Ooh-La-La Paree!

We went to Paris for the weekend. (Boy I love saying that!!) Kiki & Snake had a few days off from school. I am not exactly sure why but I didn’t argue. Kiki is just back from her school trip to Italy, where she had a ball. She says now she is spoiled for Italian food because “I have had REAL Italian food so I know the difference”. Ok. She learned how to make pasta, where Prada, Gucci & Fendi are and had a famous chef make her (the group) dinner. She came back exhausted but happy. So she was barely back here 12 hours and we whisked her away to Paris.

We went on the Eurostar train and it was pretty nice. It takes a little under 3 hours to get to Paris, although it seems faster. We had told the kids of the last time Chizz and I had taken a train, which was from Austria to Paris, many, many years ago. It was about a 9-hour trip. We decided to eat on the train as to get the whole experience. The problem was we spoke neither French nor German and all the announcements on the train were in either French or German. So we would hear an announcement and go down to the food car and they were just closing up. Each time we trekked down there, the food car was not serving. We didn’t eat anything for over 9 hours and we were famished!! We later figured that the announcements said, in either German or French, something along the line of “The dining car is now open for ____ minutes or until the Americans make their way down here, which ever is first.” Of course, the kids did not want to make the same mistake. The announcements in our train were in French and English, although the English was pretty heavily accented and it was somewhat difficult to understand. So every time an announcement was made, we went to the bar car. We were not going to miss the opportunity to spend $4 on a coke and $2.50 for a bag of chips; we were not going to be denied!!

Heavily caffeinated and oil/salt ladened, we arrived in Paris. Our hotel was very close to the Eiffel tower. In fact you could see the Eiffel tower from our hotel room if you leaned way out over the balcony and someone held on to the back of your shirt. We walked around the Eiffel Tower area and met one of Chizz’s work colleagues/friends for dinner at a nice restaurant. Snake was very adventurous and tried escargot. He didn’t like them but I thought they were great.

We saw all of the highlights, Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, Musee d’ Orsay, the Invalides, Arc d’Triumph, Champs d’ Elysees, Notre Dame. We did make one tactical error. Apparently teenagers don’t like to walk the entire length of the Seine at breakneck speed to get from one location to the next. Who knew? After a small mutiny, the size somewhat reminiscent of another French revolution, we regrouped and the rest of the weekend went without anyone losing their head or eating cake (not really true, we ate cake!!). We ate at a quaint little courtyard restaraunt, where Snake discovered he like veal, we walked up the many steps to the Sacre-Coeur. Kiki and Snake mastered the Metro Underground system in no time. We walked several different districts, the Latin Quarter, Montmarte where we watched some artists work. We saved some things to do next time (Versailles, shopping, some battlefields –guess who). Speaking of shopping, Kiki and I walked by the Louis Vuitton store and I am fairly sure I heard angels heralding. We walked by twice and there was a huge line both times. Someday.

We continued our vacation all the way through the train ride home. Once we found that bar car, it was hard to leave. You know what the cool thing is? When we came home, we came home to London. C’est la vie.