Girl Time

Wednesday April 27th

We got home very late last night from Amsterdam and as such are taking a day of rest today, particularly since my mom arrives tomorrow!  We ran a few errands this morning, the grocery store and whatnot, did our exercises and are just resting today.  Katie watched a movie and I am catching up on my writing.

Since not much is really going on, I thought I would write today about how Katie and I are getting along.  The idea of spending two and half months with my daughter as my primary companion was very exciting to me. Katie and I have a very close relationship and I enjoy spending time with her.  I don’t know if this is a function of her being an only child, or if we would still be as close if she had siblings.  We do spend a lot of time together normally, not just on this trip, and overall really enjoy each other’s company. Would this trip prove to be too much though? Would we get on each other’s nerves and get tired of each other?  Luckily, this has not proven to be the case.

 Without the pressures of normal daily life, we have more time to talk to each other.  We tell stories and share our likes and dislikes. We talk about our values, and the challenges we face in life. We are reading some of the same books, and talk about the broad themes as well as the details.  We are playing games and watching TV together snuggled on the couch.

In fact, so far, over a month into the trip, we have not gotten on each other’s nerves and we are still enjoying being together.  So far, we’ve each had one bad day: I made her cry once, and she made me cry once.  Not really too bad for all this time together.  I made her cry by pushing too hard on a math lesson (not my finest moment), and she made me cry by pushing me too hard when I lost an expensive museum pass in Stockholm. But overall, in fact, as I hoped, we seem to be growing even closer together, which is really nice.  We are both respectful of each other and are genuinely  enjoying ourselves.

One thing that I didn’t expect was for Katie to become more physically affectionate with me.  Several times a day we will be walking down the street and I feel her slip her hand into mine.  We’ll walk for a while hand in hand just enjoying being together. Or she’ll collapse against me as we wait for a metro car. The other day at a busy metro stop she leaned into me and asked “Do you want a big hug?” then gave me a bear hug.  Or she’ll pipe up as we walk along, “Do you know what Mommy?......I love you!”.   It’s making me feel so wonderful inside and out. 

The other day we were walking along talking about middle school and the girls who have started wearing makeup.  I laughed as I explained that I have a sub-minimalist style to makeup and fashion. Katie turned to me and said, “But, you know what Mommy, you are so much prettier than all the ladies who wear so much makeup. I think you look absolutely beautiful just as you are.” Then she hugged me.  Talk about melting your heart!

I am also learning to learn so much about Katie’s interests and hopes, much of which hinge upon animals.  How many animals and what kinds she hopes to have, and what kind of job she can get that lets her work with animals.  A pre-requisite for any future boyfriend of hers is going to be no animal allergies! She hopes to be an animal rescue vet of some kind, and since she has focused on this goal since she was five, I think she will do it. Many of our conversations focus on how many dogs, cats, rabbits, ducks, chickens, ferrets and other small furry animals she hopes to have, and what breeds.

 Her knowledge of Greek and Roman mythology far surpasses my own, and she was able to provide a lot of background for me on the statues that we saw at the Louvre.  From stories about Diana and Artemis, the Greek and Roman equivalents of the goddess of the hunt, to stories on Romulus and Remus the founders of Rome, her knowledge was extensive.

I also respect her dedication to keeping up with her school work, her blogging, and her stretching/karate exercises all of which she has kept up daily without any complaint at all.  The commitment and dedication that she shows to her work will serve her well in life.  But I am saddened a bit by her lack of confidence in some of her own abilities, particularly in her math skills.  I find her downplaying her accomplishments and focusing on the maybe one thing she didn’t understand, claiming “I’m not good at math.”  This is a girl who has won math awards, and yet she can’t trust her abilities. Why does this happen to girls in middle school despite all kinds of positive reinforcement?

But overall I find myself being awed by this talented young woman and wondering why I am so lucky to have her in my life. I learn more from her that she learns from me.  I am so impressed with the aplomb with which she has handled being uprooted and thrown into a new situation, her ease at adapting into a new culture, the speed at which she is acquiring new language skills, and the grace and respect that she conducts herself with.  Katie, I love you.

A Day in Amsterdam

Tuesday April 26th

Today we headed off to Amsterdam for a short day trip.  We caught the Thalys train from Paris at 7:30 in the morning with absolutely no problems this time.  We get better each time we take the train.  We had reserved seats for the 3 hour 15 minute ride to Amsterdam and pulled into the central station about 10:45, well rested and stress free.

Our primary goal in Amsterdam was to visit the Anne Frank house since Katie and I had both just finished reading her diary.  The line outside the house was long, and certainly a testament to the number of lives touched by Anne’s story.  The people waiting were of all ages, from retired people here on holiday, to school groups on a field trip.  In front of us were a 40 something married coupled from France, and behind us were two college students from the US.  The line moved quickly and we were inside in about 40 minutes. 

It was an extremely powerful experience to be in the Frank’s secret annex, particularly with the book fresh in my mind. Only by focusing on the experience of one small group of people, can the suffering endured by so many during this time in history be comprehended.  Numbers and statistics can’t tell a story nearly so well as seeing the cramped quarters in which eight people had to live for two years. 

Being in the secret annex really touched both Katie and I and we were both almost in tears by the end of the tour.  I almost lost it altogether when looking at growth marks that Mrs. Frank recorded for both Margot and Anne during their time in the annex.  How many of us so that?  Mark our kids’ heights with pencils as they grow before us?  Anne grew several inches during her two years in the annex as she went from 12 to 14.  In her diary she remarks that none of her clothes fit, her undershirts barely covered her belly and her toes were curled up inside her shoes.  Yet it was difficult to get new clothes for her.  And knowing that she died soon after her last growth mark was hard to digest.

I also found it very touching to see all the video interviews playing in different rooms. There were interviews with Otto Frank, who was the only one of the 8 to survive, with the helpers who provided them with food and supplies, and with friends of Anne’s and Margot’s who lived through the horrors.  One of the video interviews was with one of Anne’s friends from school who actually ended up in the same concentration as Anne and Margot, and was one of the last people to see Anne alive.  Many of these women are now in their 80s, and it was hard to think that they survived while so many did not. Who would these boys and girls who lost their lives become? What has the world missed out on because of their absence?  I will NEVER forget my trip to the Anne Frank house and I don’t think Katie will either.  The image of the growth chart on their wall will be with me forever.

After the Anne Frank tour we stopped for lunch at a pancake house.    The pancakes were thin like crepes but not folded, and the size of a dinner plate.  There were about 100 different choices of pancakes. Katie had a great pancake with ice cream and chocolate sprinkles, while I opted for one with bacon and apple.

After lunch we thought about going to the van Gogh museum, but there was a line, and we decided that we had had enough culture/history for the day and went off to do something fun.  So we toured the original Heineken plant.  The complex was actually now and entire Heineken experience from a “4D Brew You” tour in which you find out what it feels like to be brewed and bottled, to the horse stables, to a tasting room, a bar, and more Heineken history that anyone could very possibly care about (sorry Jim).  My ticket came with THREE glasses of beer, of which I drank ½ glass.  Katie’s ticket did not come with beer. There is no legal drinking age in the Netherlands though (or in France) so if I wanted to give her some of mine no problem, and there was a dad there with two teens (about 4 or 16) who drank with him.

After the Heineken experience we took a boat ride through the canals, which was pleasant and relaxing, and then finished our day by walking through the flower market. It was all I could do to keep reminding  myself that the deer eat all our tulips and buying bulbs would be a waste of time.  There were SO tempting though!  I kept telling myself, too heavy to carry around!

Overall, the day in Amsterdam was fun, although due to the influence of the Anne Frank house I am still sad a day later.  Overall though, Katie and I both preferred Brussels to Amsterdam.  Brussels is a city with an identity that it promotes. “Come to Brussels, eat mussels, eat chocolate, eat waffles. Enjoy our medieval architecture.”  So we went, ate chocolate, ate mussels, waffles and walked through the beautiful square and had a great time doing it.  Amsterdam on the other hand didn’t seem to know what it wanted to be. Does it want to be known for tulips, canals and art, or for its tragic past, or does it want to be known for legal marijuana, no drinking age, and inappropriate t-shirts in every store?  Does it want to be known for its beautiful plazas and churches? And if so, why do they allow McDonalds and Addias to build store adjacent to them?  The poor zoning laws, widely available alcohol and drugs, and tacky tacky gift shops really detract from the city’s real treats, making it less pleasurable than other places we have been. While we did enjoy the activities, and the experience of the Anne Frank house will be with us forever, I would not be in a hurry to return or to recommend the city to others.

Letterboxing and a beautiful walk

Monday April 25th

It was a really beautiful day today so Katie and I spent the day walking through Paris.  We decided to spend the day enjoying being outside and being in Paris.  We brought along some letterbox clues and looked for a few along the way.  We walked from our apartment to the Rodin museum, which turned out to be closed for the day.  We then walked to Les Invalides, but couldn’t find the box there since too many people were in the park.  We walked across the Seine on Pont Alexandre III bridge and over towards the American Embassy. It was heavily fortified and I felt like I was acting a bit suspicisous looking for the box in the park across the street.  We found that one, and then another in the short hedge maze near the Louvre.  We then walked towards Palais Royal and were delighted to find a string ensemble playing in the nearby square.  We relaxed on the ground as the 18 piece group played classical music.  They were quite talented and we enjoyed the rest in the nice warm sun.  The group included 11 violins, 2 voilas, 3 cellos and 2 basses.  A large crowd gathered to listen and a large red haired man stretched out on the pavement in front f us fell asleep and started snoring. Katie was aghast. “How can he sleep here with all these people around?” she asked.  He must have been tired, and in that sun his face was soon going to be as red as his hair!

We stayed for four or five pieces and then moved on to the Palais Royal. Once again this garden was packed and we couldn’t find the letterbox. Katie enjoyed playing on the large black and white columns. These columns were of various heights from 6 inches to 8 feet, and in 10 straight rows of about 26 per row.  Kids were going crazy around these things, climbing on the, posing, jumping on and off, running slalom around them, you name it.  Their play was so creative it was a joy to watch. Plus, the marble columns were so cool on the hot day that they felt good just to touch.

Once Katie exhausted herself, we moved on to our final stop f the day, a playground near the site where the Bastille used to be.  The letterbox clue was clear, but I just couldn’t find the hidden box in the hedge.  So we went off in search of ice cream, came back to the park to eat it, tried a little longer and found it!  I am very tenacious with these things and hate to give up!

Our final tally for the day was: four letterboxes found, two abandoned due to too many people around, one abandoned due to closed museum.  Additional numbers: 18 piece orchestra, 4 movements of classical music, two ice cream cones, 260 black and white columns,  15500 steps taken and two tired girls.

Easter

Sunday April 24th

Yesterday was Easter, and it was certainly a low-key type of Easter. No family plans, no travel, just me and Katie together in Paris. Although she didn’t have an Easter basket, I wanted Katie to have something to mark the occasion so I got her some German chocolate eggs made by a company called Kinder.  The eggs were really great – each one was a hollow chocolate egg with a toy inside.  They were a lot of fun to open an eat to get to the toys. I may have helped her a bit with some of the eating! The toys were mainly things like little plastic animal figures, but one was a cool origami paper figure that you unfolded and then blew into gently to puff up into a tiger figure much larger than the original egg.

We went to Easter services at St. Sulpice church. We picked that one since it is particularly known for its organ and organist, and wanted to hear it.  I know that church membership and attendance in France in much lower than in the US, but we still arrived early to get seats just in case.  We were planning on attending the noon mass, so showed up at just past 11:30. I turned out that the 10:30 mass was still going on, and actually continued until about 11:50.  The 10:30 mass looked like it was about less than half full, and the noon mass that we stayed for was only about 1/5 full.  I was pretty surprised since it was Easter!

The data that I looked up online says that the percent of adults who attend weekly religious services in the US are about 45-50% and in Western Europe are less than 10%.  But I was surprised that at a large well-known church and on a major religious holiday that the church would be so empty.  The priest was of Korean descent and many of the church goers were of African descent, other than the large percentage that appeared to be tourists.  We enjoyed the service, although since we had trouble understanding it, it went on a bit long for our taste (about 75 minutes). We could follow the song sheet, but nothing else, plus some of the mass was in Latin, and not French.  The organ was pretty, but since organ music isn’t a particular favorite of mine, I wasn’t completely blown away by it.

After church we went to the Tuileries gardens near the Louvre, which were packed with families having picnics.  Picnicing is a very French thing to do on the weekend. We had our lunch and then wandered the Champs Elysees slowly, just looking at the expensive stores and all the people out and about.  We searched for a couple of letterboxes and found both of them, which was great.

Letterboxing is particularly favorite activity of mine.  Letterboxers hide a small box with a rubber stamp, inkpad and logbook in a secure location, then post clues to it on the internet at atlasquest.com.  You can search for all the letterboxes in a certain location, download the clues, and set off on your quest.  If and when you find the letterbox, you stamp into the box logbook with your own individual stamp, and mark your logbook with the box’s stamp.  I really love being outside and the thrill of tracking down and finding the boxes. However, about 20-30% of the time you either can’t find the box due to the clues, or you find the right location and the box is missing.  Since they are hidden out in public, sometime they get found by park police, gardeners or property owners and get discarded. So finding both boxes we set out to find was great.  One was near grand Palais and one near the Arc de Triomphe.

Flea markets, Ben Franklin and lady liberty

Saturday April 23, 2011

We had an interesting day today.  We caught the subway all the way to the end of the line out in the distant Paris suburbs. Unlike most American cities, here the city itself is the desirable place to live, and the suburbs are undesirable.  The farther we rode the subway from the city center, the more diverse the crowd on the subway car became. It was interesting to watch, because while Paris is a more diverse city that Stockholm, there are distinctly fewer people of color her e than in most American cities.  Recent immigration from North Africa is changing that, and North African immigrants are now 10% of the French population, but overall the city is still very white.  The suburbs must be where more of the immigrants live because at each stop along the way, more whites got off and more people of African descent got on.

Why were we heading out to the distant suburbs?  We were heading to le marche aux Puces, one of the largest flea markets in the world.  It features over 2000 vendors and covers more than 17 acres! The market has been in existence since 1870 and is divided into 16 different subsections, each with its own specialty.  It was really fascinating to walk through.  The general market area featured a lot of immigrants manning stands selling sneakers, Levis, t-shirts, leather jackets, and even underwear!  Katie was quite interested in a stand that she thought was selling very fancy candleholders/ lamps.  I didn’t think I was going to have to explain to her what a hookah was at age 11, but there I was in the marche aux Puces explaining that they weren’t candleholders!  “Oh, you mean like the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland?” she asked.  “Yes,” I replied, happy to have a frame of reference so we could move on.

The Hello Kitty themed stand was quite busy, but the New York Yankees themed stand was deserted. As we moved deeper into the market, we entered some of the specialty regions.  Some of the markets were indoors, some outdoors and most had various streets and alleys within them.  The Biron market featured Asian art and 18^th century furniture. The Paul Bert market had a lot of household items and furniture from the 1920s – 1970s. The Serpette market had a lot of antique art, furniture and lighting fixtures, including hundreds of different types of chandeliers. 

Each of these markets had its own atmosphere from crowded streets and people hawking their wares to refined elegance, wide passages and perfectly displayed rooms of high end antiques.  Each individual stall in the Biron, Paul Bert and Serpette markets was perhaps 15 feet wide and 15 feet deep, so they were quite large. Each market had between 100 and 200 different vendors.  Back in these market areas, the atmosphere was quiet and vendors from four or five nearby stalls would cluster in front of one stall, sitting at an elegant table with a picnic spread in front of them, all drinking wine.  It seemed like a family gathering, they get together every Saturday, eat cheese and foie gras, drink wine and relax.  Oh and it someone wants to buy something good, but if not, we’re good too.

My favorite market was the one that sold large outdoor and bulky items.  Enormous topiaries 20 feet high. Full size old fashioned street lamps. Park benches. A spiral staircase.  Mantelpieces.   You could imagine that this is the place that movie set designers come looking for that perfect 1930s Parisian street lamp. 

After while we started to get hungry and as it was quite a warm day, Katie was really in need of some ice cream.  2000 stalls, 17 acres, can you imagine the one thing that NO ONE has for sale?  Yes, ice cream.  We gave up after about 30 minutes of walking past 400 stalls in the general market area.  We saw a dozen crepe stands, but absolutely no ice cream.  We headed back to the metro assuming that we could stop at a larger train station to get some ice cream, when we saw an unusual sight – McDonalds.  Paris has done a good job of keeping the American fast food chains out, and this was only the second McDonalds that we have seen.  We headed right in, sure that we could get ice cream there.  We both had double cheeseburgers and raspberry milkshakes (framboise frappes). Raspberry is a very common flavor here, and since we both love raspberry that make us happy.  The milkshake flavors were vanilla chocolate, raspberry and pistachio (also very common here).

After lunch we went on a statue hunt.  Katie thought it would be fun to find the statue of Ben Franklin.  He is well beloved in Paris and lived in the Passy region, not far from the Eiffel tower.  All we had to go on was that the statue is in Passy.  Well, it’s a pretty big region, but off we set.  We got off the metro at the Passy station and looked around hoping to see the statue grinning back at us.  No luck.  We walked around for a few minutes, but figuring wandering randomly wasn’t the best plan of attack, I decided to ask for directions.  For those that don’t know me, this seems like an easy thing to do, but those who do know me know I hate to ask for directions. I’d much rather either find it myself or give up. But, I’m trying new things so I stuck my head into a small tailor shop and asked the older lady sewing a garment by hand “Pardon Madame, Ou est le statue du Ben Franklin?”  She told me sadly that she works at this shop, but doesn’t live in the area. She comes from the metro and doesn’t know.  She told me all this in French, and I understood her!  I thanked her and we moved on to the stationary shop next door.  The lady in this shop told me that the statue was at the Trocadero. 

We were disappointed because that isn’t really Passy at all. That’s the crazy place to get your Eiffel tower photos taken.  We’ve been there a half a dozen times already and didn’t see any statues.  It’s not far from Passy so we walked over, looking for statues but didn’t see any.  We walked through the craziness and continued to look.  “Maybe it’s near the street,” I suggested, since the stationary lady told us “Place du Trocadero”.  We wandered out to the street region and off in the distance saw a statue of a man sitting down.  “Well he’s dressed in colonial looking clothes,” I said, let’s give it a try.  We walked closer and lo and behold, it was good old Ben.  That was quite the treasure hunt.  We got a nice photo and walked back to the Trocadero.

The Trocadero was crazy as always with some kind of protest going on, a display of people killed at Chernobyl, a street crew dance performance, several break dancers, and a thousand tourists. We bought five more keychain Eiffel towers because I just can’t resist them and took some photos of Katie pretending to hold the Eiffel tower on her shoulders a la Atlas.

After hanging out here for a while, we decided to go find the replica of the statue of liberty in the Seine that is featured in National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets.  We had seen it from the top of the Eiffel Tower so we knew just where to look. It is at the far end of an island in the Seine not far from the tower.  We walked down to the Seine and had an enjoyable walk along its banks. It is lined with houseboats and many people simply live there on the water.  We found the island and the bridge near the statue.  However, we found that movie magic replaced the nondescript four lane bridge that we found with the one in movie.  But although it wasn’t exactly the same bridge, it was the same statue and we were able to walk down onto the island and sit at Lady Liberty’s feet.  This version is about 35 feet high and was erected in 1889 on the centennial of the French revolution and was a gift to the citizens of Paris by American Ex-Pats living in Paris. It was interesting to see, although we did not have a toy helicopter with a video camera on it, we can neither confirm nor deny the existence of any secret message written on the torch.

Musée de la Magie et des Automates

Friday April 22

Today Katie and I spent a relaxing morning at home since the museum we wanted to go see didn’t open until 2pm.  On the way to the museum, we stopped by the train station to pick up our tickets to Amsterdam for next week.  I’m finally getting the hang of the stations (well sort of – considering our bad experience on the way to Normandy), and this time was able to book the tickets online, not worry about the whole being from Argentina thing, and even pick up the tickets ahead of time to avoid the last minute panic that plagued our Brussels trip. We have reserved seats, which should avoid the problems from Normandy, and all of this done four days in advance!

Tickets safely in hand we headed off to the museum and arrived just as it opened.  The museum was an odd little museum tucked into the basement/dungeon of a residential building in the Marais section of Paris (about five blocks away from the Pompidou center).  The official name of the museum is Musée de la Magie et des Automates, and it is certainly a strange place. It’s normally open only 3 days per week from 2pm to 7pm Wed, Sat and Sun. However, due to spring break, it is open every day this week. 

The museum focuses on the history of magic and has a lot of strange pieces of magician’s equipment from the 1700s, 1800s and early 1900s.  There were disappearing boxes, saw the lady in half equipment, a lot of optical illusions on the walls and some midway equipment, like fortune telling lady machines, and things you put your hand into to trigger some response.  Katie was very reluctant to put her hand into any of these boxes even though she saw other kids doing it with delight.  There were a bit creepy and generally your hand triggered something like a lion’s head popping out and fur brushing against your hand. It would startle you, put not hurt you. There were other boxes that used mirrors to trick your eyes.  When you looked in you might see your head upside, or instead of seeing across the room you’d see at a 90 degree angle.  There were also fun house mirrors. 

The museum is very small with only three rooms and it goes very fast. You could see the entire museum in about 30 minutes.  For an additional fee you can also see the museum of automans, which is a 3 room collection of a lot of mechanized figures.  You could push a button and see these early robot like figures move around, dance, swing back and forth, or walk a dog.  There were easily over a hundred different examples in materials from wood to metal and even paper.  It was kind of interesting, but again went very fast. You could go through both sides of the museum in less than an hour.

Luckily our tickets also included a magic show.  It was a small how, about 20 minutes with basic tricks done by a magician in his 60s, but it was enjoyable. We did card tricks, simple slight of hand tricks and the tricks with interlocking rings.  Most interesting for me was that although the show was in French, I was actually able to understand most of what the magician was saying. It was the first time that my listening comprehension has been over 50%.  I think it was a combination of him talking a bit more slowly and pronouncing things a bit more distinctly, as any of us do during a presentation, compared to a casual conversation.  When I try to listen to people on the metro I end up hearing common words like if, but, always, never, but the nouns and verbs seem to go so fast that I can’t pick them up. This time I really could understand him doing his routine and it was really gratifying.  I was able to translate a little for Katie, but it was tough to listen and translate simultaneously and still get it all.  But I could hear his banter with the audience, with the kid he picked out of the audience and his little stories.  Pretty cool!

After the museum, Katie and I walked around the Marias region of Paris looking for Nicholas Flamel of Harry potter alchemy fame.  He was a real person that legends still surround.  He lived in Paris in the late 1300s and early 1400s, and came into a lot of gold mysteriously.  Claims were made that he had transformed common metals into gold, and the alchemy claims persist.  We found Nicholas Flamel street and a house that he built for paupers.  He was quite the philanthropist of his day, and the house that still stands is the oldest house in all of Paris, built in 1407.  If you think about it, that was 85 years before Columbus set sail for the new world!!!

Our trio becomes a twosome again

Thursday April 21

A sad day today. We had to take Paul back to the airport.  His week here went really fast and we packed a lot of sightseeing into it.  This week was much more like being on a sightseeing vacation than the previous weeks have been.  Instead of having the flexibility to take things slowly, since he was only here for a few days we kept up a pretty frantic pace.  Which was fun, but now we are exhausted.  We got up early to get him to the airport.  This time, since it is a very long ride out to the airport, we didn’t go the entire way with him, but just helped him find the right train and said good bye at the station in Paris.  Charles  de Gaulle airport is quite a ways outside Paris and it takes about 90 minutes one way to get there.  Since he can find a gate by himself and check in, we thought it was fine to get him on the train and go back to the apartment.  Then we went back to bed.

In fact, Katie came down with a small cold and wanted to spend the entire day resting, so I let her download a movie on itunes and we spent the day in the apartment.  I caught up on some work, touched base with my students working hard back in the lab and caught up on my blogging. (Well not quite caught up, but made some good progress).  It was a very lazy day, but it was just what we needed.  I’ve been using a pedometer to gauge how far we walk each day, and over a five day period with Paul here we walked 7.5 miles, 7 miles, 5 miles, 5 miles, 7 miles.  No wonder we are exhausted.

Paul had a good flight home and got back to the house around 7pm East Coast time, or about 1 am here in Paris. Trixie was very happy to see him.  I wonder if Trixie will be excited or confused when we return after 2.5 months? I wonder how dogs process that kind of absence and what she thinks happened to us.  Sometimes she can hear our voices coming over Skype when we talk to Paul and he says that she looks confused and cocks her head looking around for us.  Poor girl.

Paul was able to haul back a lot of stuff that we don’t need any more, like our winter coats, hats and gloves that we used in Stockholm, some souvenirs, and some extra clothes.  We bought some nice prints of Paris in the Montmarte section and sent those home with him too.  Hopefully they made it without being crushed.

Katie and I now have a few days to rest and relax before the whirlwind of energy that we call my mother flies into town. We are going to do a few small museums here, enjoy Easter and go to Amsterdam for a day next week.  Paul has been joking with me about Amsterdam claiming that he is going to log on and Katie’s blog is going to read “Duuuude, you’ve got to go to Amsterdam!!!”  But, I promise to keep her away from the drug scene and focus on the boring history stuff!

Napoleon

Wednesday April 20

We started the day today thinking it would be fun to take Paul through the Paris catacombs, but upon seeing the line immediately changed our minds.  So instead of visiting the remains of many anonymous Parisians, we decided to go pay our respects to decidedly non-anonymous honorary Frenchman - Napoleon.   

Napoleon is buried at Les Invalides, a military hospital built by Louis XIV, which has been converted into a military museum.  The complex is absolutely enormous with giant museums dedicated to WWI and WWII, with an arms and armor museum, a large chapel for France’s war dead and a huge gold domed church with Napoleon’s tomb in its center.

Napoleon was not one to underplay his own importance. His remains are entombed in a gigantic red stone (actually porphyry) sarcophagus directly under the gold dome.  Inside the sarcophagus are six other coffins like a set of gruesome Napoleon stacking dolls. From the outside to the inside the coffins are oak, ebony, lead, lead, mahogany and tin.  I’m not sure why he need two lead coffins, but I guess he’s safe from any x-rays! The entire thing sits on a green granite pedestal and weights 67 tons.  Surrounding Napoleon’s impressive display are several other Sarcophagi with the remains of his two brothers Joseph and Jerome (installed as Kings of Spain and of Westphalia) and of and his son Napoleon II (King of Rome).

I don’t think Napoleon would find this amusing, but from the Trocadero you can see the gold dome of Les Invalides off to the left of the Eiffel tower.  While it looks large up close, from far away it is tiny and small.  It also lights up at night, but looks like the small little brother clambering for some attention. “Hey look at me, I light up too!  Aren’t I impressive? Hey over here LOOK AT ME!!!”

  We walked through the tombs and the WWI and WWII museums.  Both were well one and extraordinarly complete. They are supposed to be the best WWI and WWII museum in Europe, and I suspect the best in the world. After being at Normandy two days before we were riveted by newsreel coverage of the invasion.  I had told Katie while in Normandy that it was strange to see it in color when all the photos I’d ever seen were black and white.  She looked at me strangely, but there the coverage was again, in black and white.  “But you know real life is in color Mommy,” she told me.  While I know it, you still get an image in your head, and I see WWII in black and white.

The café at Les Invalides was small but reasonably priced and good food. We all had quiche, which was Katie’s first time.  She now loves quiche. Eggs, cheese, pie crust, what’s not to like? We quickly toured the Louis XIV to Napoleon exhibits and headed out for the day to relax on the grounds outside Les Invalides. A great thing about Paris is wherever there is grass you can flop down and relax.  Our apartment is actually only a few blocks from Les invalids so were able to walk home from there for Paul’s final night in Paris.

Paul's Birthday Celebration

We were out late last night, having stopped at the Trocadero to see the Eiffel Tower all lit up at night on the way home from Normandy, and with three very busy days in a row (Montmarte, Segway Tour and Orsay Museum, and the Normandy beach Tour) we decided to take a well deserved rest day.  We relaxed in the morning, had a low key lunch at home and took Paul to see some of our favorite sites in the Left Bank area after lunch. We first took him to see the Rose Line and obelisk in St. Sulpice.  The church is actually massive, with a huge three story façade facing the square.  The first façade is supported with Doric columns, the second with Ionic and the third with Corinithian columns.  After Katie studied Greek architecture with Ms. Egan last year, none of us will ever forget how to identify each type of columns.  We stood in the square with our arms tight against our body, “Doric,” we shouted.  We then curled our arms to our shoulders, mimicking the curls on the top of Ionic columns. “Ionic,” we shouted.  Finally we waved our hands back and forth over our heads to match the fancy artwork on the Corinthinian columns, “Corinthinian,” we shouted in glee.  

We then showed Paul around the Jardin de Luxembourg, our favorite relaxation place. We found some chairs and spent the afternoon reading, moving our chairs back and forth from shade to sun as we desired.

After relaxing for several hours, we gave Paul a walking tour of the Left Bank, with the highlights beign the store where you get the great macaroon cookies, a really high end chocalatier and a patisserie where we bought some goodies to celebrate his birthday (a few days early).  We also showed him the restaurant where Ben Franklin used to dine and the streets lined with cafes and stores.  We picked up some Chicken Cordon Bleu at the Boucherie and made him a nice birthday dinner.  The raspberry, apple and lemon tarts were great substitutes for a birthday cake.

One event that Paul had been wanting to do was go to see the light show at the Eiffel Tower. Although we had stopped by the night before to see it lit up, we had just missed the light show and since it is only at the top of each hour, we didn’t want to hang out for the next show.  So around 8:15 we headed out to the Trocadero.  The Trocedero is a big plaza just across the Seine with excellent views of the tower. Most tourist photos where the Eiffel tower is behind them are taken here. The perspective is just right.  At night, the scene there is lively and interesting.  It gets dark late here, and when we arrived at 8:30 Katie was certain that it wouldn’t be dark enough by nine to see the lights. The sky was still quite light with just the hint of sunset. We found a seat on some marble stairs and watched the hubbub around the plaza.  Hundreds of tourists were taking their turns getting photos with the Eiffel tower, while North African vendors tried to sell them replicas of the tower.  The vendors all have the same few things, Eiffel tower replicas in various sizes from keychain size to about 10 inches tall in both gold and silver.  They thread the towers onto these giant rings that they carry around. The rings themselves are about 2 feet in diameter and loaded with Eiffel towers. It’s actually pretty cool looking. A few vendors have Eiffel towers in other colors, including pink, purple, blue, and turquoise.  Fewer still have replicas in color with the added bling of rhinestones.  But they all have glowing and light-up towers, particularly in the evening.   We watched the vendors barter with the tourists, and were approached an average of every four minutes by a different vendor.  Having already bought 15 keychain size gold and silver ones for Katie’s friends and a 6 inch turquoise one with rhinestones for Katie, we were set. Paul was tempted by the fake silk Eiffel tower scarves, which he mistook for wall hangings, to our delight, but ended up passing.

Just before 9, it started to get dusky and about 2 minutes before nine the tower lights turned on. Instead of facing outward, the lights are mounted on the outer parts of the tower façade and face inward.  The effect is stunning as the tower seems to glow yellow from within.  It simply can’t be captured on film.  The lights seemed to intensify over several minutes and about 2 minutes after nine, the light show started and the entire crowd at the Trocadero gasped. For about 5 minutes, twinkling white lights sparkled all over the tower until they ceased as suddenly as they began.  Reluctant to leave, we watched the scene some more as the vendors added all kinds of glowing items to their wares, including glowing parachute-like things that were shot into the air with increasing frequency.  We finally reached our fill, and our backsides were getting tired of the marble stairs, and we left the scene and headed home. Paul agreed that it was one of the most spectacular birthday celebrations ever.

Noemi, Long Island Ken and the Normandy Beach Trip

Monday April 18^th

Today we took a day trip from Paris to the Normandy region in order to tour some of the D-Day beaches.  Setting up this trip was difficult from the start.  The beaches are not easy to access on your own unless you have a car.  There is no metro in Normandy and the invasion occurred over a broad area, leaving historical sites widely scattered.  Therefore, going up on the train and trying to make our way around on foot didn’t seem feasible.  I then toyed with the idea of renting a car, finding a hotel and making it a 2-3 day trip.  But Paul was only here for six days total, and spending three in Normandy didn’t seem reasonable. Plus the hassle of renting a car, driving to Normandy and finding all the sites on our own was just more than I really wanted to deal with.  So, despite my aversion to packaged tours, we decided the easiest way to see the beaches and American cemetery would be a packaged tour.  We arranged the tour with the same group here that runs the Segway tours, but in this case they are really just a middle man.  They got us our train tickets, provided a cursory sheet of information on how to get the right train, and gave us instruction to meet our tour guide in Bayeaux, Normandy.  This would be fine if everything went smoothly, but that was not to be the case.

We arrived at the train station, armed with our info sheet and confident with that due to our ultimate success on the trip to Brussels that we could figure this out.  However, several things started to conspire against us.  First, it was the start of Easter week, and as the schools are closed in Paris this week, many travelers were heading out of town.   The train station was an absolute mob scene.  The trains were all running 10-15 minutes late, and the sign board that posts departure tracks was malfunctioning.  This made it extremely difficult to figure out which train was which.  An announcement was made in French and the crowd that we were part of all started moving.  “Is that the right train?” Paul asked as we headed along with the crowd. “Not sure,” I replied, “But I’ll ask a conductor.”  Unfortunately as the mob approached the train, conductors were scarce and the one we found couldn’t speak English and pointed us to the train office.  Reluctantly we headed back to the office to ask if the train boarding was indeed our train.    After confirming that it was the correct train, we headed back, punched our tickets in the yellow ticket punching machine and tried to board.

We had second class seats, without a seat reservation, and valid to travel any day within a three month period.  This is a cheaper way to travel and what our package provided.  Instead of paying for a confirmed seat, you just take any empty seat.  If someone has a reservation for that seat, just move until you find one that isn’t reserved or taken.  This works very well in theory.  However, on extremely busy travel days and when you board late due to confusion with the train, it turns out that there are no more open seats.  Since the tickets are valid for three months, there is no way of knowing how many people will board the train on any given day or time.  Today the number of people boarding the train was “way too many”.  We couldn’t find any empty seats and the three of us ending up being smashed into the little compartment where you board the train with four other people and 60 bags of luggage for the two hour ride to Bayeaux.  Katie plopped down onto the floor and flopped over into an odd half sleeping position, looking more and more motion sick as the ride went on.  Paul had to stand, and I took a seat on the pile of luggage, which was teetering precipitously with a real danger of collapsing on Katie at any time.  I spent the two hours propping up and stabilizing the pile of luggage every time we sped around a corner.  Every time the conductor applied the brakes, the compartment filled with an acrid smell and Katie got greener.  This was quite the difference from our first class train ride to Brussels!  The ride could not be over soon enough, but each time I checked my watch only 10 or 15 minutes had passed.  After what seemed like five hours we crept into a station.  “Is this our stop?” Paul asked hopefully. I hopped off to find out, but alas it was Caen and not Bayeaux.  We reluctantly boarded again and rode another 20 minutes into Bayeax where we were relieved to detrain.  Unfortunately we could not relive ourselves as the train station had no facilities so we followed our map into town to wait for our tour guide.

We arrived at our meeting place at 12:40.  Our instructions said that the tour guide would meet us there between 12:50 and 1:00, so we settled back to wait. And wait.  And wait.  At 1:12, I handed off the info sheet to Paul telling him that we’d have to find a way to call the tour company and check to see if our guide was coming.  “Where’s your phone?” he asked me peevishly. “I left it in the apartment,” I said. “Where’s your phone?”  “Also in the apartment,” he admitted. “I thought you had your phone!”  In the spirit of Amazing Race where the travelers seem to find willing locals to share their cell phones at the drop of a hat he set out to find a phone.  Alas, we did not have a camera crew trailing us, which I am sure helps the Amazing Racers.  But as he turned the corner in search of a phone, an unmarked white van pulled up at the meeting place, and Noemi hopped out.

“I am Noemi,” she declared in heavily accented French, “Your tour guide for today.”  “Hello, I am Amy,” I replied, holding out my hand to shake hers.  “No, not Amy,” she said,  “It is Noemi, pronounced ‘No-Amy.’”  “And I am Amy,” I tried again, as Katie started laughing.  A few more rounds of this and we finally sorted out the names, and Amy and Noemi, along with Paul and Katie got back into the van. 

Already in the van we found some fellow Americans, a couple in their early 60s from Long Island with the manner and accent to match.  We stopped at a nearby hotel to pick up the rest of our group, an Indian couple from Kolkutta, fans of WWII movies.

We set off for our first stop, Pointe du Hoc.  Along the way we stopped to see the growing fields of rapeseed in full bloom, to observe some hedgerows up close, and to see many old manor houses from the 1600 and 1700s.  We learned that the people of the Norman region are descendants of the Saxons and the Vikings, and some of the their words, particularly those related to boats and fishing come from the Vikings.  This included the name of our first D-Day site, Pointe du Hoc. Hoc is a viking word meanign point, so it is Point of the Point.

Pointe du Hoc was a promontory point midway between the Utah and Omaha beach sites, manned by German soldiers with several large stationary rotating guns and German bunkers.  Luckily, since we still hadn’t had the chance to go to the bathroom, this site had facilities.  But as we got to the ladies room we saw that it was closed for cleaning. “THIS IS RIDICULOUS!” exclaimed the special education teacher from Long island. Since it seems like it takes up to 30 minutes to clean a public bathroom in France, I was inclined to agree.  Ken from Long island saved the day though.  “Come on in here,” he said gruffly opening the men’s room door.  “LADIES COMING IN!!!”  he shouted loudly in English, emphasizing the point by knocking loudly and repeatedly on each stall door. “ANYONE IN THERE?? LADIES COMING IN!” he shouted. Well, to be honest it may have been his normal level of speech, I’m not sure if he was shouting.  “ANYONE IN HERE???” he kept calling and knocking on a closed stall door.  “Yyyyyess,” came a tentative quavering voice.  “OK THEN - JUST KNOW LADIES COMING IN” he replied as we followed him in and quickly made use of the facilities.  After this scene, I wasn’t sure if Katie would come in or not, but she came willingly so I suspect she really had to go.

After finishing with the bathroom, Noemi gave us some background information on the site, including the fact that on D-Day the Germans had actually hid their big guns to protect them and had replicas in place.  They thought that this attack was a diversionary tactic and wanted to keep the guns safe for the true invasion.  Although most of the Norman countryside has been repaired, ploughed over and the bomb craters filled in, at Pointe du hoc, the bomb craters are intact.  The entire site is pockmarked wth craters up to 12 feet deep and 20 feet across.  “But where did all the dirt from the holes go?” asked Katie in wonderment looking around.  She was surprised to hear that much of it vaporized or drifted down evenly.  She kept expecting to see big piles of dirt as though a hole was dug and the dirt piled up next to it. 

Noemi wrapped up her speech and let us go to look around the site for 20 minutes.  Katie and I instantly clambered down into the nearest crater and looked back up at Paul on the surface.  All over the sites, parents and kids were climbing eagerly in and out of the huge holes, such a different scene from that of 70 years ago.  We also toured a German bunker, which looked extremely small from ground level and opened up into an amazing web of concrete rooms and tunnels underground.  “I feel like a hamster,” Katie observed as we made our way through it.

Our next stop was Omaha beach.  Noemi gave us the story of the beach invasion in her odd lilting French accented English which for some reason modulated up and down when giving tour information and then corrected itself when talking to us informally.  “So HERE YOU see the OMAHA beach SITE. Turning BEHIND YOU, you can see the GERMan PILLbox that PROTECTED the beach ACCESS from this END,” she would recite.  We were then free to walk on the beach, which was one of the widest beaches that I have ever seen. The sand was flat and it was low tide.  It was easily two (American) football fields out to the waves, and the beach was broken by rivelets of water a foot or more across running along it.  Since we didn’t want to make too much of a mess in Noemi’s van we abandoned out attempt to reach the  English channel after fording our third rivelet and being confronted with another about 3 feet across.  We did take some sand from a dry region for our beach collection and headed back to the van. 

We went into a little beach store for a snack and I was instantly confronted by Ken from Long Island. “SO WHAT DO YOU THINK,” he asked me, “WE SHOULD TIP TODAY RIGHT?  HOW MUCH ARE YOU GOING TO TIP HER? I’M NOT SURE ABOUT THESE FRENCH” “Ummmm,” I said stalling for time to let me get my bearings. “Yes, I do think it is appropriate to tip Noemi today, although tipping is not very common in France.”  “THAT’S WHAT I THOUGHT,” Ken continued, “BUT I TIPPED A CABBIE 3 EUROS YESTERDAY ON A 12 EURO RIDE AND HE ABOUT PASSED OUT. SO WHAT DO YOU THINK TODAY – ABOUT 10 EUROS??”  “Ummm, yes, “ I said edging away.  “I think 10 is perfectly appropriate.”  “OK THEN. WE’LL EACH TIP TEN,” he confirmed.  As I walked outside the store a little shell shocked, Paul pulled me aside laughing. “Did Ken talk to you?” he asked. “He tried to ask me earlier and I told him I leave all that up to my wife.  He doesn’t want us to make him look bad by tipping more than him, so he wanted to coordinate tips.”  “Well we are all set now,” I confirmed.  “Next time a little warning, OK?”

We then headed to the American cemetery and visitor center where we were given an hour to explore.  Katie was really surprised to see all the displays about particular soldiers, which really humanized the face of the invasion. “How do they know who they all are?” she asked quietly.  It seems like ancient history to her, and the idea of knowing each individual soldier with his own story and background, when so many died, was mind-boggling to her.  We explained that each soldier was known and each wore ID tags for identification.  “But there’s so many,” she whispered as we exited the visitor center and entered the cemetery.  “It’s so wrong that so many people died.”  We had a long talk about bravery and just wars and stopping evil and all the innocent people like Anne Frank and her family that were praying for someone to stand up to Hitler and rescue them.  “These are those people,” I told her. “They died, but they died to stop evil and the world needs brave people to stand up for what is right.”  It’s a hard concept when killing and dying is such a concrete concept for an 11 year old.     

The day ended quietly and as we boarded our train back to Paris with fresh baguette sandwichs in hand, I was relieved that our biggest worry was finding comfortable seats, and not having to fight to the death for what is right, and as I settled back into the seat, I said a prayer for those who fought for us then, and those brave enough to do so today.

What a way to see the world

Sunday, April 17^th

Boy did we fit in a lot of fun today! In fact this morning was one of the funnest days I have ever had.   And yes, I know that funnest isn’t a word, but shouldn’t it be? Katie and I agree that it is a lot more fun to say “funnest” than “the most fun”, so we’ll go with the funnest way to express the fun that we had.  We spent four hours this morning taking a Segway tour around Paris!! Our intrepid leader was Matt, an Australian in Paris attending college and studying physical comedy, you know mime!  Seriously! He’s a miming student! We had group of nine tourists, including us three Americans, two British couples in their 50s and a 30-something Norwegian couple.    

Despite the range in our ages and athletic abilities, Matt has up zipping around on the Segways in no time at all.  It was amazing how each of us went from tentative novice to expert in a matter of 20 minutes. We started with a training session in a plaza near the tour office.  As we followed Matt out of the office with our helmets securely on, but away from the long row of Segways, I turned to Paul and whispered “Does he realize he didn’t give us a Segway yet??”   

But Matt first wanted us each to try one at a time on his machine.  We started with a British lady who had done it before, and then Matt picked Katie to try next.  Katie was pretty nervous with all the adults watching her, but she stepped on and was soon underway.   A Segway responds to shifts in your weight and the hardest part is staying still, which requires equal weight on each foot. It’s pretty easy to drift forward and back as your weigh shifts slightly.  Once Katie mastered balancing and could remain still, she learned to turn to the left, turn to the right and go forward and backward.  Just like that she was zipping around.   We each got a turn to try out the Segway under Matt’s leadership.  During my turn I was concentrating so hard that Matt was slightly mocking my serious face, but I was soon able to relax.  On Paul’s turn it became apparent that Matt’s Segway was too short and Paul had a bit of trouble with the handlebars.  One of the older British gents turned to me and remarked, “He’s quite a tall lad isn’t he?”  Once we were all set, we got our own Segways (Paul’s in extra tall) and off we went. Within minutes we were all comfortable and zipping along the Paris sidewalks and bike lanes.  The closest experience I have to riding the Segway is skiing.  You shift your weight in the same manner and the air whips past your face at about the same speed.  Of course with the Segway there is less chance of falling and you stay much warmer! 

Matt led us past all the big sights in Paris, including the Eiffel Tower where a small dog barked his head off at us, Napoleon’s tomb, the Seine river, Place de la Concorde, the Louvre and the Tuileries Gardens. It was absolutely so much fun to zip down the byways, stopping every so often for photos and some tour info from Matt.  Whenever we had to wait for a stop light, it was fun just to spin in place, first right and then left.  We stopped at a café in the Tuileries garden for a light snack and to recharge the Segways.  I relaxed and enjoyed an expresso while we all chatted.  Matt told us that the recharge is just a precaution and he’s never had anyone run out of batteries. The bigger and more unstable you are, the more the sensors work adjusting the Segway balance and the more the battery is drained.  He said that once he took a group of Asian college students out on a tour, and with the combination of their small size, light weight and good balance it was as through the machines hadn’t even been used. 

We were joking around at each other’s countries, the Brits laughing about loving to stand in queues, and us getting teased about not following world cup “football”.  We were then talking about all the historical sights and I mentioned something about how we’re lucky to only have 250 years of history to study not thousands, and Matt remarked how very American it was to believe you only have to study your own history.   How funny, and yet so absolutely true!  I don’t know if it is a commentary on the schools that I went to in particular or American schools in general, but I agree that we way overemphasize American history while shortchanging world history.  In fact, I only took three years of history in high school, a very basic “world cultures” course, an American history course that only covered through reconstruction, and a  geography course.  Then I didn’t take any history at all in college, so I’ve actually never had world history.  I’ve learned a lot on my own, but if you aren’t driven to do so, you can really leave our educational system without even the basics of world history.

But back to our Segway tour. We finished up at the café (of course Katie had a nutella crepe) and we hit the road.  On the way back we just had fun riding the Segways with no real tour information.  The big sturdy Norweigan guy loved the Segway and was continually drifting to the back of the pack and then speeding  like Evel Knieval past everyone at full throttle to the front again.  Every time this big Scandinavian speed past me standing straight up with perfect posture, but moving like the wind, I was laughing like crazy.  We were very reluctant to give them back at the end of the tour and both Paul and Katie informed me that they want Segways for their birthdays.

After the tour we walked, which now felt like slow trudging after the quickness of the Segways, to the Musee D’Orsay. It’s a great museum in a beautiful converted train station, and one of Paul’s favorite places.  Unfortunately the upper level was under renovation and their extraordinary collection of Impressionist works was all relocated into subpar temporary spaces.  We still liked it, but it wasn’t optimal.  Interestingly we did see a lot of paintings of locations in the Montmarte regions that we had seen the day before, and that was really neat. 

We then headed to the Orangerie, which is a small museum in the Tuileries gardens designed specially to display eight large water lily paintings by Claude Monet in two oval shaped rooms that he designed.  Natural light comes in a skylight and diffuses over the paintings, making them more magical the longer you look at them.  I want to go back sometime and spend a long time just sitting there observing the paintings. But it was a long day and we were tired.  We collapsed on the grass outside the museum and pulled out some books as we relaxed in the sun.  A perfect ending to a perfect day.

  

And then there were three

Paul arrived in Paris yesterday morning and we tried to make it an easy day for him to adjust.  He landed around 8am, but by the time he got through customs, collected his luggage and we got him to the apartment it was about 10:30 am and I asked him to take a short nap since he was exhausted.  I let him sleep until about 12:30, threw him in the shower and then we took a walk.  Being outside helps you adjust faster to the time change, so instead of taking the metro we walked about 30 minutes to the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. We found the pizzeria where Katie and I ate our first day in Paris and had a nice leisurely lunch.  We ate inside today since the tables outside were filled.  There was some great excitement when some shifty looking girls in their 20s wandering by attempted to steal cell phones off one of the outside tables!  The waiter chased them away and admonished everyone outdoors to keep careful watch over their belongings.

After a nice lunch we ambled over to the Eiffel Tower, which was quite busy.  Easter week is coming up and most of the schools here in France are on holiday, plus a lot of tourists are arriving from the US and UK. The crowds at the top of the tower forced a temporary closure of the summit, so if you wanted to go up you could only go to the second level. The line for the elevator to the second level was enormous, so we ended up taking the stairs, which for some reason had a much shorter line (also much cheaper tickets!).   We hiked up with little difficulty and were rewarded with some nice views of Paris.  Paul and I have been to the top before, and Katie and I went last week, so it was no big deal to be limited to the second stage. We wandered around there for a while and finally headed back down after getting some photos.  I always look for American or British older couples or parents with small children before handing over my camera and asking strangers to take my photo.  I figure I can run faster than older people, and that young parents can’t go anyway fast, so they won’t take off with my camera! We hung out in the park around the Eiffel tower for a while catching up and relaxing before heading home on the metro.

Today we went to the Montmartre section of Paris to see the basilica of Sacre Coeur and the artists’ neighborhoods in the area. I had always wanted to see this area of town and was so disappointed when we didn’t have time on my only previous trip to Paris in 1998.  The white basilica dominates the skyline of this section of town, and as Katie put it “Looks like a skinny Taj Mahal”.  It is built on the highest hill in Paris and we first had to hike up that steep hill to get to it.  You could take a funicular, but that’s just wimping out. This whole area was at one time a gypsum mine. The gypsum was used to maek plaster, and hence the expression Plaster of Paris!

 Inside it features some pretty stunning mosaics of the sacred heart of Jesus, and a statue of St. Peter that people rub for luck right on his feet.  In fact, his toes are all worn off!    Katie and Paul decided that we should climb to the top of the dome, so we hiked up another 720 stairs and looked out over the gargoyles to the city below.  Since we didn’t get to the top of the Eiffel tower yesterday it was nice for Paul to see out over the city – for me, it made my feet hurt and I was rethinking not taking the funicular earlier.  I was happy to see Paul and Katie enjoying it though.

After seeing the Basilica we took a walking tour of the Montmartre area using our guidebook. This is a really interesting section of town, the heart of bohemia.  It used to be a separate town from Paris with much looser drinking laws and lower prices, leading to a plethora of dance halls and speakeasies.  This area hosts the Moulin Rouge and was where people did the can-can.  Many of the great artists lived in this region and within a few short blocks we saw the former homes of Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec, Van Gogh and Picasso. Of course many other artists lived here as well including Matisse and Degas. We saw many of their favorite bistros and nightspots, several of which are featured in their paintings.  This was Paul’s favorite part of the day, seeing and understanding how all the impressionists lived, ate and worked in the same few blocks, leading to the artistic collaborations and influences that shaped a movement.

My favorite part of the day was the time we spent in Place du Terte where modern day artists still ply their trade.  Sure, they offer standard tourist fare, and there’s no Impressionists in this group, but their work is halfway decent and you can see them working on their paintings, which is fun.  There’s the standard group of artists who’ll do your portrait while you wait, and a handful of caricaturists but there’s also some decent oil paintings, and it’s all fun to see.  I bought a couple of prints that I hope make it home undamaged. We bought our lunch there and ate in the shade at a nearby ancient church, originally an ancient pagan temple to the Roman god Mars, but converted to Christian purposes in the 1100s.  Katie’s favorite part was also seeing the artists because as she puts it “It was all colorful and stuff.”

We walked through a market region on the way home and bought some strawberries that looked and smelled delicious.  I think they will make a nice dessert with some ice cream and nutella.