Tuileries

The kids have gone here two times so far. It's a small amusement park near the Louvre.  Rides are from 3 to 5 euros each. John and I will pay for a few rides for the kids and then the rest, they have to pay themselves.

Here's Asia's favorite ride:

It starts out slow and then speeds up, turns the boat around so that you're going backwards and sideways, sprays mist. 

 Zach and Asia both agreed to bravely accompany each other on their favorite rides. You can see Zach above with a not so confident smile.

Zach chose an obstacle course. Asia ran half of it with her hands over her ears because she didn't like the parts that shot out puffs of air really loudly.  Poor girl said she fell twice but she was a trooper.

Another favorite of the kids:




Who needs a hamster in a ball?

 

One of the things they wanted to spend their money on was snacks!  Asia bought a candy apple (I think half of it is still in the fridge) and Zach bought a donut.

Musee D'orsay

Today was a museum day.  I did some research on this museum and saw some tips on buying tickets online to avoid standing in long lines. Last night, I tried to buy 2 tickets and had no luck. It would take too long to have them mailed and we can't open the mailbox here anyway. And the other option was to pick up the pre-ordered tickets at a few inconvenient locations.  We decided to just risk it and hope there wouldn't be too much of a long line.

Here's the kids on the trainride to the museum. They are expert train riders now.

Luckily because of the rain, there wasn't much of a line. What really made the line go slow was the security. They check your bags and you have to go through some kind of metal detector.  There are at least 6 cashiers to buy tickets so that line didn't take long. Tickets were 8 euros each for the day and kids are free. You have to love the fact that kids are free at all these museums.

At the Musee d'Orsay, you can't take any pictures.  It's an old train station.  It does reminde me of Chicago's Union Station.  It has a humongous clock on the wall.  You can imagine people bustling around to catch their trains.  Unfortunately, there was construction going on so a lot of the first floor was taken up by temporary galleries so you lost some of the feeling of grandness in the lobby. This was definitely the kind of art we liked - much better than the Louvre.  Renaissance isn't so much our thing. More impressionism.

Here's what the kids had to say about their favorite paintings:

Vincent Van Gogh

Portrait_of_Dr._Gachet  c 1890

Zach: "It doesn't look like art. It's real and not real together. It's got a certain feeling to it. Wavy lines going in the same direction but changing different ways. All the different colors makes it look so strong, like on his jacket."

1889 Self Portrait

Zach: "In the background and his coat, it's wavy.  All mixed together. For the coat, it's sort of wavy but different texture. The way his face is, is opposite with lots of individual strokes. It changes the whole picture and makes it look like real, not just wavy lines."

The Restaurant of Sirene 1887

This is one of Asia's favorites.

Thatched cottages at Cordeville 1890

Asia:  "Similar to starry night. Similar sky and trees. Not so similar on the scene. I really like it, especially the colors. All the plants and the house too."

Claude Monet

London Parliament in Breaking Fog 1904

Zach:  "So many colors mixed together. You can see the outline of a castle. You can see a sun. It blurs into one great painting."

Haystacks 1891

Asia:  "Monet does haystacks a lot. Especially these kinds.  My favorite is the background. The color just goes into it. The haystacks even have blue in it. It's just magical. Even how it pops out of the page. I just really like it."

Blue Water Lilies 1916-1919

Zach: "Blue and green are great colors to mix. Every now and then there's a white! It blows my mind."

Villas at Bordighera

Zach: "There are so many bright colors mixed together to make a great combo. Looks almost real. There's so much action."

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Bal du moulin de la Galette 1876

Asia: "How he does all the people and the colors! Even the grass, the detail! Amusing."

Aristide Maillol

Woman with a parasol 1895

Asia: "Colors blend together. The dress is so beautiful. Maybe I could make that dress if I had the fabric."

Paul Cezanne

Still life with open drawer 1877

Asia: "All the colors pop!"

Charles Emile de Tournemine

Elephants d'Afrique 1867

Asia: "Looks so real. Even the sky looks really cool. Even the birds! Just the colors! Really nice."

Henri Fantin-Latour

Chrysanthemums in a vase  1873

Asia: "Magenta, yellow and white chrysanthemums in a white and brown vase.  Looks real, pretty, sparkly and 3D."

Cuno Amiet

Snowy landscape

Asia: "All the colors that I don't think would be snow colors come together. It's just magical."

Amazing Parks

A big part of this trip is taking long walks to different parks in Paris.   The park equipment here is so different. A lot of them are situated around strange spinning contraptions. No standard American swings here.  I also love that most of them have park benches situated all around the park with lots of shade for the parents. A lot of the parks all have sand boxes as well as ping pong tables and even foos ball tables. You just bring your own paddle and ball.

In this picture, Zach and Asia are trying out a tightrope.

This one spins around. Zach is about to fall off.

Graffiti galore

The graffiti all over the city is amazing and ridiculous.  I don't know if it's sanctioned or what but you would rarely see a nice white truck because it's covered in paint. And the crazy thing is that a lot of the graffiti is really good!  Take a look for yourself.

Montmartre

Today was my chance to visit the Sacre-couer and Montmartre area.  The kids had already visited it and I heard the walk back was the longest walk of their lives. First le'ts talk about the steps!  Just in the train station - you had a gazillion stairs to climb. They were nice enough to build a seat into the wall for the poor souls who aren't used to a lack of an elevator.

Once you get there, you have a choice of paths to take. There's the fake stone wood staircase. Let's call it the "natural" path.  It provides great climbing opportunity as long as you don't mind the smell of urine. Asia asked why it smelled like pee and I told her that most likely at night since the stairway is hidden, people use it as a restroom.



For those who want plain old steps, here you go.

Here's one way to get down I suppose:

Once you finally get to the top, you're awarded with a breathtaking view of the city, as long as you don't mind all the tourists. John took the kids inside during their first trip.

In the square in front of the Sacre Coeur, there are all types of street performers.  In the one below, a man would climb a pole or do different athletic stunts with a soccer ball balanced on his head or on his foot.

In the video below, the performers asked for 4 young volunteers from the audience. It took some coaxing, but 3 girls volunteered at first. Finally the smallest one ran up and joined in.  The performers asked the kids if any of them spoke English, none of them did. The performers then said in English, "Good because then you won't know that you're about to die."  

The kids even had a chance to hear the story of Noak's ark from a puppet show that was performed (tape recording) in English and French.

At montmartre, Asia really wanted to ride the carousel, but not to go on one of the pretty ponies. Oh no.... She wanted to go on the "spinny thing."  Zach said he wasn't going to go on the spinny thing. I had no idea what she was talking about. And she did get Zach to go on it and he had his head down and eyes closed most of the time.  Such a good big brother.

Zach gets a haircut

Just as the title says, we took Zach to get a haircut - for 9 euros.  The barber couldn't speak a word of English so I made sure I knew the words for short - courte - and not so short - pas si courte. So basically I tried to say short around the sides - pointing here and here - and longer on the top. You can do a lot of with just a few words and lots of miming.

 

Zach Before

The finished product.

 And here's a picture of Zach from March when he had long hair!  He actually looks younger now - more his age. In the picture below, he almost looks like he's in his teens! We really liked the long hair but Zach got tired of his hair touching his ears or in his eyes. Guess I can't complain.

Loree Paris

I splurged today and bought myself a Loree oboe. Don't ask me how much I spent. You can look online and get an idea. It's $$$ but I did save some money by going to the mothership instead of US distributors.  It took me awhile to find the Loree office though. I was looking for some big music store like Volkwein's in Pittsburgh or the Woodwind and Brasswind in Ohio.  But there's only a small nameplate on the door where you have to be buzzed in.  I took two trains to get to the office, walked down the wrong road at first - Rue de Madrid.  heh heh, the train station is called Europe. Then Rue de Madrid turned into Rue de Lisbon and I realized I was on the wrong road. Backtracked my way back to Rue de Rome and realized that was the street I wanted from the beginning!  Then I had in my head that the address was 43 Rue de Rome (formerly 43 Rue de Madrid in my head) so I walked past the office about a block, crossed the street since I thought it was an odd number and had to backtrack again. No jaywalking here! Unless you want to be run over by a bike, scooter, motorcycle, bus, mini-car, or taxi. Basically lots of traffic.  I seriously obey the crosswalk signs here.  Anyway, I finally made it to 48 Rue de Madrid. Buzzed my way in and walked up to a quaint apartment on the 1st floor - as in not the ground floor.  Again another American confusion of mine.  A very nice woman welcomed me inside and brought me to another small room that had a bunch of oboes set up and an english horn. I was in heaven. The wall was plastered with pictures of famous oboe players from around the world. I recognized a picture of Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra's principal oboist -  cynthia dealmeida.  I also mentioned that I took lessons and get my English Horn reeds from Harold Smoliar.  They were excited that I knew him and even gave me a little letter to bring back to him if I see him before the PSO travels to Paris in September.  Anyway it was a great chance to feel like a professional musician trying out Loree oboes at the Paris headquarters.  I pretended like I knew what I was doing. :)

Now the trick is getting this baby through customs.  I have the papers and have been warned to go early to declare it. Question is whether I have to pay any kind of fee at the airport. I hope not. Yikes!

Luxembourg Gardens and the Pantheon

We took a long walk to the Luxembourg Gardens today.  It has a great kids' park in it. You have to actually pay for the kids to enter and then there are benches all along the park for parents to sit and watch their kids. There's a zip line and a really tall rubbery rope structure for the kids to climb.  You can see from the picture that it gets pretty high.

There's also this carousel that the kids like to ride on even though they're getting so tall that their legs could probably drag on the floor.  The trick is to sit on the outside horses so that you get a "lance" - a small stick - to hook onto a ring when you go buy the carousel conductor.  Here's a video of Zach and Asia riding on it. It was pretty funny watching Zach try to catch one of the rings while Asia and the girl in front of him had no problem. It might have been timing though if the girl in front of him got a ring and the next one not coming down in time. At least they had fun doing it. There's not too many years left of these easy forms of entertainment.

We also stopped to rest at the Pantheon. We never go in, just use the steps to rest and marvel at the architecture.

You have to love all the old buildings and the GIANT doors.