Jet Lag Redux (and some really BIG Monet paintings!)

(Thursday October 22)

So after waking up at noon on Tuesday we had to set the alarm bright and early Wednesday morning in order to get to Disneyland Paris at a decent time.  Getting there involved 2 metros and an hour long RER train ride.  Suffice to say not only did we get up pretty early, we also got back really late.  Like almost midnight, and promptly fell into bed, not setting an alarm.

Well, surprise surprise, we slept in again.  Until 11:30am!  Oops!  Scott's first words on waking were "Uh, we did it again..."  LOL.  Oh well.

Place de la Concorde

After quickly getting ready and grabbing some bakery breakfast on the go, we headed over to Les Tuileries gardens and the Musée de l’Orangerie.  Just in front of the entrance to the gardens is the Place de la Concorde.  This square, known during the French Revolution as Place de la Révolution, is where the guillotine was set up by the revolutionary government, and it is here that Louis XVI (and so many others) lost their heads.

After the revolution it was renamed Place de la Concorde.  It's now a lovely spot bordered by the large gardens of Les Tuileries to the east, and is at the end of Les Champs-Elysées on west side.  This means you can see all the way to l'Arc de Triomphe from the Place.  It contains a large obelisk that was a gift to France from Egypt in the 1800s, as well as a large fountain.

Right now it apparently also includes a public art installation.  We went into one of the buildings, which was entirely made of rotating colored glass panes.  The kids really loved that one!

Musée de l’Orangerie

The Musée de l’Orangerie is a small museum of primarily Impressionist works.  It's real claim to fame, though, is it is host to several full-size Monet water lilies paintings.  If you didn't know, many of his paintings were actually quite large, like 30 feet long!  This museum has 2 galleries, each with 4 paintings, mounted on curved walls.  They run the gamut of the different light and color conditions he painted, so they're a good representation of his whole set of water lilies works.  It's amazing to see the scale of them.  It's also wonderful because, as with most places in Paris, you can get right up in front of the paintings, and look at them in detail.

This was both Nicole and Max's favorite painting

Josie had two favorites.  This was the first one

And this was the second

L'Arc de Triomphe

After leaving the museum we hopped on the metro and made our way all the way up the Champs-Elysées to exit at the Charles de Gaulle-Etoile stop.  This is probably my favorite metro stop in Paris because you ride up out of the underground station on a long escalator that drops you RIGHT in front of the Arc de Triomphe.  Literally, steps from the edge of the traffic circle it sits in.  The scale of it as you pop out of the ground right there is quite impressive.  We went to the Arc knowing that it was too close to closing time for us to be able to get up to the top of it (having slept until 11:30 and hitting the other museum already), but we wanted to at least see it from the outside.  Maybe we'll make it back to go up in it before Doug leaves, but if not he's happy to have at least seen it from the ground.

We of course have lots more pictures on Scott's nice camera, but I'm blogging right now with just my pics from my phone because it's quicker.  You'll just have to trust me when I say that we got some really nice pictures of the family, and of Doug in front of and under the Arc.  :-)

The other reason we knew we couldn't make it to the top today is that we had plans to have dinner at one of our very favorite places in Paris: Le Relais de Venise.  It is ah-mazing.  Seriously, if you go to Paris you HAVE to go.  Or if you go to London or New York City where they apparently also have locations now, you HAVE to go.  There is only one thing on the menu - steak and fries.  The only question they ask is how you would like your steak prepared.  It comes with the most delicious fries and a secret sauce so incredible you may dream about it.  No joke.  Mmmmm...Seriously, there are pages and pages on the internet devoted to trying to duplicate this sauce, so far unsuccessfully.  Yum-o!

Disneyland Paris!

(Wednesday October 21)

Yep, we flew halfway around the world and chose to spend one of our days at Disneyland Paris.  And it was awesome!  After Doug accompanied us on a trip to Disneyland in California a couple years ago we knew we had to expose him to the French version.  We all had a great time.  What else is there to say about Disneyland?  Highlights:

We all loved the way Main Street USA feels EXACTLY like Main Street back in CA.  Seriously, you could BE in CA when you're there!

Hearing the Tower of Terror spiel in French was really cool.

The new Ratatouille ride is AWESOME, and the building for it looks AMAZINGLY like in the movie.  So fun!

The kids loved the rides in Toy Story Land (which we knew from last time, but they were super excited to get to do them again!)

Space Mountain here rocks (it has a loop and a corkscrew, which Jenn was actually excited to go on this time).

This is about the only place in Paris you see Halloween decorations, including the large pumpkins you'll see below just randomly placed in the grass.

Scott and Doug got stuck on the Aerosmith Rockin' Rollercoaster and had to be let out.  This normally wouldn't sound like a highlight, but they had almost finished the ride and got to see it and take pics with the lights on as they were let out, which is always cool!

The nighttime castle show (aka fireworks, though there are few actual fireworks, it is pretty unique) was once again brilliant.  If you haven't seen the Paris show yet, or want to see the newest one with Frozen included, you can check it out here.  It is long, but worth it.

No one's iPhone was stolen on the train home this time (in contrast with our last trip to Disneyland Paris).


Here are some random shots of the day!

Jet Lag! (And Notre Dame, too!)

(Tuesday October 20)

Ok, so we went to bed Monday night at close to midnight Paris time and didn't set an alarm.  Oops.  We woke up at noon.  Yes, noon!  Oh well, at least it is an improvement over our last trip in which, you may remember, while the rest of us wanted to sleep Max woke up in the middle of the night wide awake and ready to play for a couple hours before falling back asleep.  Not this time...all 6 of us slept straight through until noon.  Actually, we had to wake the kids up at that point.  After eating a bit of leftover yummyness from the night before we headed out for Notre Dame.

But as soon as we left our apartment we were met with one of Paris' most exciting sights when you're a kid.  In various places around the city you will randomly find little mobile carousels set up.  This is in addition to several large, permanent carousels near tourist attractions.  Of course the kids had to go for a ride!

We waited in the world's longest line in to get into the main floor of Notre Dame, then joined several thousand of our closest friends to exploring the sanctuary, side chapels, sculptures and stained glass.

 We also took the opportunity to light a candle in remembrance of Scott's mom, having done the same for Scott's grandma and my mom on our last trip.

After the main floor we went our to another line to go up into the towers.  Here are our three little peanuts waiting semi-patiently in line, yet again.

The climb up to the top is over 400 steps, but worth every one!  Notre Dame is so centrally located that it has amazing views of Paris from every direction.

 After Notre Dame we did what the kids had been looking forward to all day - hit the little park right in the shadow of the church.  Such an amazing place to sit and watch the kids play!  Turns out we had pretty good timing, as just as we were about to leave it started to rain in earnest!

 By the time we finished at the park it was dinner time, and of course we had only eaten a bit of leftovers after waking at noon and heading out quickly!  Luckily, one of our favorite restaurants is just across the Seine from the church so we hightailed it over there trying to stay dry and ate a wonderful dinner outside under their awning overlooking Ile de la Cite.

 After dinner the rain had stopped so we took some extra time to walk along the Seine and admire the lights of the city.  Ahhhh, Paris!

Bonjour Paris!

We have arrived!

(Monday October 19)

After flying all night Saturday (well, 5.5 hours of a night...) we left New York at 5:20pm, arriving in Paris at 6:00am.  Yep, you read that right, we spent two nights in a row on airplanes.  Yikes.  It was pretty much as difficult as it sounds, though everyone managed to get some decent sleep the 2nd night, thankfully!  After clearing customs without incident and collecting all our luggage (again, thankfully), we tracked down our missing shuttle driver (for the 2nd trip in a row, who also didn't have the carseats we reserved for the 2nd trip in a row...boo to supershuttle.fr) and arrived at our Paris apartment a little before 8am.  Jenn's brother had taken a direct flight, and joined us a couple hours later, not having left Seattle until Sunday afternoon (lucky!  But then again, he missed our NYC fun!)

We were immediately met by the nicest host one could ever hope to have in a rental.  Raphael lives on the first floor and we are renting the second floor.  We arrived at our lovely apartment to find the kitchen stocked with milk, eggs, butter, jam, orange juice, mustard, a bottle of wine, cereal, pasta, rice, sugar, coffee, tea, hot cocoa, and cereal.  On the counter was a big platter of fresh fruit, and a fresh baguette and two sacs of little pastries picked up from the bakery that morning.  Incredible and SO welcome!  If you want to check out the place we're staying you can find it posted here.

After Doug arrived and we all got settled in (and showered!) Raphael took us on a walking tour of the neighborhood, pointing our good restaurants, the best market and the best bakery to frequent.  We said "Merci" and left him to explore our little "quartier" on our own and found a little cafe for lunch, where Max promptly fell asleep on Jenn's lap and didn't eat a bite.

After filling our tummies we headed back to the apartment for a much-needed nap.

We slept a couple hours, then at about 4pm headed out to the Eiffel Tower.  The crowds were crazy, so we didn't actually wrap up with the ticket line, elevator line for the first level, sightseeing and picture taking, elevator line for the top, more looking and picture taking, elevator line down to the 1st level, and elevator line to the ground until after 8pm!

We hit the market by our apartment on the way back and picked up some delicious meat, cheese, bread and wine and had a very late dinner at home.

Yum!

On the Road Again!

Flying overnight!

(Saturday October 17)

It's been a few years since we used this blog, but last time it proved such a great way for family and a few friends to keep tabs on our adventure we thought we'd try to update it again.  We're especially excited for this trip because not only do we get to do Paris (one of our two favorite places on earth) and London again, but Jenn's brother Douglas is coming with us and visiting Europe for the first time.  We're so happy to be traveling with him!

Our first day of vacation (Saturday 10/17) started NOT bright and early as we're used to, but rather late in the evening, which felt weird.  Our flight didn't leave Seattle until 9:30pm, so the kids were good and ready to get some rest on the plane...or at least Max and Josie were; they both slept much of the 5.5 hours to JFK.  Jenn managed a couple hours.  If Nicole or Scott had been able to sleep at all it would have been a much more pleasant flight for them, though!

Max, excited and ready!

He LOVES taking off.  He was glued to the window!

New York City

(Sunday October 18)

We had originally intended to just book tickets straight from Seattle to Paris, but because we were redeeming frequent flyer miles we couldn't get the exact flights we wanted.  So we arrived in New York City at 6:45am Sunday (after 0 to a few hours sleep, mind you) and our flight to Paris didn't leave until 5:20pm.  So, we decided to make lemonade and booked a tour of the city for our looooooong layover!  By the way, if anyone is going to NYC and is interested, I can't recommend this tour company highly enough.  They are called Family in New York.  Yes, their site looks a little cheesy, but they were fantastic, and very reasonably priced.  They picked us up at the airport as soon as we landed and packed us and our stuff into a minivan, spending the next 7+ hours driving us all over the city (including recommending food stops) and bringing us back to JFK in plenty of time for our flight.  The driver was also our tour guide and shared TONS of history and stories about the city, its development, the things we saw, etc.  We even got to see the site of two very cool things we just learned about in History for school: the spots where Nathan Hale was executed, and where George Washington took the oath of office when he became President!  Here are some random pics of the day.

Breakfast at Ellen's Stardust Diner.  The servers are all Broadway performers, or wannabes, and they sing while they serve.  Since opening in 1987 they've had more than 220 staff members perform on Broadway.  Our server had actually just returned from playing a lead role in the European tour of Mamma Mia.  Nicole immediately decided she wants to work there someday, which given her theater aspirations is, I guess, a possibility!

 St. Patrick's Cathedral

 Rockefeller Center - notice the ice rink behind us!

On top of the 30 Rock building

Central Park

Central Park

Central Park

The Brooklyn Bridge

That's the teeny tiny Statue of Liberty behind us

Freedom Tower at the site of The World Trade Center. 

911 Firefighter Memorial Wall

911 Memorial - there are two waterfalls like this, each standing where a tower once stood (though these are smaller than the actual footprint of the buildings.  This was an emotional stop for both Scott and I, we found ourselves unexpectedly choked up just standing at the memorial.  It was quite something to be there and think about what happened.

Max and a slice of real New York pizza bigger than his head (maybe the size of his whole torso, actually) at our lunch stop. Yum!

I know I only made it through the end of the day Sunday, and it's already Tuesday night here, but we're tired and we're headed for Disneyland Paris in the morning, so off to bed we go.  We'll try to update soon!