Paris, Day 2: Flea Market , Boat Ride, Eiffel Tower (sort of) and snails

Our first night in Paris was HEAVEN for me. Why? Was the bed at the hotel comfortable? Hell no, BUT I got to sleep the entire night.  I love Han Solo to pieces, but this getting up at night to eat business is getting old.  I was thrilled to get to sleep a full night.  In fact, Indy and I went to bed at 8:30pm and didn't get up until 9:30am.  See?  HEAVEN.  I have to say though, I will never stay at an Ibis again.  I've stayed at a few, and while they are modern and clean and inexpensive, their beds suck.  The bed consists of a 15" thick box spring covered by a 2" foam mattress.  So. Not. Comfortable.  I guess I'm going to have to move up to the next level in the Accor hotel chains (Mercure).  They cost more, but they have better beds and at the end of the day (pun fully intended) a good night's sleep is worth its weight in gold.
So, once Indy and I got going, we hopped on the Metro and headed for the Marche aux puces (flea market) at Porte de Cligancourt.  At first Indy wasn't too keen on going, but once we got there, the atmosphere got to him and he really enjoyed himself.  Before you get to the actual flea market, you have to walk through a virtual tent city of vendors selling everything from souvenirs to socks and underwear to purses, pants, shoes, leather jackets, jeans, dresses and fruits and vegetables.  It's very lively.  There are also the "knock off" guys.  You know, they sell "Gucci" sunglasses and hats and belts and Louis Vuitton wallets and whatever other designer you can think of to knock off.  They are also illegal and Indy and I got a good giggle watching them scramble every time a police car drove down the street.  We're weird like that though.
We finally wove our way through the crowds and vendors and knock off guys and made it into one section of the flea market and the atmosphere was much more relaxed and far quieter.  We saw some beautiful stuff, but wow was it way over priced.  Some of the transferware plates (seriously, the exact same pieces, buy the same manufacturer-I looked) were selling for €20-60 EACH.  I've never paid more than €5 per piece.  Maybe I should set up a stall?  We had a great time looking at all the stuff though and digging through the boxes of random items (where you find the real bargains).  After about an hour or so, our hands were filthy so we headed to the bathroom to wash them off and met some very confused Americans who had never experienced the kind of bathrooms common in many places in Europe.    Basically it's just a hole in the floor with a bar on the wall on either side to hold onto.  Nice, huh?  Also, you have to walk past the men's "bathroom" (a trough) to get to the stalls.    I've seen this many times before, but they were flat out flabbergasted.  Good times.

This little wine/cheese/meat kiosk is in the Metro:

One of the flea market alley ways:

I loved all the vines on this shop:

Need some garden statuary?

Or maybe silver?

When I decided we'd seen enough, we headed back through the tent city (and crazy rain) and towards the Metro and on to the Eiffel Tower.
By the time we emerged from the Metro, the rain had stopped and the sun was shining.  Yay!  We were both hungry and had some lunch at one of the little kiosks along the Seine.  It wasn't fancy, but it was good and we ate with the Eiffel Tower looming over us.  The clouds were moving rapidly and rain threatened, but we didn't care.  I had promised Indy a boat ride, so we bought our tickets and off we went.  He loved it.  The only other time I had done this was about 12 years ago with James Bond.  We did a night cruise and all the buildings and monuments were lit up.  It was lovely.  This ride was during the day though and very different from the night cruise.  We had seats inside, but Indy didn't want to be inside the glass.  He wanted to be out on deck.  We had to stand the entire hour, but so what?

The boat docked just as it started to rain, so we ran for the cover of the bridge and hung out there with the other tourists and fed leftover bread to the pigeons. The pigeons in Paris are well fed.  The rain only lasted a short time so we headed over o the Tower and I saw my one big mistake: not ordering tickets online. Three of the pillars were open, but the line to buy tickets at each one was 2 hours long! Ouch! Indy decided he didn't really need to go up. I asked him if he was sure and he looked at me and said "Mom, I've been up the Arc de Triomphe. I've seen Paris. I don't need to stand in line for 2 hours to see it again."  Okay, then.
We walked along the mall behind the Tower, past the hundreds of guys selling souvenirs (illegally) when the bottom dropped out of the sky.  Holy cow!  The wind picked up and the rain started coming at us sideways.  There was nowhere to escape and no cover to be had.  I had an umbrella, but it did little good against the sideways rain.  We (and all the other tourists) huddled up against the trees that line the mall (don't worry, it wasn't lightening) to shield ourselves from the rain.  The police came by and  the souvenir guys all made a mad dash across the rain soaked grass with two laughing policemen running behind them.  I think they enjoy the chase because they could easily have caught a few of them, but were content to chase them through the rain.  Ten minutes later, we were soaked from the waist down, but the rain stopped.  We decided to head toward the Rodin gardens, but half way there, it occurred to me that they might be closing soon (it was early evening).  I stopped to check my museum pass and saw that they were closing in 15 minutes.  We were about a 15minute walk away.  I told Indy we wouldn't make it, and asked if he wanted to stop for dinner instead.  He absolutely did, but only if he could get snails.  The first few Brasseries we passed did not have escargot on the menu (that's the good thing about Europe, the restaurants all post their menus outside), but finally we came to one that did and got a table.  Indy wanted the 12 escargot started, but it was €26 (about $35), so I told him he could only have 6.  I'm such a bad mom.  He ordered the escargot and the kids chicken platter, which was 1/4 of a chicken and potatoes, plus chocolate mousse for desert.  He ate it all with glee.  I ordered the tomato-mozzarella salad.  Oh, and his Coke was €7 (about $10).  Ouch.

Enjoying that expensive Coke:

Look how excited he is over the escargot:

Our very friendly server:

My dinner (sheer heaven):

After dinner, we went back to the hotel happy and full and exhausted and I got another full night of sleep.  Even if the bed was uncomfortable.



Next:  Versailles!

Paris: Half the excitement is getting there

On June 17th Indy and I hopped a fast train to Paris. In a mere 3 hours and 20 minutes we would be strolling the streets and munching on authentic croissants (they really do taste better in France, trust me). Or so we thought. We made our connection with no problems and things were zipping along fine (except that our seats were rear facing and despite taking 2 Dramamine, I was feeling queasy) until we got to Kaiserslautern (K-Town). We stopped at the station and didn't move. For a long time.  The conductor finally came over the intercom and said something in German.  I thought I understood him, but then realized I had to be wrong.  He couldn't have said that, could he???  A passing train worker walked by and I stopped him to ask what was going on.  He confirmed what I thought I heard:  the train in front of us hit a PERSON on the track.  Shut the front door! 
We finally arrived in Paris 2.5 hours late, but since the Louvre is open late on Friday's and that was our plan for the evening, we didn't mind.  We checked into the hotel and off to the Louvre we went (this was Indy's idea BTW).  The next few hours were spent looking at painting, sculptures, and antiquities.

If you've seen The DaVinci Code, you'll recognize this:

After walking through the Medieval Louvre, the first place we headed was of course the Egyptian exhibit:

Like his father, who got in trouble at the Louvre about 12 years ago for touching a piece of art, Indy couldn't resist the lure of this ancient piece.  To be honest though, Indy didn't actually touch it (he just pretended).  James Bond, did touch and in about 5 seconds a guard swooped out of nowhere and told him not to touch the art.

Being a silly monkey:

And a Pharaoh:

Finally, finally, after passing thousands of objects and dozens and dozens of sarcophagi, during which time Indy sang the Indian Jones theme song, louder and louder, we made it to the one thing he was most excited about:  The mummy! He's seen it before, but was still crazy excited:

Once I was able to drag him from the mummy (seriously, I had to grab his shirt and pull him away), we headed for the Roman and Greek sculpture.  It was his idea to pose like the statue:

After about 800 miles and 30,000 stairs (if you've been to the Louvre, you know I'm not exaggerating that much), we ended up at what is arguably the most famous work of art houses at the Louvre: The Mona Lisa.  It's almost impossible to get anywhere near her.  Being small and intrepid though, Indy wove his way toward the front.

Since we spent a full week studying DaVinci  last month, we also went to see the 5 other DaVinci paintings that are there and discussed how he used shadows, light and blurred edges to create depth, where other painters of the same era often had little or no depth in their paintings.  Indy was particularly fascinated by his painting of John the Baptist:

We sat on one of the big round sofas for a few minutes to rest and then went over to one of my favorite sections, the large scale art.  I'm fascinated by these HUGE canvases.  One I particularly like is the painting of Napoleon crowning himself.  I had Indy stand in front of it so you could see how massive this thing really is:

Can you imagine how much time it took to paint that????  And, not only that, but the artist painted a second one the same size that now hangs in Versailles.  He made one change to the second painting though.  I'll show you that when I post about our day at Versailles.

Sadly, my hands down, absolute favorite exhibit was closed for renovation.  Nooooo!  What is it, you might wonder?  The crown jewels of course!  The had a few on display in front of the section with a big sign telling us that the full exhibit would reopen in early 2012.  I think I would look fabulous in either of these:

By 8pm, we were done.  D-O-N-E, done.   We were hungry, but also exhausted and I didn't feel like going out on the street to find a restaurant.  There is a high end (and pricey) international food court in the underground maze of shops connected to the Louvre, so we opted to eat there.  The variety of foods is amazing.  There is Middle Eastern, Greek, Italian, French, Spanish and American.  All the restaurants offer sumptuous national dishes.  What is America represented by?  McDonalds.  D'Oh!  I decided to have Ratatouille (yum!) and Indy wanted squid salad????  He got incredibly excited when he saw it.  Since it was  €9 for a small plate, I questioned his choice.  He put his hands on his hips and said "Mom, it's France.  We have to eat squids and snails!"  Okay.  He ordered it (and a slice of brick oven pizza from the Italian place) and we sat down to eat.  It felt so good to sit!  I couldn't let him dive in to his squid salad though before getting a photo of if:

He ate every bite of if!  Crazy little boy!

I hope you enjoyed our first day in Paris.  I've got more to come!

Warwick, England

Indy and I are in England!!!! Yay! We flew in yesterday and after much traveling, arrived in the absolutely adorable town of Warwick, which is pronounced WORR-ick. We are here to visit Warwick Castle, first begun by William the Conqueror in 1068. The flight from Germany was packed, but for 5 Euro, each way, how much can we complain? Well, Indy sure can, but I was just happy to fly so cheaply. Once we landed, we took a train to London, used the excellent Underground system to get to another train station and took another train out to Warwick. It was a lovely trip, with loads of lovely English countryside to look at. Once we arrived in Warwick, the incredibly sweet proprietress of Park Cottage, our excellent B&B, picked us up at the train station so we didn't have to walk through the drizzle.   The photos below are of the hotel, which was built in the 1400's and contains the original beams and floor boards.  Our room is on the second floor and has the 3 small windows at the front you can see in the photo below.  Isn't it darling?

This is our room!  It's called the Georgiana.  All the rooms are named after Countesses of Warwick. There's a single bed for Indy on the other side of the room.  The floor (remember original) slants seriously and I had to load up on the pillows last night because my head was lower than my feet!

These are photos from their website, but I'll have more when we get back home.  I've taken tons of photos, but I forgot the cable to connect the camera to my computer.  Darn it.  Okay, Indy is chomping at the bits to go to the Castle, so I'm off.  I'll see you all, with LOADS of photos when we get back.

Indy is 8! Legoland is awesome!

Hello my darlings! Have you missed me? I haven't been ignoring you, I've been away. We went down to Stuttgart for a few days for Indy to have dyslexia therapy. I'll discuss that on my homeschool blog in a day or so if you're interested. Since Sunday was Indy's eighth birthday, and we were close by, we surprised him by taking him to Legoland! He was so excited when he saw where we were.  I know he doesn't look excited in some of the photos, but we couldn't find his sunglasses and he said it was too bright to smile.  Huh.

In Miniland they had several German cities built along with some Swiss, Dutch and Italian cities.  It was fascinating.  Things moved and lit up!  Awesome.

In Italy, the little gondolas moved through the water and there were speakers with opera.  I loved it.

Being a soccer (football) mad country, they had one of Germany's largest stadiums in Lego.  Mr. HH shot a very short video of it.






Mr. HH, being a man, spotted this little number.  I wonder how many people do and what the builder was thinking.  Blow it up and take a good look.  Fancy, huh?

There was so much to see!  Of course it wasn't all stuff built our of Legos.  There were rides too!  They weren't built out of Legos though (thank goodness).  We had to talk Indy into getting on the Dragon Coaster.  This is him in with a knight made completely out of Legos.

And then we got on the ride.  Mr. HH filmed it.  You must watch it. It's kind of long, but it's really worth it. Trust me.



Hahahahahaha!

Here we are waiting in line for the Lego Atlantis exhibit.

Lego Atlantis was really cool.  It's a walk through aquarium with Lego divers discovering the city of Atlantis.  There are beautiful fish in the aquarium and we could have stayed for hours just watching them.  Unfortunately we couldn't get any clear photos.  Bummer.

Before we left we stopped to drop some Euros in the shop (of course).  Indy was practically a puddle on the floor.  If you've ever been over to the Captain's blog, you know he and his boys are really (really) into Star Wars and Legos (and bacon, but that's another story).  I saw something that I thought would make his head explode with excitement.

Lego Death Star!  It is HUGE.  I couldn't find how many pieces it has,but it has to be thousands.  I can't even imagine the time it takes to put this thing together.  In case you're wondering, it was 419 Euros.  WOW!  Indy has decided he wants it for Christmas.  Um, yeah.  I'm afraid Santa will have no room for it in his pack.

So, that was my baby's 8th birthday.  We have a big fat pirate party coming up this weekend. Stay tuned for photos from that!

Day 1: at sea and Day 2: Malta

This is the chronicle of our Mediterranean cruise.  These days are May 16 and 17, 2010

Our first full day aboard the Disney Magic was spent at sea. I thought it would be boring, but I was so wrong. We were actually busy! There were lectures, parties, bands, movies, seminars, and shows! It was awesome. There was more to do than hours in the day. Indy of course only wanted to go to the play place (or as I came to think of it, the Land of Magic and Wonder, where parents can drop off their kids and not feel guilty) and the pool, so life was great for him. Mr. HH was actually a bit sea sick the first day and we were all walking around like we were on a drinking binge. Sea legs take some time apparently. As I lay in bed that night, rocking with the waves and thinking about all the times I’d fallen into the walls as I went down the hall, I gained a new appreciation for my dad and all those who voluntarily join the Navy. I mean, we were on a luxury cruise line and those in the Navy are doing it on a vessel maintained by the US government. Think about that.

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The first port we pulled into was Valletta, Malta. Of course I knew were Malta was, and knew about the Maltese Cross and the Maltese Falcon, but that’s about the extent of it. It was gorgeous! I fell in love instantly. It was a warm, breezy day with striking blue skies and absolutely perfect for exploring this beautiful island. The buildings were all of local materials so everything was the same color, but the locals used paint to accent doors and windows and give the beige stone character. We took a bus out to the Blue Grotto with Hoosier Mom and Hoosier Dad, who shall now be known as JAG, and several other people from our boat. I knew nothing of the Blue Grotto, but was so glad we went (thanks again Hoosier Mom). You take a small boat around part of the island and into limestone caves and the grotto, which was stunning. You could see all the way to the bottom. There were jellyfish everywhere and our crazy boat captain reached in and picked one up! WHAT? The highlight for Indy was getting to “drive” the boat. Good times.
After a very long bus ride back to Valletta, we left Hoosier Mom and JAG and went to the Archeological Museum. Fascinating stuff there! Indy went crazy. Malta has been inhabited for more than 6000 years. One of the monoliths had carved swirls all over it and Indy and I discussed why they might have chosen that particular pattern. He decided that it probably stood for the wind (Malta was very windy ) and infinity because time never ends. I thought this was as good as anything I could have come up with and congratulated him on his ideas. A little while later we were in the gift shop (isn’t it amazing how all tourist destinations are set up so you have to go through the gift shop to get out?) and Indy spotted a small replica of the monolith. He struck up a conversation with one of the people working there who explained the symbols to him. Guess what the swirls stood for? Go, on, guess. WIND and INFINITY! Shut up. My boy is smart.
The day ended with a walk along the main street and a hike back to the ship where we dined on fabulous food and watched an amazing stage show. Oh, Disney, how you spoil me.

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