One More Night at the Eiffel Tower

Yes, I am still very far behind on blogging

Ideal Hotel in Paris

We staying in a hotel in Paris since we will only be here for two days. It's a really neat hotel...very colorful and hip...yeah I said "hip". It is very close to where we stayed before just on the other side of the park. There is a pastry shop downstairs which may have had something to do with our final decision.

It is a European room (f.y.i anything small we now refer to as European) but I am not complaining. I get two days of no cooking, cleaning, and laundry. I'm considering this my vacation for the year...actually this is the first "vacation" we've had in more than a year.

Anyway, so we got a triple room with a double bed and a single. Does anything look funny about this? We kind of laughed when we saw our double bed. It wasn't exactly what we thought of as a double bed. It's comfy though.

 Sleeping...or are they?

 Didn't think so!

From Paris to London

Leaving Gare du Nord in Paris. Luc loved all the big trains. 

 Nice self-picture on the train

 Our seats faced another set of seats with a table in the middle. Only one lady was sitting across from us. She was kind enough (or wanted to get away from children) and found another seat. We had 4 seats to ourselves. The train was a really nice ride too.

 We passed several towns that I tired to take pictures of. I was too slow. We passed by very fast. Almost every town had one very tall steeple among all the small buildings. It was really neat. We also passed lots of these wind things.

 There was our train

 The train station here in London was beautiful. My picture of the station won't load. Anyway, here is Brian and all of our baggage. Luckily, this station had an elevator. The next didn't and there were LOTS of flights of stairs.

Yummies in Paris

The biggest meringue cookie that I have ever seen. I must say, it was much better than my bite sized ones.

 Brownie and apple tart

 I could never say what this was called but it was my favorite of all. It is a sweet roll with chocolate chips.

 A custard-like chocolate chip stuffed pastry

 This was a typical grocery store trip. We have become junk food junkies since traveling. We really loved the honey marshmellows.

 This was a pistachio dessert. Brian loved it. I thought it was okay.

 Mussels and fries

 I don't know but it was good

 Indoor picnic

Our move

We made it to London safely yesterday afternoon. Luc loved the super fast train that we rode...ssupposedly it went 184 mph. I enjoyed the scenery of Northern France. I have pictures of our train and some of the scenery. I'll post those later.

Our trip was a bit exhausting. We had to walk a bit to the metro station then up and down stairs at the tube station in London...all with Evan wrapped onto me, Brian pulling two suitcases, me pulling one suitcase and pushing Luc in the stroller. It was also pretty hectic trying to get all of us and all of the luggage onto each train before the doors shut. We were all really tired when we got to the house. I'm glad it's over and I'm not looking forward to doing it again for 5 weeks.

The house in London is a good bit larger than in Paris. We have a 3 bedroom/3 bathroom townhouse. We are only using 2 of the bedrooms/bathrooms though. It is really nice. I will post pictures soon. The area on the other hand is quite a bit different than our place in Paris. We are not in a nice part of London. I would compare it to East Austin or South Montgomery for all of you at home. We will see whether space or location is more important to us after this trip. On a good note, we did find a playground down the street from our house.

I am actually pretty excited about being so close to a cool museum for kids too. The Museum of London is only two DLR stations away from us. They have an "under 5s" playgroup every Monday morning and a story time every Thursday morning for free. Most of the museums here are free.

Tour of the Seine

We decided to do the boat tour of the river before we leave. Luc was very excited. Of course, it was because it was a boat ride. It had nothing to do with being able to see all the attractions of Paris.

 Evan was not as excited as Luc

 But he was very good the whole time

 Notre Dame

 To me, this looks like Luc just did a magic trick and made the Eiffel Tower appear from nowhere.

 All of a sudden, it started sparkling. It was awesome. Later we learned it does this every hour.

Tour de Seine from Noelle McNeil on Vimeo.

Eiffel Tower sparkling from Noelle McNeil on Vimeo.

 Not a very flattering picture of any of us but there we are all together

We did this the night before the big bomb threat. They had to evacuate last night because of a possible terrorist attack attempt. The news has me a little paranoid of traveling around Europe now.

Unwell

That's how the doctor refered to me. I gave in and called a doctor yesterday. I was actually feeling better today but I had an appointment this morning so I went. I do have another sinus infection and an ear infection. Here you have to have a prescription from a doctor to even buy cold medications. Brian tried to buy me something from the pharmacy the other day but they told him I had to see a doctor. Anyway, the doctor gave me a prescription for something similar to Mucinex and an antibiotic. Hopefully it will knock it out and I can enjoy my time more.

I think I should make a post about important information for Americans visiting Paris. If you are ever in Paris and need a doctor, go see Dr Julia Bache. She is from the UK. She was very nice and helpful and cost half the price of seeing a doctor at the American hospital. We found out that we could have taken Evan to see her for his shots for half the price. Brian says, you live and you learn.

Jardin de Luxembourg

Jardin de Luxembourg is known for all the statues around the park 

We even found the Statue of Liberty

Luxembourg was the first palace for one of the Kings. Very good artistic shot Brian!

We passed a big fun looking playground at the Jardin de Luxembourg but when we got to the entrance we realized you had to pay per child AND per adult to enter. Crazy! We weren't about to pay to play at a playground when we have two right beside our apartment that are super nice and free. So Luc settled for a space ship ride instead...which was cheaper than playing on the playground.

We didn't do much more than that on Sunday. We just walked around the garden and the 4th district, ate a falafel, and came home. I have been fighting another sinus infection which may have contributed to throwing up the other day. All this drainage makes me sick to my stomach not to mention I am always dizzy and tired. I felt like crap all day Sunday so we headed home early. I am most definitely considering the sinus surgery that Dr Zapalac has talked to me about. I am so sick of being sick every month or two.

Fun in the cold with Daddy

Sunday we went back to a park, Jardin de Luxembourg, that the boys and I strolled through one day. It was cold and rainy but we tried to make the most of it. They had sailboats for rent that you could sail in the pond. Luc loved it.

Our "lift"

Mama, here is the elevator for our apartment that I told you about. We can't all ride on it. Brian is always a gentleman and takes the 5 flights of stairs so that the boys and I can ride. Thank you Brian!

Tourists

We were quite the tourists today. I had mapped out a walk around the 1st arrondisement of some things I wanted to see. So our first stop was the Opera house. It was so beautiful. This is the Opera house that Phantom of the Opera is based on.

This was not on my list but YUM! No, we did not buy any chocolate here. If you notice, the chocolate shops look like jewelry stores. The prices are similar too. 

Brian and the boys walking down Rue Royal

Then we got to Jardin de Tuileries, the oldest and most visited garden in Paris. The reason I wanted to go was that supposedly there are little model sailboats in the pond...we didn't see any.

Picnic in the park

While we were sitting in the park, a girl came up and gave us an invite to a Pampers promo thing. We thought we'd check it out...and hoped there were bathrooms in there. It was really nice. They had really nice changing stations for babies. They were promoting Pampers cruisers. They have a big room of toys and games separated by age. Evan got to have tummy time on a fun mat and play with lots of baby toys. Luc crawled through tunnels, built towers with huge blocks, played with toys, and ran around. Afterwards, they gave us diapers, a toy, and some other random stuff. It was really nice.

At Jardin de Tuileries

The Louvre

I think Brian and I agreed that we aren't really sure what the big deal about the Mona Lisa is. It isn't even big. I was much more impressed with the building.

Luc was very interested in the fact that none of the statues had clothes on. Lots of people heard him pointing out certain body parts to us. It was quite funny.

We tried to take some self-photos in front of the Louvre. It was pretty bright though.

We found a nice shady spot.

In front of the Louvre

The boys all bundled up

Like I've said before, who cares what we see as long as we get to ride a train or bus to get there