Paris

We began our day Saturday by heading over to Disney to eat lunch at Planet Hollywood before catching the train into Paris. As we were walking there, we passed some men drawing portraits and decided we would get one done of the kids. they were pretty pricey but their pictures were really good and we thought it would be something nice to frame. The kids did really well for him and Maggie kept smiling at him and saying cheese. It took about a half an hour or so before he finished. Well, when he showed me the finished portrait I wasn't exactly sure who he was looking at when he drew the photo. Mainly, my kids have round eyes, if you have ever seen my kids that is the first thing you notice. The kids in this photo have almond eyes. Also, they both look about the exact same age. Okay, so Joe and I just sort of looked at each other and didn't know what to do since the guy spoke no english at all. We paid him our 80 euros, yes....80 euros, and hoped our lunch was better than his picutre.



Here is the portrait so you all can see the biggest waste of our money on this trip.








Well, we were pretty disapointed with our lunch also. It seems that the France Planet Hollywood prepares their food the way the french would like it, not american. (okay, this does make sense I guess) It wasn't awful but we were really hoping for a good lunch and neither of us ate much off our plates. Next we were off to the train station to catch our train. There are trains everywhere in france and they will take you everywhere. The only problem is that you have to continually keep jumping from train to train and it is not clear as to what route you really should take. The worst part is that they are all underground (subways) and rarley is there an elevator. We have this huge double stroller not to metnion our luggage and poor Joe had to carry it all up and down more flights of stairs than we care to count. At one point we were 3 stories underground at a staion. I had to put aside all of my paranoid thoughts at that time. We got to our hotel in the late afternoon and checked in.






This is the view from the front steps of our hotel.


The kids hadn't napped all day and I must say I have very good kids. Neither of them cried at all throughout all the train changing and being drug up and down steps. We knew they were tired so we found a little Italain restaurant and ate dinner there. All of the restaurants in france have an outside terrace to eat at which made it really nice with huge stroller. Owen ate well all weekend since he will eat ANYTHING we put in front of him. He tasted lots of new foods and especially liked tomatos (to my surprise). Maggie on the other hand basically lived on french fries and peanut butter and crackers I had brought with us. It took me forever to finally find a place to buy some fruit for her.






We stopped and saw the Arc de Triomphe de l'Etoile. It was huge and you could actually go up to the top of it but we opted out of that.















Sunday morning we all slept in until about 9 which was great. We got ready and headed out to find some breakfast since the hilton's breakfast was 32 euros a person. We found our first of many trains that day and began our journey. The first place we went to was the Louvre. It was gorgeous and by far the prettiest thing I saw there. This is where the Mona Lisa is and we were going to go in and look around but the line was pretty long and I didn't think it would be too great of an idea with maggie and Owen so we just looked around outside.






















We were all getting pretty hungry by then so we began our hunt for the Hard Rock Cafe. We were hoping we'd have better luck with their food. We had an address but even with a map this city is very confusing. It took us about an hour but we finally found it.















The service left alot to be desired since it took almost 45minutes before we got our food, but boy was the food worth it! We had spring rolls and burgers and they were awesome. This is the first meal I have had out that actually tasted they way I hoped it would. There was a girl going around making balloons for kids and she made Maggie a mermaid. Unfortunatly the mermaid only made it a few hours before we heard a bunch of popping noises and she was gone.




















We also met a couple in their who were from Lexington, Kentucky. The man was actually from France but she was from Lex. Joe wore his KY shirt that day and we had several people comment to us that they were from there. Paris was a great place, too bad we didn't get a job there. The language was no problem at all. In fact, I saw as many americans as I did french people. After eating, we stopped and got some ice cream at a Haagen-Daz. It was then off to the Notre-Dame cathedral which meant going down another couple flights of stairs again. This was really pretty also, there were tons of birds there so Maggie loved that. There also was a man who I am guessing was homeless and was sort of a "bird man". Maggie thought it was great that there were birds all over him and tried a few times to get a little closer than I would have liked. :) We went inside but didn't stay too long. Maggie was a little wild and it seemed you were supposed to be quiet in there which was not going to happen with her so we just walked through quickly.



















At this point we were all pretty tired and Joe and I sightsee pretty well together until this point. We have totally different approaches to travleing, I prefer to have a planned out map of where we are going, how we are going to get there, how safe it is, and to double check before hand that it is 100% accurate. Joe on the other hand prefers to just wing it and figure it out as we go along. We both usually compromise pretty well, but at this point we were exhausted and the only thing we did agree on was that it was time to head back to the hotel and rest. After we had all rested some, we went to eat at a cafe near our hotel. It was okay, the coke in france was different from the coke in germany. It tasted more like american coke, but still not as good.








Since we were right by the eiffel tower we went there a few times.













Maggie loved running around underneath it and at one point wanted me to do a "photo shoot" of her. She would run from place to place and pose saying" cheese, take my picture mom" Joe and I let her run around quite a bit there until we saw her lifting her shirt up and yelling at people, "hey people, see my belly!" I am sure they had a few questions about what I did in my spare time.













There were lots of vendors there and Maggie wanted some cotton candy so Joe got her some adn it was the biggest bunch I have ever seen. She like it alright, but it made her fingers pretty messy so she didn't like that and Joe and I ended up eating most of it.






















Here are a few shots from underneath the tower since several people have asked what was under there.

















Okay, so I am not sure what this is but everyone was taking a picture of it so we didi too. i thought it was pretty funny because it looks exactly like WV's capitol doesn't it???

















Here are a few pictures of Maggie from her "photo session"





We had a great time in Paris but decided that if we come again we want to do it without kids. We would have been able to do alot more if it had just been Joe and I, but we had a fun time and it was a neat experience for Maggie and Owen too. Even though they probably will not remember it. :)