Paris - the Triumph (and I don't just mean the Arc d')

I can't believe it's taken me this long to get back to my blog and try to record notes on the awesome stuff that happened in Paris, though I'm sure I'll always enjoy a good (horrified) laugh when I read the previous post. A couple weeks ago Ruth began reading through my blog from the very start. It has both made me very anxious (what did I write? did I say anything too embarrassing about her? did I spill any great parenting secrets - hello, Santa! glad she's already in on that one - that will get me in trouble?) and very nostalgic. She keeps coming to show me bits and pieces that make her laugh or reminisce or even cry. All in all, it has motivated me to want to write more, because looking back through it all has reminded me why I keep this online journal in the first place! What better place to jump back in to writing than Paris?!

Huge successes of our Paris adventure:

* We do not appear to have brought any creepy crawlies home with us.
* We DID manage to bring all five children home with us.
* We NEVER LOST ANY OF THEM! Not on subways or long staircases or crowded lines. Not even in crazy public toilets. If anything screams success, it's keeping track of all your children during a week of vacation in a foreign city.
* We didn't have to pay any extra fees for broken rules on our crazy cheap RyanAir flights.

I have no idea how to go about sharing all the amazing memories from the epic trip or where to begin. Here goes...

*****

The first night we made it into the city of Paris proper, to the Eiffel Tower, I just knew all was going to be well. The kids were tired and grumpy, but the sight of the tower, even after we realized we were too late to climb the stairs that night, was inspiring and motivating, and then it started sparkling! I knew it did that, but we hadn't been paying attention to the clock so it surprised us all, and truly is awe-inspiringly beautiful. Crepes for dinner after was really the treat we all needed to fuel us for the days of site-seeing ahead. Rachel found great comfort in the knowledge that nutella would be plentiful in the city. Nathaniel ordered me a kir royale. Cheers!

*****

Let's talk more about eating. With a large family. In Paris. I am incredibly grateful for the gorgeous weather we had throughout the trip, because picnics were not just a quaint, lovely option, but a near necessity for us in order to afford food. The whole "year abroad" thing is expensive to start with, and while I consider it mandatory that we make a few great trips while we're in Europe, we can't afford to go wild and we're trying hard not to put ourselves in debt beyond the next couple tax refunds. While part of me definitely wishes we could have dined on escargot at fancy French restaurants a time or two, or sipped a glass of wine at a sidewalk café, I'm content to be giving the kids the experience on a "baguettes and brie with a demi-bottle of wine on the banks of the Seine" budget instead. (Also, I'm lying about the escargot. Tried it once, don't need it again.) All that said, sometimes it was difficult even to find our picnic supplies! The "Paris with kids" tour guide I'd read made it sound like there were markets and bakeries around every corner, but more than once we found ourselves wandering frustratingly long and far looking for somewhere to grab a fresh loaf of bread and a bottle of Orangina for the kids. (Funnily, this was one of my strongest memories of Paris from college. I went for a quick weekend visit with a roommate while studying in London. We had visions of crepe stands on every corner, and instead found ourselves wandering the city, unable to find anything to eat the first night we were there! That was irritating as a college student. When you're leading five hungry kids, repeating the refrain "We'll eat in a just a few minutes, as soon as we find a bakery!" it's way worse.) We ate American fast food an embarrassing number of times, both because a McDonalds, Subway, or KFC is almost always easy to locate (the KFC surprised me!), they have bathrooms on site, and they're affordable. Fun surprise - French happy meals are cheap and come with a TON of stuff! Different potato options or cherry tomatoes, a bonus fruit dessert (peach smoothie, berry applesauce or a wedge of pineapple as opposed to just apple slices). It really was a lot of food for the money. When you're feeding kids on a budget... well... what can I say? Every day tended to end up with breakfast in our hotel kitchenette - cereal, pastries, etc. - followed by one very french picnic or street vendor meal, and one very American fast food meal, with some snacks thrown in for good measure. Tummies stayed full (except during those bakery hunts), mostly with foods decadent enough Nathaniel made jokes about our risk of developing gout during a single week, and we didn't break the bank.

A couple more quick notes on the food:
- nearly every bakery from which we ordered coffee had a push button coffee/espresso/cocoa machine rather than a barista. That surprised me. However, since the hotel had an electric kettle but no coffee maker (?!) and we hadn't thought to pack our filter cones, we were drinking instant coffee at the hotel and anything was an improvement on that.
- the kitchen at the hotel also had only mediocre knives, so slicing the dried sausages (or even the cucumbers) for lunch was challenging. Nathaniel's an expert with a lightly serrated butter knife now.
- pre-prepping some picnic foods was critical, because there's only so much you can do while sitting on the river bank or in the ruins of a castle next to the Chapel of St. Joan of Arc, and since your bag might have to go through security at a museum, you can't carry real knives with you.
- I'd forgotten how delicious Orangina is. Mmmmmm.
- how I wish it hadn't poured rain on us while we waited on our lunch from the little shop next to Notre Dame. That was one of the tastiest meals we ate - quiche and freshly made crepes and hot wine - and I wish it hadn't been consumed so awkwardly or in such haste.

*****

I believe we approached site-seeing with children with just the right attitude. The guide book I mentioned above was helpful with suggestions for realistic times you could spend at various sites before kids would get bored. In general, we approached it all knowing that, while we wanted to see the museums and landmarks of Paris, the little kids' attention spans would be nil, and even the older kids could only spend so long looking at art. Things like climbing huge flights of stairs to get great views of the city (and close up views of gargoyles) or exploring expansive gardens and rowing boats on the water were much more likely to be successes.

The day we visited the Musée d'Orsay and the Louvre... I could have spent all day wandering each one. But even the room full of the most famous Monets and Degases couldn't hold their attention for more than a passing minute Not even when I pointed out "the ballerinas from your Olivia book!" (A mom's gotta do what a mom's gotta do.) I pointed things out anyway, saying, "You're not excited about this now, but someday you'll be proud to say you've seen this painting in person." And then we went on our merry way and fed baguette crumbs to ducks and made up songs about Latvian goats, because that's how we roll. We did spend a long time sitting in front of the enormous painting of The Wedding at Cana that's in the same room as the Mona Lisa at the Louvre, but that was mostly because we were exhausted from all the walking that day and there was an open space on the floor. You can get away with sitting on the floor at the Louvre for a long time if it appears you're appreciating a work of art. The painting really was stunning, though, and our little rest in front of it gave us time to notice fun details like the number of dogs peeking out here and there. The guide book suggested a super quick three stop tour of the Louvre for small children. The third stop was in Egyptian artifacts, and we spent all morning motivating Peter and Rachel to keep walking with the promise of mummified cats in their future. Wouldn't you know, we were there on Friday, and it turns out the Egyptian artifacts wing is closed on Fridays. What are the chances?

*****

The visit to Versailles began with a long wait in line even though we had tickets in advance. I cannot imagine what it must be like in the high season! By the time we entered the palace, kids were already getting antsy. We toured at a break-neck pace (often leaving Nathaniel behind and assuming he'd find us eventually), but it was still fabulous. We made up stories about the people who lived in the rooms, and the kids claimed rooms that they'd each designed ("I designed the ceiling in this room. Do you like it?!"). We oohed and aahed over all the absurd luxuriousness, and the hall of mirrors didn't disappoint. Mostly they wanted to get out to the gardens to roam. When we finally got there, the kids were starving and ready to find a place to sit and have a picnic, but we discovered it was their special last day of fountains and music and you had to buy extra tickets to tour the gardens. {sigh} We could hardly skip it at that point, and it was a really beautiful afternoon. We had one "can we just go home...?" grumbler all afternoon, but for the most part, we all enjoyed discovering what was around the next row of hedges or through the next arch of trees, and everyone enjoyed Nathaniel's impromptu row boat rental. We weren't necessarily planning to stay till the end of the water/music displays, but when we were finishing our walk and it was only 15 minutes till the last listed display, we figured why not? We joined hundreds of other visitors sitting on the banks of Neptune's Fountain, awaiting the final "show", only listed once for the day, from something like 5:20-5:27pm. Anticipation was in the air. At 5:20, the fountains started up, and... just ran for 7 minutes then turned off. No music. No choreography like we'd seen at some of the other locations that had things going every 10 or 15 minutes. Everyone watching seemed similarly confused and let down. One couple from the US seated near us suggested that perhaps the huge fountain can't run when the others are, from a water pressure standpoint, so they only run it for a few minutes at the end? It seems like as good an explanation as any.

As we were walking toward the exit along with throngs of other visitors, we spotted the most adorable little boy. He was perhaps three years old, and he was pushing an umbrella stroller, calling out in his little French voice "Mama? Papa? Attendez..." (Mama? Papa? Wait...) He didn't seem especially upset, but there were no adults near him. I saw a few other adults watching and waiting, and we slowed our pace, keeping an eye on him. Sure enough, within a couple minutes, a man came running from further ahead with the look of panic only a parent who's misplaced a child can wear. The little boy was one of several children in the family; my heart went out to them. It could happen to anyone, but you know they felt like the worst parents in the world in that moment. The vision of the little guy pushing his own stroller along - it still makes me grin.

*****

I have loads more anecdotes to share, so I'll call this part one and post it. I've had it open all day and it's time for bed here.