Recap: Paris, Day 4: Bus Tour 2, Conciergerie, Arc de Triomphe

On Tuesday we decided to keep going with riding the double decker bus tour to get to some of the places. I think you buy one day and then the second one is free. The first place we wanted to get to was the Conciergerie, which is now the justice building. It was used in the 1800s to keep the high profile prisoners that were to be executed, including Marie Antoinette. It has some neat old writings of Robspierre and stuff like that. Some of the higher-ups during the revolution (12 of them) killed themselves here too. It's attached to the new justice building and a really cool gothic church that we never got to from the 1200s called St. Chappelle. It was really interesting in there; here's the opening 'foyer':Jodi and Erika are checking out one of the mock prison cells, complete with a very 'lifelike' mannequin. He could use a little more blush. After that, Erika couldn't stop asking questions about why that guy was stuck in that little room, and other questions in general. To this day, the dummies still throw her off a bit. It's amazing how many historical places like to throw in the lifelike dummy for effect. Even pre-recorded voices are not uncommon.

Erika decided to pose in one of the 'cute' courtyards. It was actually used as the women's courtyard where they bathed and ate and washed clothes everyday before they were sent to the guillotine.

Although we didn't get a chance to go inside, we took a couple of pictures of the outside of St. Chappelle:

Right across the street is the Notre Dame cathedral, so we strolled on over and ate lunch at a cute place right beside it. It was also unreasonably pricey. I suppose that is what you get for sitting 20 feet from Notre Dame.

Here's a nice random from the bus showing Notre Dame in the background. I told Jodi to put her hand up because I thought it would give perspective. Of what, I am still not sure. Nice hand though.

And guess where we ended up. This square hunk of stone was probably the biggest surprise we had the entire trip to Paris. It's really big. And amazingly interesting what with the very detailed sculpting and all the various wars and victories inscribed on the rock. You can take some stairs to the top and look out too, but we opted out, considering we got a pretty good view of the city from the Eiffel. It's also surrounded by one of the busiest traffic circles in Paris, and is at the end of Champs d'Elysee - supposedly a swanky shopping district which has been heavily overrun recently with McDonald's and company. We ended up staying at the Arc de Triomphe a lot longer than we thought we would, and I am sure glad we took time for it.

Jodi is posing by the grave of the Unknown Soldier, which has one of those eternal flames:

We shopped for a few hours on Champs d'Elysee, and then got back on the bus just to have another nice ride and view of the Eiffel tower (and try to contain the kids). Another random on the bus of my Dad. I don't know what the building behind is.

Apparently, I am not the only one with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Jodi spent the previous half hour arguing with herself about needing to get off the bus, "I need to get off at the next stop..", and then the bus would stop and it would be, "No, I'm ok." I am not sure where she thought she was going to make it to, as the condo was at least an hour train ride away. At any rate, it finally caught up to her around the Louvre, and so we played on one of the bridges that looked over to the Ile de la Cite where Notre Dame/Conciergerie/St. Chappelle is, and was the place where the first settlement was in Paris (circa 2nd/3rd century). There's Pont Neuf:

Once again, we ate French (at a Greek place). The fellow couldn't leave Reese alone, almost to the point of madness. Time for the hour train ride back to the condo. The day turned out to be a really good one, even though we packed lots of stuff in it. The bus tour of the city was a great decision on my Dad's part and we ended up seeing a lot more of the city than if we would have stuck to the metro. You can actually see more of the city above ground. Who knew? The metro is definitely a vastly huge world of its own...

Jeff and Jodi

Recap: Paris, Day 3: Bus tour, Louvre, Notre Dame (October 13, 2008)

Yesterday my parents saw a double decker bus cruising around central Paris, so my dad suggested we try it out. We figured we could catch up with it at the Eiffel tower, so that was the plan. The Paris train system sure is clogged sometimes - very crowded. So, we had to make a change at one of the central stations, and it just so happens that there were a huge amount of people in the train, and it seemed the majority of them were standing directly in front of me and the stroller with Reesey in it. I couldn't get out of the train door. Jodi and my mom and dad and Erika were already past the threshold and safe on the other side, and I had resigned to missing that particular stop and taking the next one and coming back. The doors were just starting to close, when all of the sudden, the Red Sea was parted, as my dad tossed the matchstick Parisians aside like a raging bull and repeated the phrase - of course in English, "We need to get off here, we need to get off here!!" He managed to clear a beautiful path for us and we were swept onto the platform. I will never forget how one second, me and Reese were off by ourselves to the next station, and the next, all the people blocking us disappeared. Good thing too, I was glad to not have to try and find them later, as we never made any sort of contigency plan for getting split up (until then). Off to the Eiffel tower:

We had about 20 minutes to fool around by the tower, and then we got onto the bus:

We toured past the Champs de Mars park, and Hotel Invalides, and some other neat square thing with a solitary, tall statue - Place de Concorde. I am pretty sure this is where Marie Antoinette (and many others) were beheaded. Then, about 45 minutes later we arrived at the Louvre. The bus tour was unreal, and I would definitely do it again. There are so many of the buses running, you can get off at any of the stops and come back out after a few hours and catch the next one. Here's Erika outside one of the entrances to the Louvre:

The outside of the Louvre was the highlight of Paris for Reese. In the central courtyard, there is a big fountain and right beside that, a big pyramid - which is supposed to be the biggest glass pyramid in the world or something. The pyramid is actually the entrance to the Louvre.

Inside the Louvre was very overwhelming. After entering, there is a big open area (like 5 football fields) where you can get food (which we did) and some stores and stuff. Everyone's food was good, but my pizza turned out to be soaked in some kind of wet. I could have rolled it up into a burrito. It would honestly take days to see all the stuff in the Louvre, so we made our plan for our 2-3 hour tour, minding the kids temperaments, of course. The highlights we picked were Napolean's apartment and the Mona Lisa, and saw what we could on the way (some crown jewels, Picasso). I also wanted to get to the really old Egyptian stuff if we had time, and Jodi wanted to see the medieval basement - the part of the Louvre that is still intact from some hundreds of years ago when it was used for a castle, which turned out to be quite neat. All in all, it was incredible. We took a picture in some random mirror:

This picture does not do justice to Napolean's actual apartment; it was so overwhelmingly beautiful:

Of course we have to include a picture of the Mona Lisa. It was really cool to see something that you have heard about forever. We couldn't get close enough to draw a mustache on her face, as the whole triangle in front of it was cordoned off. Understandably so, with all the crazy tourists around. The whole wing that included Picasso and the Mona Lisa was full of students/bums sitting and staring at the walls. A few guitars and tamborines and hawkers would not have been out of place. Here's a picture of Jodes and Erika when we first saw it. Jodi's a little choked about not getting closer to the painting, and we were both (ignorantly) surprised at how small it actually is:
After the Mona Lisa, we figured we had some time to get to the ancient Egyptian stuff. Seen one sphinx, seen 'em all. Talk about ignorant, I know. Once Jodi figured out how old the stuff actually was, she burned through our 1 GB memory card in no time. Ok, that might be a little much, but I think she took around 50 random pictures of all kinds of stuff like this "blue miniature mummy":

To be honest though, I enjoyed the ancient Egypt part. It started to drag a little when we got lost and it took us an hour to get to the exit. You can't just go to the nearest door and leave, you have to get back to the glass pyramid. It is an incredibly huge place. At some point, there was some kind of alarm and we had to semi-evacuate, which was a complete gong show. Nobody knew where to go and whether or not the alarm was serious. Anyway, after Jodi and Mom hit the stores we were off on the next bus to Notre Dame cathedral. On our way, we caught a glimpse of Pont Neuf, most famous for its appearance in the Bourne Identity (tee hee). Here's the front of the cathedral:

That's me in the middle dressed up as a woman. After a short inside tour, and a quick evacuation of Reese due to non-conformance with noise regulations, we played around outside for a bit, and got pictures (not shown, see Christmas card) of Point Zero. The cathedral was very nice, and completely different architecturally from German münsters.

Reese enjoyed the inside so much, he rattled the fences trying to get back in, but we had to stick to the noise quarantine:
Staying true to opting for French cuisine, we hit an Italian restaurant on our way back to the condo.

Jodi and Jeff

Recap: Paris, Day 2: Relaxation (Oct 12, 2008)

We got up relatively late on Sunday, our second day, as we thought that we were just going to sit and enjoy ourselves for the day - we had planned out the week pretty well and nothing seemed to fit on the Sunday. That lasted until about 10:00 and then we started to get a little antsy. So, we took off on the regional train back to Paris. (The condo we stayed in was in Torcy which is about 30 min from central Paris). We thought we would check out the Palace of Versailles, which happens to be on the other (west) side of Paris. This was Jodi's place that she wanted to check out the most. We made it to one of the central Paris stations (Champs de Mars), and then took a wrong train for a couple of stops and had to backtrack. On the way back, we got our first look at the Eiffel tower which was just amazing. When we made it back to Champs de Mars, we started getting confused with the train schedules - it was no wonder we had taken the wrong train. We stopped a fellow getting off of one that was coming from the direction we wanted to go and he told us that on Sundays, the train didn't go through to the palace, and we had to go back a few stations and catch one that went to the other side of the palace, and then transfer, and then catch another one followed by the metro... We just looked at him and nodded and smiled, but I was like that dog that hears, "blah, blah, Jeff, blah blah train" and we all figured forget that, lets do something else. One of the other stops that didn't fit in the itinerary or was for later in the week was the catacombs - a bunch of tunnels under Paris where millions of Parisians are buried after cemeteries became a health problem in the 1800s - and we decided to make our way there. The trip was a little tricky and we had to switch trains once, but we made it to the right stop. The problem with switching trains is that most of the stations we frequented didn't have escalators or elevators (or we couldn't find them), so each time we changed trains we had to do about 30 stairs with the kids in the blasted stroller up and down. Not too shabby to do once, but ten times in two hours was almost enough to pull my hair out. Anyway, we knew the catacombs were roughly located close to the train stop, but we had to flounder around for a bit:

When we made it to the entrance, we found out that it closed at 4, and all of our messing around with the trains took way too much time - it was 4:10. We gave up on seeing any other major attractions that day and decided to explore the area on foot for a bit. We picked up a couple of cartons of blueberries that the kids devoured and my parents got some coffee and we sort of just stood around with glazed-over eyes for a while.

We eventually got antsy again, and went back to the Eiffel tower:It was incredible. We decided with the kids we were going to take the elevator up instead of hiking the stairs. We got out on the second floor, and the view was great. Here's Jodi's panoramic video (sorry about the jerkiness, some pushy tourist was bringin' up the rear kinda fast):

In true Eiffel tower fashion, we sat down to a fancy meal right on the deck of the tower. Actually, we got some eighteen inch "American-style" hotdogs that were drenched in dijon mustard. Ack, I can't stand dijon. Erika and Reese sure got their fill though. By the way, so far as we can tell, when you ask for something with mustard, the mustard is always of the dijon variety. Same with the ketchup. Not dijon, not normal ketchup, but ketchup laced with curry. We tend to opt out of ketchup now. Back to the tower:

This is one of my favorite videos of Erika (notice hand gestures), showing the effects of a box of smarties:

Our timing turned out to be really good as we saw the tower and the view in the daylight and at night:

I even convinced Jodi to ride the final elevator to the top. The whole top floor is very crowded and fenced in on the very top level. Jodi was on the edge of tears/vomiting in this picture:

Reese was definitely enthralled too:

We happened to be visiting too during some kind of festival or celebration or something, and I still don't know what it was. The tower was all lit up blue at night and once a night or so had a bunch of sparkley lights on it:

It was so impressive at the time, but the movie above sure looks lame now, sorry about that. After a lot of messing around on the trains and stuff being closed/inaccessible, Sunday turned out to be a really great day. We were pretty tired - the kids even moreso - on the way back to the condo. Erika decided on a little pink purse (that broke within a day or two, and took on a beautiful shade of Paris grime/brown) as a souvenir that she is displaying on the regional train:

We were exhausted by the time we got to the condo. I also decided to eat a pound of chocolate which didn't help the digestive system. So ends our first full day in Paris.

Jeff and Jodi

Recap: Paris, Day 1: Train (Oct 11, 2008)

So, here it finally is. My parents came over for a visit in early October, and they treated us to an unbelievable week trip to Paris. The cost for a van was a little more than we expected (~600 euros), so we decided to hop on a couple of trains and do the Paris metro when we got there. Good thing too, apparently there are about 60 euros in tolls each way, and parking in Paris is supposed to be a nightmare. In hindsight, there is no way it would have been as good with a car. Anyway, the German ICE went from Freiburg to Strasbourg, and then we took the TGV the rest of the way to Paris. The TGV was crazy, we were cruising at speeds of around 250-300 km/h. The trip went pretty well, considering the kiddies had to sit on the train for 4.5 hours.

I am actually faking it in the picture above. Sure, I know, no one is going to believe that. This next little clip was on the ICE at the start of the trip, so things are still going smooth before Reese freaked out on the TGV:

Well, after lots of coloring and cruising the aisles and visiting with Grandma and Grandpa, we made it to Gare du Nord in Paris:

We figured we didn't really have to take care of our luggage in Paris, right? (Look behind Jodi). The kids sure wore us out on the train, so we were quite tired and banished them to the stroller. We had to catch a couple of connections on the Metro/regional trains to get to the condo, so we wandered around a bit. As soon as we got our bearings, we found a 'shortcut' to the regional station, which took us up 3 flights of stairs (no elevator, no escalator, whiney kids, whiney parents carrying the stroller) into some strange neighborhood. We finally found 'magenta' station or something and went down 3 flights of stairs to train level. We learned later that the two stations are actually joined, I think. Well, we made one more connection about half an hour away, and then got off at our stop (the stop that I thought was the closest). We ended up dragging our stuff around 2 km along the streets to our condo. The condo was really hard to find, and it turned out being a hotel and was a completely different name than what our place was supposed to be. It was great to get to the rooms and throw everything on the ground, even if we found some towels and rags scrunched in the bowels and recesses of closets and cupboards. After thoroughly making our room messy, we set out to find a restaurant nearby, and I picked a good old-fashioned French restaurant, El Dorado. (Mexican. Umm Burritos. Heck, umm, doritos):We all look a little spaced out/zombied - Jodi is falling asleep, I am cutting the wild boar, and Erika looks like a space alien. The burritos were good though. After that, we retired to the condo (about half a kilometer away) and we started to feel a little unsure of our surroundings - more on that later. We watched some French tennis recap, and then German darts or bowling or something else like that, and then off to bed. All in all, not a bad start.

Jeff and Jodi

Recap continued: Erika's first day of school (Sept 11, 2008)

In Germany kindergarten starts really early, so to try and fit in a bit better, we thought it would be a good idea to put Erika in it. We found a cute little one three blocks from our place and it is a Sport kindergarten, so apparently they do lots of activity during the day. Erika got all dressed up in her first day of school outfit:

It was nice to have Grandma Green around to help out with calming Erika as she went. She was pretty excited and nervous. This is just outside our place on the walk to school:Jodi stuck around for the day to see how things went and they were rolling around on some skateboardy things for a while:

Phew, that was pretty stressful to think we put her in school when she was only three and a half. She stays 3.5 hours a day now, but started at 5 hours a day. Seems like a lot. She definitely went through the honeymoon stage, and is now quite happy to come home before lunch. We are hoping when the language comes she might start to really enjoy it. She did get invited to her first birthday party the other day from a girl at school, and she is just thrilled about that, so that is pretty neat. By the way, starting with yesterday, you can click on the pictures and they get really big. At least it works for me.

Jeff and Jodi

Mr. Poopypants

Making up for lost time again. I think we are going to do about half an hour a night from now on, if not just to have a kind of a journal for our time while we are over here. It would sure be a shame to not write some of this stuff down while it is fresh. That being said, lots of events to recap in the last few months while the blog (I can't stand that word) enjoyed the abyss. So, let me set the scene again. We came to Germany (still figuring out why), set up a kitchen, went to France and Switzerland, lost a toenail, swore a few times, and, am I missing anything? Swore until blue smoke filled the apartment? Nah. Which leaves us around the beginning of September...

Jodi's Birthday

Jodi's actual party on the 7th was most enjoyable. Me and the kids decorated the apartment::

I tried my hands at a lemon cake with lemon drizzle and lemon icing and sprinkles. I thought it turned out really well::

Ok, well at least it actually tasted good. I kept adding more and more icing to try and mask the cracks because I tried to take it out of the pan way to early. Here's the gist of the celebration, in video form. I think I really captured the mood::

A real shaker. I sure know how to plan them. The next week, the real birthday celebration began. We started with breakfast at the local bakery (Heitzmann), which was relaxing and nice to be alone and away from the kids for an extended amount of time. We then picked up a rental car (after running back 15 min to the apartment because I forgot my licence), and started the drive nice and sweaty across the autobahns to Füssen, in Bavaria (land of the white sausages). The drive was beautiful through the Black Forest, and across lots of rolling, green hills. The directions were incredibly difficult to follow though, and included no less than 25 turns. (Seriously, goofy Google maps, not sure what I was thinking). We arrived safe and sound, and after a quick lunch, headed to the main attraction: the castles of Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein (Hoh and Neu for short, respectively, as much as I want to type those again). Hoh dates back quite a few years, and the castle at DisneyWorld was actually modeled after the Neu. The atmosphere was great: misty and rainy, although a little cold. This was also the first time that we were at a major attraction where lots of the visitors spoke English, and it was definitely easy to hear some loud, ignorant English speakers. We started at the Hoh, and I really enjoyed it::

Jodi is actually the little brown speck in the first picture at the bottom. They even had a little outdoor bath for some tub talks (Jodi's trying to get in above). The castles aren't too far apart, and we could see the Neu in the distance::

We chose the hike over instead of the horse and carriage (they sure tried to maximize their profits - 10 people/carriage) and warmed up considerably, and also stopped for a 5 euro coffee. The Neu was incredible, even though it was only about 1/3 finished, as the guy building it mysteriously croaked in a nearby bog. Politics. He was pretty eccentric and there were some crazy rooms and elaborate paintings. Sorry, we couldn't take pictures inside. We got a book. Here's the Neu from the 'front'..

We stopped for a fun but terribly bland/disgusting supper, and then made our way back to Freiburg. The only problem was, I didn't write down the massive instructions for the return journey, so we added on about an hour and a half to the 3.5 hour drive. At one point, we knew we had followed the wrong road for 30 minutes when we came upon the customs checkpoint at the Swiss border. Preceding the border, there was an instance when I completely locked up the brakes and pretty much stopped on the autobahn as Jodi got a little confused with a German road sign and thought we were on the wrong side of the road or going down a one-way highway or something like that. Needless to say, we got home around 1 a.m., which kind of tainted the conclusion a bit..

Jeff and Jodi