Monet's Gardens

Wednesday May 11th

Today we took the train to Vernon and then a bus to Giverny to visit Claude Monet’s house and gardens. This is something that I have really wanted to do, but have been scared off by the mobs of tourists.  My guidebook said “if you love waterlilies more than you hate crowds, then by all means visit.”  I hate crowds, so I have been putting it off, but as this is our last week in Paris it was now or never.  Plus, the crowds have really dropped off in the last week as those who visited the week before or week after Easter headed home.

We took the 8:20 train which got us to Giverny just as the house and gardens opened at 9:30. Giverny is 4 miles from the train station and a bus meets very train from paris.  The bus fills up and then takes you to the bus parking lot near, but not in Giverny.  It is still about a 15 minute walk from the bus lot to the house and garden.  It seemed like the entire train emptied into those two buses, and Katie was the youngest on the bus by about 25 years.  We were in the front of the bus and since we were more fit and most of the people on the bus, we arrived at the head of the pack for entrance into the grounds.  We bought our tickets, filed through the gift shop and entered the gardens. 

The gardens were in full bloom ( I think they manage to make them bloom continuously from April to  October) and were amazing.  It really felt like you were standing in a Monet painting. Katie wanted to wander around the gardens, but I had a mission. I wanted to get to the Japanese brigde before the crowds caught us.  We left most of them on the way to the ticket office, lost more in gift shop, and more still when we entered the gardens.  The water section of the garden is the farthest away. You have to walk through the regular gardens and then under a subterranean passage that then pops up in the water gardens. The passage is under the road, that if it existed in Monet’s day was much smaller than it is now. It’s kind of weird that the gardens are bisected by a road, but the gardens are designed to minimize the impact.

Once we got to the water garden, we were with only a few people who had also hightailed it there.  There were about 10 people in the area, and we all got great unspoiled photos of ourselves on the brides and by the waterlilies.  It unreal to actually be standing on the bridges in Monet’s garden.  There are two primary bridges, both with the familiar arched design, in the pond;  and several smaller bridges over steams.  Katie and I were able to walk slowly around the garden, marvel at the flowers, and colors and take a lot of photos.  We played pooh sticks off the bridges into the stream, and just enjoyed being there.  Every flower was spectacular in purples, reds and pinks.  The feeling was surreal.

As more tourists made their way down to the water section, we went back up the regular gardens and enjoyed the spectacular iris displays, rose trees and arched trellises. 

We went inside the house which looks like what you would expect from Monet. The ceilings were high, the rooms light and airy with plenty of sunlight and lined with windows.  One room was painted green, another blue and a third yellow.  I love lots of light and bright colors on the walls. Katie and I both agreed that this was a perfect house.  We stood in Monet’s studio where he painted for 40 years! The walls were lined with reproduction of 60 famous works painted in that very space.

After the house we went to the water gardens one more time.  it was getting quite crowded so we walked around slowly admiring one more time, and headed out.  All in all, it only took about an hour to see, but oh so worth it!

We walked up the main street of Giverny, Rue de Claude Monet and visited his grave site.  We found two letterboxes in the cemetery!  We walked past a small museum, but did not go in.  The grounds were open though and we saw a large field of poppies right out of a painting.  Even better, a local preschool was there and all the little kids were painting pictures of the bright red poppies.  So Cute!!!!!

We made it back to Paris in the early afternoon, so decided to attempt to mail some items back home.   We no longer need our warm clothes, or our beach shoes, or a lot other items. For the next month of travel, lighted bags will be good, so we packed up all unnecessary stuff and hauled it down to the shipping store on the corner using a Traders Joe’s bag  The counter clerk didn’t speak English, but we were able to figure things out.   We weighed everything and it was 12 kg of stuff (26 lbs). He told me that it was going to be expensive, but he would check it out for me.  For some reason it couldn’t go UPS, I’m not sure why, and Fedex, even using their slowest service was going to be 400 euros!!!  We backed off that plan fast. He recommended buying a box and tape and shipping through the post office.  So we headed back to our apartment with all our stuff plus a big box and a roll of packing tape.

As we hauled the stuff up to pack it ourselves, I realized at about the 4^th flight of stairs, that we should have left it all in the courtyard and just gone up for scissors and a sharpie.  Oh well, we packed it all up and hauled it back down again, now in a box addressed to Paul.  I carried it three long blocks to the post office and mailed it home for a fraction of the cost to FedEx.  I did feel nervous handing it all over, but they assured me it will arrive in about a week.  I guess we’ll see!

Back to Versailles

Wednesday May 11th

Well, it’s hard to believe but we only have seven (!) days left in Paris.  Just last week it still felt like we had such a long time left.  Katie and I both experienced some home sicknesses after my mom left.  It had been a busy time with Paul here and then Mom here, and then boom we were all alone again.  It felt like such a long time still in Paris, and then all our travels afterwards. But a week has gone by and now we are staring at the end of our time here.  Next Thursday we leave to visit some friends in Germany for five days, then five days in Switzerland, and we finish up with two weeks in Italy.  I think that time will really fly, and Paul will be with us in Italy.  Hard to believe that the time is passing so quickly. We have really enjoyed living in Paris, and I would come back again is a heartbeat.  I feel that with just six more months I could become fluent in French!

We have planned out our last few days here in Paris, with a mix of repeats of favorite activities, and some things we just haven’t gotten to yet.  Today we went back to Versailles.  The gardens are free on weekdays, but there is no music and the fountains aren’t on.  The gardens are definitely prettier with the fountains on, but it was still a very nice place to spend a warm sunny spring day.  We brought a picnic with us, baguettes with jambon and gruyere, chips and a lemon tartlet (that we bought at McDonalds). Really, the McDonalds are quite upscale here. I know our McDonalds at home doesn’t sell tartlets!  We ate dessert first on the banks of the grand canal.

After desert, we were full so we put lunch on hold and wandered around the far reaches of the gardens, walking past Grand Trianon (the retreat from the palace) and Petit Trianon (Marie Antoinette’s abode). We looked for a letterbox outside Petit Trianon, but after searching for a while for the one near Grand Trianon I ended up in the French equivalent of Stinging Nettles and abandoned the search.  Hours later my leg is still irritated and red.

We then went over to the Jardin du Roi (Garden of the King), found the letterbox that eluded us last time,  and ate the rest of our lunch. We were in a remote corner and for over an hour got away with being on the grass under a tree, pretending we were Royal.  Eventually though someone yelled at us to get of the grass and onto a bench.  It wasn’t marked stay off the grass (well at least right there it wasn’t)   but we followed instructions and moved to a bench. That wasn’t nearly so delightful, but we were ready to go anyway so we headed home after a lovely French afternoon.

Coed changing rooms??

Tuesday May 10th

So today we headed off to Aquaboulevard, France’s largest indoor water park. With Katie’s love of water, this has been our list from the very beginning, but I kept putting it off. Not because I didn’t want to go, because I love waterparks too, but just because it is really off the beaten path for most tourists. Every time we stray off the beaten path, we have fun, but it just makes me nervous working with the different French customs and procedures each time.  

The water park was no different, once we got settled we had a lot of fun, it was just figuring everything out at first that made it challenging.  We went on a quiet day, and it worked out nicely.  We walked through a very long entrance hallway that looked like it is used for large lines on hot summer days.  The water park is both indoor and outdoor, although we stayed indoors today.  We paid our admissions without too much trouble and got change for the lockers.

We then walked down a long hallway.  None of the signs were in English, and I did not know the words for changing room or locker room, or whatever the French variation of that is. I was looking for a ladies locker room, or something similar and we came upon on what looked like a changing room. However I couldn’t figure out if it was men’s or women’s.

 Well, no matter, as it turns out it was all in one.  There were small changing rooms like in department stores, but they didn’t lock and had doors on two sides for you to keep track of! Katie and I went in one together and each kept our eye on one door as we quickly changed.  Men, women, boys and girls were all coming in and out of the changing stalls. We then stowed our gear in a locker and headed out.  A large sign said showers were mandatory, and although lot of US pools say that and don’t enforce it, we took a quick shower just to be safe.

 Katie then saw a sign that said bathing suits forbidden!!  That worried and confused us to no end, until we figured out that baggy American style men’s trunks were forbidden, not bathing suits.  Men and boys had to wear form fitting suits like girls do. Luckily this did not really mean that most men and boys were in Speedos, although some of the older gentlemen were.  The trunks of choice for the under 50 set were a shorter version of the thigh length jammers that the boys wear on Katie’s swim team.  These were mainly of the length that I would call “boy short” length, just at the top of the thigh, and weren’t super tight, although more form-fitting than baggy trunks. They were actually nice looking on most of the men. Interestingly, in Nice we didn’t see many Speedos either, again just on the over 60 or under 5 sets.  We saw a lot of American style trunks in Nice, and almost no topless women either, but a lot of bikinis.  Most of the girls at Aqauboulevard were in bikinis too (but tops were required). Only a few girls were in tank style suits, but we didn’t feel out of place.

Once we got through the changing room situation, we were able to enter the water park and it was a lot of fun. Similar to what you would see at a Great Wolf lodge at home.  Huge, huge zero depth entry pool and lots of squirting fountains.  Lounge chairs for resting, and several large hot tubs.  There were three water slides inside, and more outside along with more pools, but we stayed in the indoor region.

The water slides were pretty tame compared to what they have at Hersheypark. I’m not sure if that is typical, but at any park we’ve been to in France we notice that the rides are tamer than at home.  Maybe Americans like their thrills bigger.  It works out fine for us though because Katie likes things a little tamer anyway.  Katie was hesitant to go on the slides at first, and asked me to go on each of them and then report  back to her. Even when I reported that they were slow in comparison to home, she still hesitated.  She said, “They might be tame for you, Mommy, but still too hard for me.” But she did agree to give them a try.

There were two big slides, both from a platform about 3 stories high. One you rode with a tube and one without a tube. There was also a third smaller slide that went from inside the belly of a whale. We tried the big slides first, and Katie was fine with them!  We rode them again and again throughout the day.  We both liked the tube one better because you went a little faster on it and it had more splashes.  There was no guard at the top of the slide which we found odd.  You had to get yourself ready and then go when the traffic light above the slide turned green.  Those traffic lights exist at home too, but maybe they don’t trust everyone to obey them?  Or maybe insurance companies don’t trust us and insist on guards?  Well, we didn’t see anyone disobey the lights all day and things proceeded smoothly even without a guard at the top.  There wasn’t a guard at the bottom of the slide either, you had to be trusted to get out of the way or get hit by the next rider. Again, no issues. I think there were three guards for the entire area, all up on bridges over the pools looking down.  The sides weren’t very busy, we never had to wait more than two riders before our turn.

We stuck to the big slides but did try the little slide from the whale’s belly once. You walked up a ramp into the whale’s tail.  The shale was suspended over the pool and the slide came out its eye!   It was interesting because inside the whale you could see all of its organs in fiberglass.  Lungs, heart, intestines, even a baby whale with umbilical cord! I thought it was cool, but it creeped Katie out.

The other fun activity was a big rope swing.  You stepped up on a platform, grabbed the big rope and swung out over the pool. If you did it right you would arc out over the water and drop off with a big splash.  Most people didn’t grab the rope high enough and just hit the water on the way down.  I got the hang of it pretty quickly and was able to splash down nicely by the second try, but it took Katie several tries. It was pretty fun, but kind of scary standing on the platform getting ready to swing out over the water. A lot of people got up on the platform and gave up and turned back around.  Katie was brave enough to keep trying though!  Some young twentysomething guys were swinging out really high, letting go and doing a somersault before hitting the water. Very fun to watch!

Katie also had fun doing tricks in the water and requesting a score for her trick from me.  The score is out of five on execution and out of five on interest level.  Thus a well-done but boring trick like a single handstand can get five points (5/0) and a poorly executed interesting trick like three forward rolls followed by a handstand might also get five points (0/5).  She tries to invent well done and interesting trick combinations.  This is one of her very favorite things to do in a pool and we have been playing this game for easily six or seven years.  I also tried to get her to invent a routine of tricks, as she used to do. We could keep her busy by giving her a theme, like “Mount Rushmore” and she would invent an elaborate routine for that theme.  Unfortunately, I think she is outgrowing these routines and refused to invent any today.  A single routine could keep her busy for a good 20 minutes at a hotel pool when she was six or seven.  Update: Katie read through this blog and said she didn't hear me ask for a routine, she still likes to do them and hasn't outgrown them.

Towards the end of the afternoon, the pool became a wave pool for 10 minutes out of every 30 and that was a lot of fun.  Katie LOVES wave pools and this one had some really big waves.  But all of this activity finally wore us out, we braved the coed changing room again and headed home exhausted.

Train Travel and Apartment Living

Monday May 9th

We arrived “home” to Paris yesterday afternoon after about six hours on the train from Nice. I really find train travel so much more convenient than air travel.  With train travel you only need to show up at the station about 20 minutes prior to your time of departure.  You wait for the track to be listed which occurs about 10 minutes before departure, walk over to your train, find the right car (which is listed on digital display outside each door) and board. Very simple.  There is plenty of storage space for luggage right inside the doors and the seats are large and roomy. You do need to make sure that you are on the right train though, as no one will check your ticket for you on boarding.  Yesterday it took several hours before they got around to checking our tickets!

The seats are probably six inches or so wider than airline seats, and the space from your seat to the seat in front of you is probably a foot more than in airlines!  You can put down the tray table and be perfectly comfortable without worrying that the person in front of you will recline and crush your laptop screen.  Katie settled in and watched a movie on the iPod and I did some writing on my research.  On the way to Nice we had a plug at our seats and I could connect my laptop and work the entire six hours.  This time there was no plug, but I still got in about three hours of work.

The distance from Nice to Paris is 570 miles, which would take about 8 hours driving at 70 mph with no stops, but we made it in six hours.  There was a dining car with snacks and drinks, and it was quite comfortable.   Despite my new love of train travel though, I think the environment in the US is not right for train travel though.  First, the US is so large that most train trips are prohibitively long, except in the eastern corridor of DC – Boston, where train travel is already common.  Plus, with most places you visit in the US, you need a car once you arrive, again with the exception of the large cities like DC, NYC and Boston.  But here in Europe it makes a lot of sense, and we have not found any need for a car yet. I was wondering how big France actually is, and according to what I found online, France is about 20% smaller than the state of Texas, with a population of 63 million people, whereas Texas has 24 million people.

It’s funny how you get settled into a place so quickly and it felt good to be back in our apartment in Paris after three days in Nice.  We have really enjoyed our apartment and have adjusted to the idiosyncrasies of Parisian life. For instance, we knew we were arriving back to Paris on a Sunday, so we made sure that we had enough food in the fridge for dinner because no groceries are open on Sunday. A frozen spinach quiche made a nice dinner.  We did our laundry and hung it to try using the techniques that my mom taught us for faster drying.  We have even adjusted to this no dryer life, which was hard at first.  Katie and I were talking this morning about continuing to hang our laundry to dry this summer at home to save energy.  Come winter though, I am happy we have dryers in the US!

There are several things though that are unusual here. First, the shower is tiny!  Seriously, you have to turn off the water wash your hair because there is no way out from under the spray otherwise.  The shower is a small square cube in a room with the washer and a sink. You have to exit the shower at an angle of the cube, and it is about an 18” high step off the ground.  As you pitch forward each time, wet and slippery I am afraid one of us is going to break our necks!  If you put your hands on your hips in the shower, both elbows will touch the walls!  After showering and getting out, Paul said “I don’t think my brother Peter would be able to get in and out of the shower here!” No offense to Peter, but he is a bit large in the belly and it would be a squeeze for him. I told my mom of Paul’s comment and her first response was “How mean!”, however, after showering she came up to me and said, “you know, I think Paul is probably right.”  Maybe that is why Parisians are all so thin, so they can take a shower. 

With all the walking here around town, and up and down five flights of stair to the apartment I think I have lost five pounds or so, which means that I can eat well when I get to Italy without any guilt!

You may have noticed that I didn’t mention a toilet in the shower room. That’s because it is in the hall closet.  Seriously, it’s a closet with a toilet. Your knees bump up against the door when you close it. This is my least favorite aspect of the apartment as I hate small closed in spaces.

The kitchen is a standard narrow apartment kitchen but does have a full size fridge and freezer as well as an over. You have to close the kitchen door to open the oven door, but it does work out. The living room is nicely sized with a table and a couch.  We don’t watch any French TV, but do watch TV over the internet on the laptop. The sofa is a pull-out, but Katie and I share a nice size bed in the bedroom instead.  The pullout is OK, but the bed is more comfy.  We even have a small balcony to hang our clothes to dry, or on which Katie curls up to read.

We have to walk to the grocery store, which is two blocks away and then carry home all our groceries.  We went this morning and brought home about three bags of groceries. You have to work hard to balance what you need right away with home much you can carry home and up five flights of stairs.  Katie had the bag with the milk, shampoo and wine today which was quite heavy.  But the milk only comes in liter size bottles so at least it wasn’t a gallon. 

We like trying different things from the French grocery but have settled into a few favorites: fresh quiche, chicken cordon blue (but in many different varieties, not just ham and cheese), and selections of great cheese including fondue. Tonight we are having baguette and cheese fondue.  Today Katie talked me into trying a granola cereal with chocolate pieces in it, and some odd looking donuts with what look like big salt crystals on them, but I think are sugar. I’m actually a little scared of those donuts. I’ll make Katie try them first.  (Update - they tasted fine. It was sugar!)

We have also tried some different ice creams, and currently have hazelnut in the freezer, which Katie derisively calls acorn ice cream. Not a big hit.  I think we should have gotten chocolate hazelnut, which would have been similar to Nutella.

Quiet day for us today, but tomorrow we plan to head to France’s largest indoor waterpark

Monaco

Saturday May 7th

In light of Katie’s red skin, we decided to stay off the beach today.  As there isn’t a lot to do in Nice other than the beach, we took advantage of the time to go to Monaco.  Monaco is only 20 minutes away by train, and we thought we’d check it out, and in the process up our country count to five so far on this trip.  Of course it’s tough to count Monaco as an actual country since it’s only 0.75 square miles in area.  It’s less than a mile end to end and is the second smallest country in the world.  It’s not even run like a real country, but as a section of France with a minister appointed jointly by the president of Franc and Prince Albert II.

There’s not actually a lot to do in Monaco.  I wasn’t dressed appropriately for the casino (no sneakers, coat and tie for gentlemen) and Katie is too young, so we went to the aquarium instead. The aquarium was founded in 1910 by Prince Albert I, and is director for many years was Jacques Costeau.  It was a nice aquarium, perhaps a bit on the small side for the cost of admission.  It was two wings, one with the fish of the Mediterranean Sea, and one with tropical fish.  One of my favorite exhibits was a fish nursery with easily a thousand small clownfish.  They were all less than two months old and ranged in size from ¼” to about 1”.  They were so cute!  Katie asked what their names were and I replied that they were Nemo I, Nemo 2, Nemo 3, Nemo 4……  My other favorite exhibit was giant moray eels. I really love moray eels and these were huge, easily three times as thick as normal moray eels.  It’s actually really weird that I like moray eels because I hate swimming snakes.  Swimming snakes are terrifying, moray eels are awesome.  You figure it out. 

 

After the aquarium we wandered around looking for a reasonable place to eat lunch, but everything was so fancy.  We ended up with Panini at a take out place and caught the train back to Nice.  It was only 2:30 and still too bright to take Katie to the beach so we took a nap in the hotel and hit the beach around 4:30 for an hour or so.  We then wandered off in search of dinner, hoping to be more successful than with lunch.  As Italy is only about 10 miles away here, Italian food dominates the scene and we ended up with absolutely fabulous homemade pasta at a trattoria.  This stuff makes American Italian food seem disgusting.  I had lovely delicious pillows of ravioli with prosciutto and Katie had a creamy ham sauce on fettucine.  Katie said it was the best Italian meal she ever had. Wait until she gets to Italy!

Roller Blading, Sunburn and the French Pharmacist

Friday May 6th

Well today began as a very relaxing day, but ended with Katie covered in wet towels back in the hotel room.  I swear that girl gets sunburn if she just looks at the sun.  In fact, she does sneeze every time she looks at the sun, but that’s another story.  Yes, she is an odd child.  You would think that we’d learn to put sunscreen all over her, and you would think she would stop fighting me on it tooth and nail every time I suggest sunscreen, but that’s not the case and now she has the logical consequences.

We arrived in Nice yesterday around 5:30, checked into our hotel, the Hotel Splendid (it is nice, but Splendid may be going a bit far…), and walked down to the beach.  I was really surprised to find out that the beach here is nothing but rocks, no sand at all.  I was actually really disappointed as my dream of lying on the sand and resting while Katie built sand castles and played in the water quickly evaporated. You could easily turn an ankle here walking on the beach!  The rocks range from about the size of a quarter to larger than my fist. It’s really quite odd.  We walked for a while of the rocks, watching our step very carefully and then got some dinner at a pizzeria. 

We are very close to Italy here and there are a lot of Italian restaurants.  The dinner was good and it was highly amusing to watch this crazy loud American family try to order their dinner and speak in some kind of weird broken English to the waiter thinking he would understand that better, and then complain about how everything is different here.  I had only spoken French to the waiter and I guess he did not associate me as an American because as he stopped at our table for a minute he complained about how that table was acting like babies.  Katie says that my French is really improving and the waiters are not immediately switching to English anymore when they hear me talk. I have had a number of people try to guess my nationality and not one has guessed American. Canadian is the most common guess although I have also had British and German.  I guess that’s good if I need to be inconspicuous.

Today we slept late and then went to the beach.  It wasn’t particularly warm so we didn’t worry too much about sunscreen, only putting it on our faces.  Well, our faces didn’t burn!  The beach has “public” regions and “rental” regions.  It’s like the haves and have nots. In the publis region people just spread a towel on top the rocks and lie down.  In the rental region, there are chaise lounges with thick mattresses and umbrellas and waiters who can bring you food and drinks. We opted for the rental section and settled in on our nice chaise lounges.  It was nice enough on the think mattresses that we didn’t move for about 4 hours.  It appears that Katie didn’t move at all since one side of her is bright red and the other is a pale ghostly white.

After lying on the beach, we took a walk and collected beach glass and pretty pebbles.  We have a collection of jars of sand from beaches we’ve been to around the world. Since there was no sand here, collected the pebbles and lots of gorgeous beach glass and filled our jar.  It’s actually very pretty. Katie found a rock with a fossil of a snail in it, and I found beach glass in green, white, yellow and blue. We had a lot of fun despite the lack of sand.

It was clear b this time that Katie was turning red. So we went back to the hotel to cover up.  It didn’t hurt at this point, so we just put on Capris instead of shorts and now added on sunscreen and went out to the boardwalk.  The boardwalk is actually a VERY wide sidewalk, maybe 12 feet wide, that runs along the beach for four miles. It is called boulevard de Anglais.  I think it was built using money donated by a british gentlemen who didn’t want the ladies to have to walk on the beach.  We wandered up the Boulevard to the older section of Nice where we rented rollerblades.

It was Katie’s first time on rollerblades and I haven’t roller bladed since before she was born, although Paul and I rollerbladed a lot when we lived in Minneapolis, the birthplace of Roller blades.  We ice skate a lot though so I had high hopes.  Then man gave us the roller blades, took our shoes and we were off.  I was surprised, no waiver to sign, no offer of safety gear, in face he didn’t even take our names or hold an ID!  But off we were.  The shop was across a four-lane road form the boardwalk so first we had to cross the street. We waited for the light to turn green, shoved off and Katie promptly fell down in the road. I grabbed her arm to help her up, wavered unsteadily and basically pulled her across the road. Luckily I didn’t fall as the light turned and the cars behind us sped off. It was an inauspicious start.

However, we kept with it and soon had the hang of it. I’m not saying we were particularly graceful, but at least there were no more falls, we kept our speed under control and didn’t hit any pedestrians, which is saying a lot, as busy as the boardwalk was.  I was able to do well enough to skate and take some photos of Katie roller blading along the French Riveria.

In my opinion, roller blading is harder than ice skating as the skates are harder to get moving, and once moving, harder to stop.  Plus they are less responsive and have a larger turning radius. Not to mention there aren’t any hills on an ice rink and those roller blades pick up speed fast on hills!  But we actually had a really great time, and kept at it back and forth for just over an hour.  At this point Katie was getting worn out and was starting to complain that her leg hurt from sunburn.

 

We still walked around a bit more, walking up castle hill to get a good panoramic view of the beach, but now Kate was in some pain. We walked back down, found a pharmacy and talked to the pharmacist to find some sunburn cream.  After establishing that the pharmacist could speak English since I didn’t trust my French here, I explained that we were looking for sunburn cream for Katie. “Yes, I would think so,” replied the pharmacist, looking Katie up and down. She seemed quite judgmental and her French accented English made her sound very snooty.  “She is very red. Did you not have protection?” she asked, now looking me up and down. “Yes, but only on her face,” I replied, “and her face isn’t red.”  This was of little importance to the pharmacist who was switching out the small tube of burn cream she had originally selected for an enormous tube. “You will have to apply this many, many times a day,” she explained carefully to me, “She is very burnt. And she will have to keep covered tomorrow. Is she hot?”  “No,” replied Katie. “Well, yes, her arms are hot,” I corrected, touching Katie’s arm. “Not her skin,” said the exasperated pharmacist, “her head. Is she hot in the head? A fever?”  “No…” I replied.” She just has sunburn.”  “Well she might get a fever, so watch her very carefully!” admonished the pharmacist as she wrapped up the huge tube of sunburn ointment. As we walked out of the pharmacy I could feel her judgment burning the back of my head. 

We decided at this point to call it a day, head back to the hotel, apply the ointment crème and hope for the best.  Since Katie burns at the drop of a hat and usually recovers quickly I am not really worried. However, I do have her wrapped in wet towels to ease the heat of the burn and she is in good spirits.  Tomorrow is another day. One in which we will use sunscreen.

One massive blogpost: Mom, the washing machine and more

Thursday May 5th

Well, it’s been a whole week since my last blog post, and what a busy week it has been.  A week ago we picked my mom up at the Paris airport, this morning we dropped her off at the airport, and it was non-stop action in between.  Our normal schedule kind of fell by the wayside this week, and between the changes in schedule, the non-stop sightseeing and wanting to concentrate on enjoying having my mom being here, my blogging fell by the wayside.  Katie was able to keep up a bit better with her blog, writing for about 30 minutes each morning, but since I need about 90 minutes each afternoon, that wasn’t going to happen.

Katie and I are currently on a TGV train speeding south to Nice, where we will spend the next two days.  It is about a five and a half hour ride, so I’ve got a little time to write.  It was really nice having Mom here for the week.  This is the longest time that we have spent together since she came to Minnesota to help when Katie was born, and since I was a little preoccupied that time, this was a nice opportunity to be together. 

I think that our relationship has strengthened over the past few years, despite or perhaps because of some difficult times in my family, including the break-up of my parent’s marriage.  My mom was very young when I was born, only 21, although she will point out that she turned 22 soon after.  It was a different time with different expectations for women, particularly in West Virginia.  By the time my Mom was my age now (41), I was a college sophomore, my brother Josh was a high school sophomore, and my baby brother Zach was three.   I can’t imagine having a kid in college right now.

Zach was born when my mom was 38 and I was a sixteen year old junior in high school.  He made my high school life a bit different from that of my friends.  I remember bringing him to class like show and tell and discussing his developmental stages in as my project for my “Independent Living” class section on child care. I also vividly remember the nasty looks I would get from busy-bodies at the mall who assumed he was mine when I would let my mom get some rest and take Zach out for a few hours.

With Mom distracted with a new baby, I feel that I became independent at an early age, although she might disagree.  We likely have very different recollections of those years due to our different perspectives and personalities.   But to a large degree I was independent from the time I left for college at 17, particularly in comparison to my Villanova students today, who speak with their parents four times a day.  My mom and I both have strong but different personalities, and although I loved being at home during college breaks, we clashed often due to different expectations and needs from each other.

Then I fell in love, got married right out of college and our lives took different directions. I focused on my new marriage, moved to Minnesota, pursued a Ph.D. and painfully struggled with fertility issues.  She got Josh through college, raised Zach and faced difficulties with my Dad.  I finished my Ph.D., finally had a beautiful baby girl, got a new job and moved back to Philadelphia.  She moved to DC, found a wonderful work opportunity at the National Cathedral, and went through a painful divorce.

Fortunately though over the past few years, we have reconnected and been able to really strengthen our relationship.  I am so proud of her and all that she has done over the past ten years.  Her strength in facing a difficult situation was inspiring, and her ability to establish a new job, new friends and new activities in a new city has been amazing.  Her commitment to her family is strong, and despite her busy schedule she finds time to see her kids and grandkids regularly.  She sees Josh’s boys every week, and tries to see Katie at least once every two months.  She will drive up to Philly to see Katie for even a few hours if that is all that her schedule and ours will permit, coming along on our activities, simply to spend time with us.  We still have different personalities, but now we relax and accept our own strengths and weaknesses.

So this was a great opportunity to spend time together for some “intergenerational bonding.”  It wasn’t so much about what we did this week as simply about the time that we spent together having fun and making memories.  And since Mom is such a huge bundle of energy, we made a lot of memories.

Mom has two speeds: full tilt and sound asleep.  We set up a list of things she wanted to do in Paris and started crossing things out from the day she arrived.  Her first day we took her to the Orangerie to see the Claude Monet waterlilies.  The plan for the week was a nice balance between some things we were doing for the second or third time, and some things that we had saved to experience with her.  While the waterlilies were a repeat activity for us, visiting the Orangerie is something that is really enjoyable to do a second time.  The more often and the longer you look at the paintings, the more amazing and personal they become.   This time I was particularly intrigued with the large trees in the paintings.  Up close, you could see that the bark had virtually no brown paint at all, but was a series of vertical overlapping lines of many different greens, purples, oranges, reds and even bright pinks. It looked like abstract art from a few feet away, but as you backed across the room, the colors merged together and a tree popped out of the canvas.  I walked forward and backward marveling at the interplay of color over and over until it was time to move on.

We then tried to visit the Musee d’Orsay because my brother Josh and his wife April highly recommended it and it is a great museum.  We had bought dual passes at the Orangerie which entitled us to entrance to the Orsay using the special museum pass line, bypassing the normal line.  However, in what would become a running theme for the week, even the line for museum pas holders was in excess of an hour. We decided to try another day, since the passes were good for four days.  This was Thursday.  We had plans on Friday and Saturday, so tried again on Sunday since the Orsay is normally open on Sundays until 6m.  Unfortunately, it turned out that Sunday was May 1^st, France’s Labor day and the museum was closed. It was closed Monday as well, which is its normal day of closure.  We tried back on Tuesday, and the lines for museum pass holders were now almost two hours long! At this point, with two days left in the trip we abandoned all attempts at the Orsay.  I joked that she was going to go back home and tell Josh, “All I wanted to see was the Orsay, but no……..Amy wouldn’t take me!”

After giving up on the Orsay the first day we decided to walk to the Eiffel Tower. It was an overcast foggy kind of day,   not the best for going up the Eiffel tower, which turned out to work in our favor.  The line to go up the tower was minuscule, probably because everyone was standing in the museum pass line at the Orsay!  We ascended the tower, and although it was cold at the top, it was fun to see the clouds swirling around the tower. They gathered strength and blocked our view, then parted to allow us to see the city. We got some nice photos of Mom, Katie and Flat Stanley, who had traveled to Paris with my Mom.

Flat Stanley was my nephew Kevin’s first grade geography project.  Each kid in the class sends Flat Stanley to someone who takes photos of Stanley enjoying the primary sights of that location.  Kevin wanted Stanley to come to Paris with us, so he mailed him to my mom, who flew with him in her carry-on. The three of us had a LOT of fun taking Flat Stanley photos all week.  Our favorites were when we held him up next to a wedding outside Notre Dame Cathedral, and when he sat on the throne at Versailles.

After visiting the Eiffel Tower we planned to take the metro home, but ever the source of energy my mom wanted to walk. Katie was drooping, but promise of a treat at McDonalds perked her up a bit. She set off trotting after my mom with me bringing up the rear.  “Mimi, how do you walk so fast?” she asked panting as she tried to keep pace as I fell further back.  “I don’t know but my little legs just keep churning,” she replied. 

I have been struggling with an ankle injury for about a year, and while I still walk quite fast, I can’t keep pace with Mimi any more. So we got her to dial it back a bit as the week went on.  I have worn a pedometer each day since January and have tried try to get in a daily total of at least 10,000 steps ( just over 4 miles daily) that my doctor strongly recommended, but warned might be difficult.  Well, it has not been difficult in France since we have to walk everywhere and we have been average 12,500 steps per day (or about 5.5 miles).   While my mom was here though, a light day was 12,500 steps; we averaged over 15,000 steps and hit over 20,000 steps twice with a record high of 21,500 steps, or over 9 mile one day!

The second day we ran up against my Mom’s nemesis – waiting in lines.  We had avoided the Orsay line the day before, and the Orangerie and Eiffel tower lines hadn’t been so bad. This day though, if we wanted to see Notre Dame and St. Chapelle we needed to wait in line.  We started with Notre Dame and the line to go up to see the gargoyles and the bell tower quickly scared her off.  We even had to wait in line just to enter the church and walk around, although that moved quickly – only about 15 minutes in line.  We waited in line again to buy some presents and then found our way to the Roman ruins hidden below street level near Notre Dame. No line here, as the big tour companies bypass it, so we were able to walk right in. A huge area under the Notre Dame region has been excavated to 15 feet below current street level, revealing the original Roman settlement – very interesting.

We then grabbed some lunch at Quasimodo café. I had a Croque Madame, which takes the classic Croque monsieur and adds a fried egg on top. I think adding a fried egg to a sandwich is brilliant – Yummy!  I convinced Mom and Katie to wait in the line for the Notre Dame bell tower, which was about 45 minutes long. It was totally worth it as we had some great views f the gargoyles, saw the big bell and looked out over the city.  I loved a gargoyle that was depicted as using its large teeth to tear into the hide of what appeared to be a lamb, but Katie was less than amused by it.

The funniest event of the day occurred at the bathrooms outside Notre Dame.  There was a line for the ladies’ stalls, and the mens’ stalls but no line for the mens’ urinals.  An attendant was watching the lines and directing men to the right location.  A couple of American high school boys on a field trip came into the bathroom, she started talking to them in French and they panicked and tried to turn and run out. They came back after a brief whispered conversation in the hallway, probably about needing to use the restroom.  The attendant again started talking to them and they panicked. You could see the fear on their faces.   She then started shouting “Number 1 or Number 2??”  at them really loudly, and at this they did panic and flee the area.  Poor boys, I hope they didn’t wet their pants.

After Notre Dame we went to nearby St. Chappelle, which is an astounding medieval church built to hold the alleged “crown of thorns” and has the most amazing stained glass.  The line scared mom off again, but I made her stand in it and she was happy that we did in the end.  You start on the lower level and then ascend into this incredible chapel that appears to be made of nothing but brilliant glass.  It literally takes your breath away when you see it.  The entire chapel seemed to shine and glow with colors dancing before your eyes. Unbelievable.

The next day we went to Versailles.  As we were getting ready to depart, I turned to Katie and mom and said, “Now, as you know, this is Versailles we are going to, one of the most popular palaces in the world. And it is Saturday on a warm spring day.  It is going to be crowded and there are going to be lines. I want you to be prepared for crowds.”  Mom turned to Katie and in a mock stage whisper said, “I think she’s talking to me, not you.”

Luckily, although the line for tickets was long (about 45 minutes), the gardens were open and large enough to absorb huge crowds without seeming busy at all.  We spent most of the day in the garden. The fountains were turned on, which only happens on certain days, and chamber music was piped through the garden which was wonderfully relaxing.  We enjoyed wandering through the tall hedges, marveling at the fake Roman ruins that Louis XIV had built and watching the dancing fountains.  When Louis XIV walked the gardens the staff watched carefully and turned off the fountains he had walked past, and turned on the ones he was heading towards.  How funny. 

We ate a picnic lunch like real members of the royal court on the banks of the grand canal that he had built in true Venetian style.  During Louis’s heyday he imported actual Venetian gondolas and gondoliers to transport the court back and forth on the one mile long canal. A village was built on the banks of the canal to house the gondoliers and their families.

We went into the palace itself later in the day when the crowds had gone down, and I don’t want to think about what it was like it he morning if it was this bad in the afternoon. It was literally shoulder to shoulder including many tour guides and their groups that tended to shove others out of their way. Katie got elbowed out of the way by a small Asian lady and was not happy about it. It was just an absolute zoo. Plus once you’ve seen one or two opulent rooms, how much more over the top décor do you really need to see?

This day also brought the biggest challenge of the week, which was a broken washing machine in the apartment. Mom thought we needed to wash the towels before leaving for Versailles, and then they could dry during the day.  Which does make sense, particularly since we don’t have a dryer.  However, during the spin cycles the washer made a bad noise and we cancelled the cycle, leaving a sodden mess of towels.  We tried to re-start but couldn’t get the machine to work.  We decided to deal with it when we got home from Versailles, but on arriving home it still wouldn’t work and we had a pile of sodden towels in the shower. I was so angry and wished I hadn’t washed the towels at all.

I ended up having to call my landlady for the first time, in the process making my first French phone call.  Since wet towels did not constitute an actual emergency, she said she’d send her husband over in the morning to look at it.  Apparently, not  as handy as Paul, he did take a look at it and when he confirmed that it would not turn on, he left, stating he would call a repairmen on Monday. We hung the towels on the balcony to continue drying and went off for the day.

After two busy, busy days, with lots of lines and crowds, we were happy to take it a bit easier.  My brother Josh treated us to a boat ride on the Seine followed by a nice French lunch. We left from near the Eiffel tower and went downstream around Notre Dame and back. It was a great day to be on the water, and the tour guide could speak five languages fluently (French, English, Spanish, German and Italian), which really impressed Katie.

Our lunch was filling and delicious and Katie and I loved all the different cheeses on the cheese plate, particularly the stinky one shaped like a pyramid with a thick layer of mold.  After lunch we just walked around Paris, enjoying the sunshine and warm weather.  We saw the pet market, browsed the book stores along the Seine and had coffee in the Tuileries gardens. Mom had a lot of trouble with the French coffee, which is served in tiny thimble-sized expresso cups. When she was handed the smallest take-out cup ever invented at a McDonalds early in the week, the look on her face was priceless.

On Monday we went out to Montmarte and Sacre Coeur while Nathalie’s husband attempted to fix our washing machine.  It was an overcast day and rained off and on, but it was still a nice day at Montmarte.  When it started to rain we ducked into a nice café just off the plaza where the artists paint and had a wonderful meal with the rain coming down outside.  When it cleared again we walked past the homes of many famous artists including Picasso, van Gogh and Renoir. Amazingly, as the week wore on, even Mom’s manic energy moderated and she was able to relax and enjoy the idle times in the cafes and just walking through Paris, as long as we didn’t have to wait in any more lines!  We still walked a lot, just not quite so fast, and with less sense of purpose than usual.  We added a stroll down the Champs Elysees to the day and headed home hoping to find a fixed washing machine. 

Instead, we found a door that I couldn’t seem to unlock.  The apartment door is always troublesome, but on this day, I couldn’t get it even to budge.  Had the repairman come and done something to it? Was he still inside with the door bolted shut? I tried buzzing, but no one answered. Is he in there, but not answering the door? How will I get back in?? What did they do? My panic was rising!

I called my landlady again and she was very surprised to hear that I couldn’t get in the door. It turned out that the repairman had given her husband some directions to try to fix it himself, and he tried at lunchtime but didn’t have enough time. He was planning to come back at 6:30 this evening to finish, which was in a half an hour.  She was perplexed as to why the door wouldn’t open and said she’d call him right away.  I had gone to the courtyard of the building to make the call and I walked back up the five flights of stairs to try the door again.  This time, as I put in the key, it occurred to me that I was turning the key the wrong direction and I tried the other direction. What do you know, it opened right up! I called Nathalie back to tell her that the door was working fine now and she hadn’t called her husband yet, so all was good.

He showed up at 6:30 and was able to fix the washing machine, which shut down because he had not been cleaning the filter regularly and a fault was tripped.  He also checked out the apartment door since Nathalie had told him I was having trouble with it.  After opening and closing it a few times he said it seemed to be OK, so hopefully I wouldn’t have any more issues with it.  I agreed with him that it was probably just sticking and would now be OK.  I didn’t mention about turning the key the wrong way.  We did several loads of laundry and called it a night.

The next day we tried and abandoned the Orsay museum again and headed instead to a small museum called Musee Marmottan, to which Claude Monet’s son donated his entire personal collection of paintings after his death.  The museum is in a beautiful house which was a former hunting lodge and located on the  edge of the Bois de Boulogne, a park in Paris 2.5 times larger than Manhattan’ central park.  The museum has the largest collection of Monets in the world, although only a few are displayed at any one time.  About 30 were on display this day, tracing the arc of his entire career. There are also examples of the work of his contemporaries, the most famous being the Rainy Sunday in Paris painting. There was also an outstanding collection of illuminated manuscripts. 

After the museum we wandered through the park for a while, having a picnic on the edge of a lake, watching lots of ducklings learning to dive, and a set of cygnets (or as Katie calls them, swanlings) following their regal parents.  We finished the day with a trip to the Rodin museum, which my mom walked through as Katie and I ate ice cream in the beautiful gardens.

For Mom’s final day in Paris we decided to go back to Montmarte, which was her favorite place.  I had been thinking and thinking about the artists who draw the charcoal portraits of tourists and had decided that I wanted to get a portrait done of Katie. I know it is kind of touristy, but Paul’s mom has a portrait of Paul and his two brothers done when they were small and we always enjoy seeing it when we visit her.  I thought that a portrait would be a really nice memento of the trip and something that we can enjoy for a long time and then pass on to Katie when she is grown up.

Katie was very excited by the idea and sat very patiently while the artist sketched her.  Mom and I watched carefully as he started with the eyes, then the nose, then the lips, sketched in the hair and finally her shoulders and torso.  It was fun to watch the painting emerge on his easel.  It ended up being a very good, although not perfect, likeness and we are happy with it. The look on Katie’s face when she hopped up from the stool and peeked at the easel for the first time was pure unfiltered joy.  She was so thrilled to see herself looking back!!

We finished Mom’s week in Paris by relaxing in Luxembourg gardens and eating Turkish kebab in the Latin Quarter.

This morning we took her to the airport and helped her check in.  We will miss her, and it was a great week. Now who will talk loudly in English on the metro that it startles people around us?

Katie and I are headed to Nice for a couple of days to check out the French Riveria.  Over the past four hours on the train as I have been writing we have seen the Paris cityscape give way to rolling French countryside. It then gradually got more mountainous and we passed through some train tunnels and saw many many vineyards rushing by.  We are now paralleling the Mediterranean coast, catching glimpses of the deep blue sea, and picturesque sailboats in the small village ports.  The houses all have orange tile roofs, set beautifully against the green trees and the blue skies. 

We do not expect it to be particularly warm, not quite 70, so if Katie swims in the Mediterranean Sea remains to be seen, but we hope to pop over to Monaco for a few hours and it should be a relaxing two days.