Paris

Matcy (hereby referred to as La Matcie) bravely took her youngest daughter and youngest grandchildren for a jaunt to Paris. It was a great three days out on the town.

Highlights and quotes:
--"Mommy, we could never be Paris people. Paris people don't go to bed this early." This spoken by a seven-year-old after she was out for a 23:00 snack with La Matcie. She was so wired by the excitement of the city that there was no getting her contained in a hotel room while the cafes were still crowded.

--"Look! A famous thing." said at every monument.

We bought two-day tickets on the double-decker, open-topped bus and used it as our taxi to get around. It takes a while to get places, but how else are you going to learn that there are 2.5 million rivets in the Eiffel Tower?
Touring around Notre Dame and Ile de la cite took the whole of day one. It is amazing how long it can take one to get through souvenir shops with children who have 10 euros each that they must spend RIGHT NOW. Out to Place du Trocadero that night to see the Eiffel Tower shimmer.

Day 2 was the gardens of Tuileries. So beautiful. We were going to head up to Sacre Coeur, but MM fell off of a high wall, landing on her head and necessitating a taxi ride back to the hotel to monitor for signs of bad things. She had rallied enough by nightfall to join TG and I on a climb up to the Arc de Triumph.

Wednesday morning we finally made it to Montmarte. Sacre Coeur is my favorite church of the large architectural marvels of the city. Perhaps because it feels more like a church of a living faith instead of an amazing, beautiful museum of what people used to believe.
Chatted with great people on the train. On the way up, an engineering student from China and a business student from the Basque country (referred to Spain as "they." I didn't ask him what he thought about the ETA). Rode back with a Hungarian student financing his studies as a folk dance instructor.

Click on the photo for a slide show.