After our long drive back from Switzerland and late night, everyone wanted to sleep in the next day. We had hit all of our big check-list items already, so I think everyone was ready to take it easy a little bit. Well, everyone but me. I'm afraid I'll never get to see Paris again, so I wanted to see as much as I could! Tyler and I started a little late, but we got out the door by 9. When we left, everyone else was still out cold!
We walked about ten blocks to the train station, and most of it was uphill. The view at the top was pretty spectacular, looking back down the street.
Place de Concord
Formerly the Place of the Revolution, Place de Concord is where everyone lost their heads (get it? get it? I'm hilarious). The Guillotine was stationed here during the Revolution!
Now they have the Luxor Oblisk there, and you can walk from there to the Louvre through the Jardin des Tuileries. One thing that I wanted to do, that we didn't, was shop on the Champs-Élysées. The oblisk was the closest I got! Oh well.
Musee d'Orsay
It was so cool. I love impressionism and I recognized far more pieces here than I had at the Louvre.
We tried to go slow but we finished it all pretty neatly within an hour, so we called the family to find out what the plan for the afternoon was. They were just heading out, so we had about an hour to burn before we all met up.
Even the seating inside the museum is artistic!
A small crowd had gathered, and we were all chuckling and the sheer number of bikes, mopeds, and motorcycles they dredged up. We couldn't help but wonder how often they do this, and how so many bikes end up in the river?!
We crossed this footbridge that was studded with love locks, then wandered through the Tuileries Garden toward the Louvre to see if the street vendors were out.
Due to the rain, nobody was hawking there wares that day, but we were more than rewarded for our trouble by catching sight of the grazing goats! 
I've heard about the city of Paris using goats to keep the grass trim, and we both got excited about seeing them in-action outside of the Louvre.
Walking back up the gardens, we got another view of the obelisk.
When we came out of the museum, we had planned to walk over to the Louvre, but we saw this boat on the Seine. There were a number of other boats and police around, and evidently there were divers in the river. They were pulling out bikes! We had to stay and watch for a little bit.
I've heard about the city of Paris using goats to keep the grass trim, and we both got excited about seeing them in-action outside of the Louvre.
Bike Tour
We arrived at the Place Vendôme well before everyone else. While we sat and enjoyed the square around the The Vendôme Column. I caught up on my journal, then we decided to set out and look for parking for the family.
While we had a quiet hour walking around, my family was in the middle of the Arc de Triomphe roundabout. We went through there three or four times over those last two days, and it was terrifying each time. It's between 5 and 8 lanes wide, but there are no marked lanes, no traffic signals, nor, apparently, any rules for how to go around the arch.
Anyway, everyone arrived in one piece. We met them outside the parking garage, and found out Lindzi had woken up really sick. She stayed home by herself! Poor thing. We felt so sad and missed her the whole afternoon.
On our way to the bike tour meet-up, we all grabbed lunch in a cafe. It was delicious - the pain au chocolate there was one of my favorites.
We ate in the Place Vendôme. It's a really fancy district, with a Chanel, Lois Vuiton, Rolex, Ritz, and more all located around the square.
After lunch, we walked over to the meet-up spot for our bike tour. We only had to wait a few minutes before Max, our tour guide, showed up.
After giving us a quick overview of how the electric bikes worked, we walked down to a parking garage where they had a rented spot with tons of electric bikes. We all got a bike and rode around a bit. Helmets are not required in France, but he did offer them to us. Three of us took helmets and I was the only one who wore it the whole time. I was NOT going to leave my boys orphans because I died in a stupid bike wreck in Paris.
I actually forgot the names of most of the places we stopped on the bike tour, so I pulled up my google maps timeline for that day to help me write. Hooray for technology! With the help of google, I'm happy to inform you our bike ride was a little under 8 miles and we were on the tour for about four hours. And guess what? Nobody even got winded. Those electric bike are super cool.
Now, this tour is supposed to be the secrets of Paris tour, and I doubt our guide would appreciate me posting all of Paris's secrets online. Although I'm going to share the locations, I'll keep the hilarious stories and historical information Max shared with us to myself. If you go to Paris, I can't recommend this tour enough.
Our first stop was the Le Palais Royal, right next to the Louvre.
We stopped by the Louvre proper as well.
We had a long stretch to our next stop, and got to go through a long tunnel. We all went as fast as we could, which was pretty fast on those bikes!
We did a quick stop by Notre Dame. Next was the Colosseum, or Arènes de Lutèce. These remains are greatly diminished from the original size and grandeur, but the huge arena still shows some of the scale. Apparently, it's used as a recess yard for a near by school.
Our guide informed us that this, like the Colosseum in Rome, is on top of an artesian well. This meant they could dig down and, upon reaching the aquifer, the arena would fill with water. Battles were then carried out in little boats.
When Haley commented, "That is awesome," our guide replied, "Well, not for the gladiators." It was hilarious - one of the best moments of the tour. Max (the guide) was just hilarious and we had a really good time at every stop.
The Church du St Esprit was next. It was the only church not completely ravaged by the revolution, and our guide told us a hilarious, but perhaps not historically accurate, story about a brave nun distracting the mob by using the wine cellar. True or not, it was really cool to see a church that was decorated in the original style, as opposed to something that was re-imagined in the 1800's like Notre Dame.
After the church we biked through the Latin Quarter to the Panthéon. The Panthéon is a mausoleum where a number of famous french people are interred, including Voltaire, Rousseau, Victor Hugo, and Marie Curie.
Someone new was added recently, along with her husband, hence the enormous banner.
We biked along some beautiful buildings, including portions of the Sorbonne, to get to the Café Procope on the rue de l'Ancienne Comédie. If I go to Paris again, I want to go back and have dinner somewhere on that street. It's a really cool area.
The Café Procope is famous for being the oldest restaurant in Paris, in addition to serving a number of famous historical figures, from Voltaire (the French people adore that man) to Benjamin Franklin. The cafe was also a meeting place for many of the french revolutionaries, and allegedly (I have not confirmed this) the guillotine was developed and tested on that same street.
Our last stop was the Church of Saint-Sulpice.
We went in to discuss the artwork, and Dad was very excited about the Da Vinci Code scenes that took place here.
Max told us stories about the Knights Templar inside, and we were totally enraptured.
And with that, the tour was finished, and we all biked back to the parking garage. Giving up our bikes was sad for everyone. We all agreed that, if we were to go again, we would rent electric bikes to be our primary mode of transportation.
We were ravenous after our tour, but we were having a hard time finding somewhere to eat. Everything was crowded, and the ones that weren't - well, we figured they were empty for a reason. We finally stumbled upon a little restaurant called Madeleine 7. It was, in every way, the perfect place for us to spend our last evening in Paris.
They had all the food on the menu we had been hoping to try, including the elusive citron-pressé that I have dreamed of having since I took French I in high school! They also had Profiteroles, which mom had raved about. Tyler got a chocolate mousse that was to die for! So much good food.
We got to go through the arc again on our way home! It was hard to get any good pictures, but we have a few quick shots to prove we were there!
While we had a quiet hour walking around, my family was in the middle of the Arc de Triomphe roundabout. We went through there three or four times over those last two days, and it was terrifying each time. It's between 5 and 8 lanes wide, but there are no marked lanes, no traffic signals, nor, apparently, any rules for how to go around the arch.
Anyway, everyone arrived in one piece. We met them outside the parking garage, and found out Lindzi had woken up really sick. She stayed home by herself! Poor thing. We felt so sad and missed her the whole afternoon.
On our way to the bike tour meet-up, we all grabbed lunch in a cafe. It was delicious - the pain au chocolate there was one of my favorites.We ate in the Place Vendôme. It's a really fancy district, with a Chanel, Lois Vuiton, Rolex, Ritz, and more all located around the square.
After lunch, we walked over to the meet-up spot for our bike tour. We only had to wait a few minutes before Max, our tour guide, showed up.
I actually forgot the names of most of the places we stopped on the bike tour, so I pulled up my google maps timeline for that day to help me write. Hooray for technology! With the help of google, I'm happy to inform you our bike ride was a little under 8 miles and we were on the tour for about four hours. And guess what? Nobody even got winded. Those electric bike are super cool.
Our first stop was the Le Palais Royal, right next to the Louvre.
We stopped by the Louvre proper as well.
We did a quick stop by Notre Dame. Next was the Colosseum, or Arènes de Lutèce. These remains are greatly diminished from the original size and grandeur, but the huge arena still shows some of the scale. Apparently, it's used as a recess yard for a near by school.
Haley, Hunter, and Tyler jumped in and posed in a way that we hoped would honor the victorious gladiators past. When the finished snapping photos, some cute Asian tourists started applauding them.
When Haley commented, "That is awesome," our guide replied, "Well, not for the gladiators." It was hilarious - one of the best moments of the tour. Max (the guide) was just hilarious and we had a really good time at every stop.
The Church du St Esprit was next. It was the only church not completely ravaged by the revolution, and our guide told us a hilarious, but perhaps not historically accurate, story about a brave nun distracting the mob by using the wine cellar. True or not, it was really cool to see a church that was decorated in the original style, as opposed to something that was re-imagined in the 1800's like Notre Dame.
After the church we biked through the Latin Quarter to the Panthéon. The Panthéon is a mausoleum where a number of famous french people are interred, including Voltaire, Rousseau, Victor Hugo, and Marie Curie.
Someone new was added recently, along with her husband, hence the enormous banner.
We biked along some beautiful buildings, including portions of the Sorbonne, to get to the Café Procope on the rue de l'Ancienne Comédie. If I go to Paris again, I want to go back and have dinner somewhere on that street. It's a really cool area.
The Café Procope is famous for being the oldest restaurant in Paris, in addition to serving a number of famous historical figures, from Voltaire (the French people adore that man) to Benjamin Franklin. The cafe was also a meeting place for many of the french revolutionaries, and allegedly (I have not confirmed this) the guillotine was developed and tested on that same street.
And with that, the tour was finished, and we all biked back to the parking garage. Giving up our bikes was sad for everyone. We all agreed that, if we were to go again, we would rent electric bikes to be our primary mode of transportation.
Shopping and going home
The next morning, we packed up the house boat. When we were finishing up, a couple of swans came right up to the window! I was thrilled and immediately started feeding them the ritz crackers we happened to have on-hand.
We loaded up the cars in a drizzling rain that made us all damp. We drove back to the Place Vendôme and parked there. Haley, Hunter, and Dad went to the Louvre, and the rest of us went shopping at the Gap. We had a really short amount of time before we needed to head to the airport. Amazingly, the Louvre group was done before we were.
We arrived at the airport around 2:30, with our flight leaving at 4. We were hustling and pretty tense. I predicted to Tyler that we would be running to our flight, but we felt pretty confident we would make it.
We had to take a train to the correct terminal, and we hustled through the airport to check in. For whatever reason, maybe the way we bought the tickets, check-in was a nightmare when we left and on our way back. We had to check in with air-france, and none of us could do it on the kiosks. Tyler and I had more trouble than the rest on our flight to Paris, so we barely bothered with the kiosks and hopped in line for customer service. While we waited, I sent Tyler to check a few other lines to see which one was the right one for what we needed. While he did that, Logan and Lindzi, then my parents joined us waiting in line.
Tyler discovered that the help desk was a different line, so we all migrated over. Tyler and I were the first to get up to the desk. Our attendant didn't say much to us, but checking us in was obviously very troublesome. It took her almost twenty minutes to do it.
In the meantime, everyone else had gotten to the counter. From what I understand, the lady helping Logan and Lindzi went a little crazy, running back and forth and eventually walking over to the lady helping Mom and Dad. From what I understand, she told Logan and Lindzi that check-in was closed an hour before the flight at 3 (it was 3:15). Then she walked over to the lady helping Mom and Dad and told her not to give them boarding passes, not to let them on the flight.
I started panicking a little when they told us this, and I know our attendant heard the other employees, but she continued checking us in and then took our baggage. Our family had gone around the corner to discuss what to do next, but then she handed us boarding passes and told us they were closing the door in fifteen minutes, so we ran.
Tyler is faster than me, so I told him to run ahead and get on the flight alone if he could. Tyler went through first, and the customs agent who took my passport asked if I was stressed. I said I was, and he said, "Don't worry, they will hold the flight for you!" I just laughed a little hysterically and ran off.
After customs, we had to ride a train. Tyler ended up on the train ahead of me, so I was alone on the train. After going through security, I carried my shoes and ran barefoot because I didn't want to lose time putting them back on!
I did make it to the plane- Tyler was so happy to see me! - and I was in my seat another twenty minutes before they closed the door. We sat in the airport until 4:45, so the rest of the family could certainly have made the flight, and we hadn't needed to run like our lives depended on it after all.
We took our expected flight home - changed planes in Detroit (got dinner at PF Chang's), spent the night in Denver, then flew home to Dallas.
The rest of the family spend the night in Paris, then arrived five hours early for their flight the next morning. It was a good thing - somehow Lindzi had ended up without a ticket and it took them two hours to check in! They flew through a different city back to Denver. Logan and Lindzi flew home from there, and Haley, Hunter, Mom, and Dad drove back home to Albuquerque, arriving around midnight Saturday night.
But at least we all made it! My oil painting was in Haley's suitcase (we had planned to get it out in Denver), so it ended up in Albuquerque. Tyler and I didn't get to say goodbye to anyone, which made me sad since we aren't sure when we will see them again. It was a super hectic ending to a really fun trip!
I started panicking a little when they told us this, and I know our attendant heard the other employees, but she continued checking us in and then took our baggage. Our family had gone around the corner to discuss what to do next, but then she handed us boarding passes and told us they were closing the door in fifteen minutes, so we ran.
Tyler is faster than me, so I told him to run ahead and get on the flight alone if he could. Tyler went through first, and the customs agent who took my passport asked if I was stressed. I said I was, and he said, "Don't worry, they will hold the flight for you!" I just laughed a little hysterically and ran off.
After customs, we had to ride a train. Tyler ended up on the train ahead of me, so I was alone on the train. After going through security, I carried my shoes and ran barefoot because I didn't want to lose time putting them back on!
 |
| Our faces after sprinting through the airport |
The rest of the family spend the night in Paris, then arrived five hours early for their flight the next morning. It was a good thing - somehow Lindzi had ended up without a ticket and it took them two hours to check in! They flew through a different city back to Denver. Logan and Lindzi flew home from there, and Haley, Hunter, Mom, and Dad drove back home to Albuquerque, arriving around midnight Saturday night.
But at least we all made it! My oil painting was in Haley's suitcase (we had planned to get it out in Denver), so it ended up in Albuquerque. Tyler and I didn't get to say goodbye to anyone, which made me sad since we aren't sure when we will see them again. It was a super hectic ending to a really fun trip!
