For some reason Nellie and Julian were not interested in lounging around the hotel room, reading and drinking coffee. So we walked. And walked. And walked. Chris got his old New York rhythm back and led us (speedily!) from our hotel on one end of the 7th arondissement to the Eiffel Tower, on the other. Just looking up at it from underneath made my stomach lurch, so happily for me the lines to go up were long enough to discourage Julian. So we hopped on the Batobus and cruised down the Seine to Notre Dame, where the kids had by far their favorite time in all of Paris.
Fascinated by the architecture? A religious experience? Mais non -- the pigeons, of course!
That night, despite a long forced march home from Notre Dame that had my dogs barking, the children were very rambunctious at dinnertime. We were standing on the sidewalk near our hotel, Chris and I wondering whether they were in any state to enter a restaurant (the time a woman selling crepes out of a truck told me that Julian was mal elevée [badly brought up] still burns, and the last thing I want to do is incur any more French disapproval). Nellie was dancing frenetically and Julian running around behind to poke her -- you know, the Dance of 7 to 9 Year Olds. Then the door to the restaurant in front of us swung open, and a big man with wild gray hair tossed Nellie a champagne cork, threw up his arms and said, "Ohh, la danse!" and then he invited us in for dinner.
Figuring he knew what he was getting into, we squeezed into the tiny place, where at one table a man with an Irish accent was talking about politics, and some French men were at the bar drinking wine. The waiter knew some English but we insisted on using our mangled French which he graciously pretended to understand.
Céleri remoulade, roast duck in foie gras sauce, and crême brulée. Magnificent frites. Superbe.
The next morning we went to the Musée d'Orsay before the children were awake enough to protest. But we hit on the perfect way to do it -- we'd enter a room and immediately sit together on the benches in the middle of the room, and then look at the paintings on one wall, pick our favorites, discuss, then turn around and do the other wall. Hands down favorite with the kids was Van Gogh, with Monet as first runner up. It's kind of a shock seeing that many famous paintings, one right after another, many of which are so familiar because the prints are so popular. "Oh look -- that was in the Trigg's living room at the river!" "That was in my classroom in second grade!" And on and on.
The only shopping we did turned out to be in the museum gift shop -- Nellie and Julian got Victorian masks to wear, since it was Halloween after all. We're now the proud owners of a Van Gogh refrigerator magnet. And I got a copy of Ranelot et Bufolet, which is Arnold Lobel's Frog and Toad in French. Nellie has just begun speaking sentences in French, so I think she'll be reading it any day now.
