Week 8: Paris

To begin our week, we went back to the Louvre. The Louvre closes different sections on different days, so today we spent extra time in the Egyptian section as it was closed on Friday but open on Monday. We saw pieces of ancient Egyptian bread, a sphinx, and even a mummy! The girls loved the audioguide information of the other sections so much, that they asked their mom to rent audioguides for today. This worked out wonderfully, because the Egyptian audioguide tour was designed as a family tour. The sphinx from the beginning of the exhibit lead us through and taught us about how people lived in ancient Egypt. There were games on the Nintendo 3DS that the girls had to use the artifacts in the museum to complete. They had so much fun, and learned so much about Egypt. After turning in our audioguides, we got out our sketchbooks and spent the next hour walking around the Louvre and finding different artifacts to sketch. We spent the most time sketching a royal crown and some greek statues.

On Tuesday, we went outside of the city to visit Versailles. It was beautiful. The Hall of mirrors was the most grand room in the palace, with 17 windows with matching mirrors down the length of the hall. Audrey and Maurene requested that their bedrooms be designed to match the princesses’ bedrooms in the palace, although they would like their room to be more private than the princesses rooms were. While the palace was beautiful, the gardens were equally as amazing. We went to Versailles on a musical garden day, so there was baroque music playing throughout the gardens. A few of the fountains were on giving shows choreographed to the music. During our five hours at Versailles, we only saw a fraction of the property. The girls are already planning to go back and see Marie Antoinette’s farm on the far end of the property at some point, as am I.

Wednesday was a much anticipated day for Audrey and Maurene. We fulfilled both of their dreams today – to go up to the top of the Eiffel tower. Audrey was not such a fan of the angled elevator going up to the second floor, but after that we were okay. We played eye-spy from the top floor. We found Notre Dame, Sacre Coeur, and the Louvre. I tried to spy the Disneyland Paris castle, but could not find it. At the top of the Eiffel tower, we were 281 meters above the ground. Those who know me well know that I do not like heights. I was pretty proud of myself and of Audrey for toughing out the fears to have the experience. After the Eiffel tower, we went to explore Notre Dame. We walked around and admired the incredible stained glass windows, and each lit a candle in memory of someone.

Audrey and Maurene’s father, Joshua, is a huge fan of the artist Rodin. There is a Rodin museum in Paris, so we decided to go visit on Thursday. There was an absolutely hysterical animated children’s audioguide that helped us through our journey. We started at the sculpture The Gates of Hell, where the guide introduced us to an animated character of Dante. The Gates of Hell sculpture is inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy. The premise of the guide was that we had to learn enough about Rodin and his works to help Dante back through The Gates of Hell sculpture to find his love. The girls absolutely loved it. We learned that The Thinker can be found at the top of the Gates of Hell sculpture, which is where he was before he was made into an independent sculpture. We also learned that The Thinker was inspired by Dante thinking about his Divine Comedy. Rodin’s The Kiss sculpture was originally intended to be included on The Gates of Hell, but Rodin decided it was too gentle and replaced the couple with different figures before making The Kiss into an independent sculpture. We enjoyed learning about many different works, before heading back into the gardens to the feet of The Gates of Hell, where the girls took a quiz. Luckily, they learned a lot and passed the audioguide quiz, allowing Dante to pass back through The Gates of Hell to find his love. After turning the guides back in, the girls practiced their sketching while observing The Thinker.

For two weeks, I have been trying to keep the girls from noticing the signs in the metro pointing out how to get to Disneyland Paris. They knew that we had a surprise planned for our last Friday in Paris, but had no idea what it was. Audrey had guessed Disneyland Paris at one point, but we played that guess off pretty well. Kris got a Mickey Mouse ornament for their family Christmas tree, and wrapped it up for the girls to open on Friday morning. Maurene was so excited that she filmed a video of herself telling all of us how excited she was to get to go to Disneyland Paris and sent it to us right then. By 8:45, we were out the door. The name Disneyland Paris is a little deceiving, because the parks are located outside of Paris. It took us around 50 minutes on the train to get to the parks, but it was well worth it. We rode the attractions, ate the food, watched the parade, explored the walkthrough attractions, and watched the fireworks. We all had a marvelous time, and decided we would have to come back once the Phantom Manor attraction was finished being renovated.

Saturday was mostly spent packing up to move to our next location. To finish out my time in Paris, I went to the Eiffel tower to watch the lights sparkle. I was able to facetime my family and share the lights with them, which was pretty amazing.

Things I’ve learned in Paris:

1. My ability to even repeat words in French is laughable. I’m sure that the people I tried to talk to thought I was hilarious.
2. The rat scene from Ratatouille is way more realistic of the rats in Paris than I would have ever imagined.
3. The guillotine was used for the last time in France in 1977.
4. Some French people totally perpetuate the rude stereotype, but far more people were very kind to us.
5. French croissants put all other croissants to shame.
6. Starbucks in Paris don’t even sell croissants.
7. There are 20 arrondissements, like districts, in Paris. They begin with 1 in the center and spiral out like a snail shell to 20.
8. Notre Dame was almost destroyed rather than being repaired, but was saved because of the impact of the book Notre-Dame de Paris. 
9. The Eiffel Tower was supposed to be a temporary structure. Locals hated it at first, but it was used as a radio tower during the war giving the French an advantage. It also had such an impact on tourism that the locals learned to like it and it was modified to stay.
10. Locals are way less worried about following the transportation rules than we were. We watched countless people go in the metro exit when people were leaving or jump the entrance turnstyles.
11. Love locks are considered a nuisance problem.
12. Pont Neuf (The new bridge) is the oldest standing bridge in Paris.
13. Parisian baguettes and tradition baguettes are two very different breads. They have different flour, but the biggest differences is how much kneading the dough gets. I preferred the tradition baguette.

Next stop: Madrid!