and working (in school or at your job). Christian, the born collector he is, was amazed by all this eclectic market had to offer. Need a painting? Got it. Need an old toy car? Got it. Need a lamp that looks like an old piece of crusty cake? Got it. What surprised me was the amount of shoppers and merchants that actually showed up to conduct business in this weather. Now don't think this was all business for everyone attending. There was plenty of socializing going on. Old and new friends abound in places like these. I just wish we could have understood what they were laughing about. Probably the shivering Americans. Needless to say, the weather broke our will after an hour or so. Time for some chocolat chaud (hot chocolate)!!!

One thing I can say for sure is that the French have WAY better hot chocolate than Americans do. Ohhhhh baby, do they. The damp weather might have played a part in that statement a little bit, but just a little... really. Sitting in a cafe with Parisians all around really gives you a feel for the culture. The French are not loud, boisterous people. They speak softly, and sit close to each other. With 10 million people living in the same city who could blame them. It was a great break from the elements.

Christian decided that it was time to head back to flat. The cold had gotten to him. Lunch in!!

After a light lunch and a bit of a rest Christian and I decided to go see one of the most feared people in all history. Well... not the actual person, the place where this person's tomb resides. Any guesses... anyone??? This person had the whole continent of Europe at his feet in the years between 1799 and 1813. He was the master of the battlefield and one of the greatest strategist of war. One last clue... well, two. He was vertically challenged and he kept his right hand hidden inside his shirt for some unknown reason. If you guessed Prince you are wrong. It was Napoleon Bonaparte, otherwise know as Napoleon. A French general that took over France and 1799 and five years later crowned himself Emperor. In 1812 he invaded Russia and that didn't go so well. We was sent into exile a year later. He has a really nice place to stay now. I great big, giant, reddish brown sarcophagus. (ask Mrs. Nickell what that is) The tomb and sarcophagus are housed in an old church that later was turned into a soldiers retirement home and then into a museum. This place is HUGE! We didn't even see one tenth of what was there. Too much to see... not enough time. Seems to happen a lot around here. Lots of gold and glitz around these parts. No Christian... you can't take any of that home with you. You'll go to jail if you try. They might put you in the Bastille.

We'll tell you about that tomorrow. Okay, it's tomorrow.

Before we get to the Bastille, we have other places to tell you about. One was the Granddaddy of them all. First of all I have to tell you we are a little disappointed in our local patisserie (pastry shop). They are closed on the weekend. Can you believe it? Christian said this is worth a revolution in itself. Oh well, guess we'll have to go the extra two blocks to the next one. (Boo hoo, right?)

Today we decided to skip the Metro and hoof it for a while. Man, my feet hurt tonight! Christian, how do your feet feel?

"Great!"

Youth... go figure. Here is the short version of where we went today with some interesting facts sprinkled in. First, we walked to Place de la Concord, a tall monument in the center of a roundabout near the Seine river. This is where Marie Antoinette, King Louis XVI and several other prominent, historical figures became a foot shorter thanks to the guillotine. You can't see any remnants of these acts anywhere, thank goodness.

Next we walked over the Tuilleries, a grand garden/park area that was full of people sitting, running, playing, kissing (eeeew!!!!!) and just having a good time in the nice weather. Did I mention the weather? What a change from yesterday. Partly cloudy, no wind and NO DRIZZLE! Christian found his love of photography in this place and boy did he take some great shots. Really, I didn't give him any direction on these. All him! Following this we walked over to the Seine to try to find the Pont Neuf (the New Bridge) which is the oldest bridge in Paris. I know... I don't get the name thing either. Along the Seine there are many book dealers and artist that are selling their goods out of boxes that are lined up along the walkway. This has been going on since the time of Napoleon. We walked to the Pont Neuf, down around a great big cathedral (we'll tell you about that in a little bit) up through some other districts that I don't know enough about to write on (but they were really cool) and on to the the Bastille. That little short blurb back there took me 60 seconds to write. It took us about 3 hours to walk that whole distance. Christian fulfilled his whole kids on the move chart in one day.

The Bastille was originally a fortress and then was made into a prison that housed some of France's worst enemies. Now, another grand monument stands in it's place. They knocked it down at some point to rid the city of its unpleasantness. Lots of bad things happened there. I wont go into details. Not good.

After the Bastille we went back toward the Seine to see the granddaddy of all sites (in my mind) in Paris. Remember me mentioning a big cathedral earlier? Ever hear of Notre-Dame? (I'm not talking about a football team either). What an amazing place. Amazing! I'll just let the photos speak for themselves. We were in awe. At 4:30 there was a free organ concert that we lined up for. We made our way inside and could not believe the... oh there are no words to describe how great this place is. "Christian, start shooting pictures!" At least it wasn't Christian that got into trouble with the Nun for shooting pictures in the "no photos" area. That was me. Oops. My bad, sorry.

The concert was great. I think Christian even enjoyed it for the most part. Although, he did start to flick me in the back towards the last arrangement. After some more pictures (in the appropriate places, thank you very much) we made our way back outside. One more stop before dinner and homework. Yes, Christian is doing homework here. He is such a good boooooy. Where is he... "Christian, come here so I can pinch your face when I write this.

Lastly, we stopped in the famous book store, Shakespeare & Company. A book lover's paradise. Earnest Hemmingway loved this place so much he wrote about it himself. Christian will bring the book his Grandpa purchased for him into class so everyone can see it. It's all about Paris. Imagine that.

Well, I'm pooped. I will add the photos tomorrow morning so look for them when you get up. I have no more energy to post tonight. Oh my... it's 11 o'clock. "Christian, Go To Bed!

Morning of 2/8/09

Here are a few things I left out from yesterday:
Christian and crepes go together like bread and butter. He has discover Nutella chocolate spread and crepes are magnificent. Especially when you can find them on every corner in Paris... instant access! Remember the hot dog that was as long as his arm? He had a ham and cheese sandwich for lunch that was as big as my foot (size 10). Massive! Chasing pigeons has become Christian's favorite past time here in Paris. They are everywhere and he is convinced he can catch one. He has also taken about a hundred pictures of them. Christian, they all look the same.