Ryan, Debi, and Toren Cragun's Blog

This was our first full day in Paris. With the late night activity of the kids we got a slightly later start than I think we wanted, leaving the condo around 11:00 am. This, however, is how travel works when you have young kids.

Gary and Rosemary visited Paris a number of years earlier (with Steve, but not Debi or Suzy), and had seen a few things during that visit. Steve, who had lived in Paris almost a year at this point, had also visited most of the major attractions. So, most of what we saw was for the benefit of the rest of us. And, despite knowing how cliché it is to do so, we basically set up an itinerary of the famous things to see in Paris. The first item on the list: Musée du Louvre.  I’m not typically a fan of doing what everyone else does when I’m traveling, but I hadn’t put much thought into this vacation because of work and was very happy to just go along with what everyone else wanted to do as I figured I’d enjoy whatever we did.  So, like many first-time tourists to France, we went to The Louvre.  And, even more stereotypical, we ended up seeing just two of the main attractions, like many others: the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo.

But first, we had to get into the museum.  We had museum passes for a bunch of museums, which meant we didn’t have to wait in line, which was very nice.  But once you’re in, you’re not actually “in” the museum exhibits.  As we tried to enter one, we were told that we couldn’t take the kids through on our backs (Brent and Suzy had a backpack for Ethan as well).  We had to check the backpacks.  Ethan was fine walking, but Toren was tired, so we got a stroller for him (the museum has these for free, which is nice).  After that, we followed the throngs to the two exhibits I mentioned (and I really do mean throngs as there were thousands of people there; at least 10,000, probably a lot more).  It was shoulder-to-shoulder at times and nearly impassable, especially with a stroller.  The stroller was particularly awkward as there are places in the Louvre that are basically inaccessible except by stairs, so we ended up carrying the stroller up and down a few staircases.  Someone in our group mentioned that something like 70% of people or so who visit The Louvre just visit the Venus de Milo and the Mona Lisa.  I couldn’t verify that number, but if it’s accurate, you can add our group to that percentage.  We did see a few other exhibits, but mostly just in passing on the way to the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo.

Knowing that there would be too many people to really spend any time admiring either piece of art (as is well documented by this news article I found on the topic while searching for the actual statistic for the number of people who just visit these two pieces of art), I took just a few pictures of the two pieces we saw, primarily just to document the hordes of people:

The Mona Lisa being swarmed by the hordes

the Venus de Milo, also being swarmed

I actually didn’t bother trying to take good pictures of either piece of art because I know excellent pictures are easily accessible online (see The Mona Lisa here and The Venus de Milo here).  So, instead, I just documented the hordes of people visiting these artworks.  My favorite picture I took, though, is of what Toren thought of The Louvre:

Toren was clearly impressed! ;)

According to Steve, who has been to The Louvre before, this is the vacation season in France, which means there are more French people on vacation than typical.  That may explain why so many people where there.  Regardless, it was a lot of people.  By the time we pushed through the people to see just these two exhibits, it was close to 2:00 pm and we were hungry.  We tried to find a restaurant inside The Louvre that could seat all of us, but didn’t have any luck, so we decided to leave.  Yep, we spent just 2 to 3 hours at The Louvre.  Given the enormity of the museum, it seems like it would really require a week or more to even begin to see all the museum has to offer.  I’m guessing I’ll make it back to Paris at some point and will give The Louvre its due at that point.

We snapped pictures as we were leaving through the famed pyramid entrance/exit:

inside the pyramid

Debi in front of the pyramid

From The Louvre we walked through the Tuileries Garden:

Debi among the statues in the Tuileries Garden; I tried to get her to pose like the others (nude), but she wasn't willing to...

The Tuileries Garden connects The Louvre and the Place de la Concorde.  The Place de la Concorde is famous for a number of reasons, most notably being the location where many French nobles were guillotined during the French Revolution.  It was renamed the Place de la Concorde as an act of reconciliation and to try to distance itself from the death that occurred there in the late 18th Century.  The Place de la Concorde is also famous to Star Trek fans as the location of the offices of the President of the Federation.  At the center of the Place de la Concorde are some very cool fountains and an amazing obelisk, the Luxor Obelisk:

in front of the Luxor Obelisk

in front of the fountains at the Place de la Concorde

Keep in mind that we left The Louvre to find lunch.  It was now close to 3:00 pm and we hadn’t eaten as we couldn’t find many restaurants along the path we took.  But, as we reached the Champs-Élysées, we found some food vendors and everyone agreed French paninis would work.  The night before we walked the Champs-Élysées the Tour de France rode through here, finishing at the Arc de Triomphe (which was our final walking destination).  The bleachers were still set up as we walked along the road.  We stopped for lunch in the parks that line the Champs-Élysées.  (Brent would later refer to this as his ”walk of hunger,” as he didn’t have breakfast and we didn’t eat lunch until about 3:00 pm).   Toren and Ethan took the opportunity during our break to play on the grass and run around.  Toren is very into pointing at birds and flowers and has even started chasing birds, which is what he did along the Champs-Élysées.  He also loves digging in dirt, which he also did while we ate.

After our picnic in the park, we continued up the Champs-Élysées, stopping at a few famous stores.  We eventually arrived at the Arc de Triomphe, which is, in fact, more imposing in person than it seems in photos.  Brent snapped this while crossing the Champs-Élysées:

the Arc de Triomphe from the Champs-Élysées

Our nifty museum passes also got us into the Arc de Triomphe, which meant we skipped another line.  Also, because we had the kids in the backpacks, they let us take the elevator to the top, rather than walk, which was a nice option after our 3.5 kilometer trek up the Champs-Élysées from The Louvre.  The view from the top of the Arc de Triomphe is amazing.  I didn’t take the requisite pictures to build a panorama from the top of the Arc de Triomphe, but we took a few good pictures on top:

on the Arc de Triomphe

Toren posing on the Arc de Triomphe

Toren showing off his toothy grin in front of the Eiffel Tower on the Arc de Triomphe

our entire group on the Arc de Triomphe in front of the Eiffel Tower; Back Row: Suzy, Rosemary, Steve, Gary, Debi, Toren; Front Row: Brent, Ethan, Ryan

From the Arc de Triomphe, we got on the “hop-on hop-off” double decker tour bus, which we also had passes for thanks to Rosemary, and rode it for a few stops.  We saw a number of cool museums which seem like they would be great to visit (e.g., Musée de l’Homme), but we didn’t visit them.  We were headed for the Eiffel Tower.  Our museum pass didn’t include the Eiffel Tower, so we had to wait in line to get tickets, though Toren was getting antsy after being in the backpack all day, so we took him for a walk while everyone else waited in line, then I ran around with him on my back chasing Ethan, which they both enjoyed.  It was probably 5:00 pm or so when we arrived at the Eiffel Tower.  Since we hadn’t bought our tickets in advance, we could only go up to the second floor, not the third (which is the top and apparently requires tickets purchased in advance, so I was told; don’t quote me on this), but the views are still pretty amazing.  And, of course, the Eiffel Tower is amazing.  As is the case with the Arc de Triomphe, it’s much more imposing in person – it really is an amazingly large structure that is hard to appreciate until you’re there.  This photo Brent took does a decent job:

the Eiffel Tower

He took it from the top of the double-decker bus as we were headed toward the tower.  The buses you see in front of the tower are as close as buses can get.  You could probably stack 7 or 8 double decker buses on top of each other and still clear the arch at the bottom of the tower.  It’s amazing.  Here’s a shot I took that also provides a sense of scale:

the bottom of the Eiffel Tower with hundreds of people under neath and still plenty of open space

Here’s a shot of Debi in front of the tower from the nearby park:

Debi in front of the Eiffel Tower

The views from the tower are also very impressive.  It’s hard to get a photo of you on the tower, but we managed to get one from the lower level of the second floor looking up at the upper level:

on the Eiffel Tower

Steve took the one above.  After Debi and I turned away, Toren looked over the railing at Steve and started making faces, which Steve caught:

Toren playing with Steve

A word of advice for anyone planning on visiting the Eiffel Tower: don’t wear a flowing, loose, mini-skirt.  You can’t see it in the pictures I posted, but right next to us was a woman in a flowing, loose, mini-skirt posing for pictures.  From where Steve was taking pictures it was hard not to see up her skirt.  That was a fun surprise in our photos!  ;)

We also had another surprise while on the Eiffel Tower.  Brent saw him first and pointed him out, asking who he was, but I quickly recognized Chuck Liddell, one of the most famous MMA fighters in the world.  He was visiting the Eiffel Tower with someone (according to Wikipedia he’s not married, so I don’t know who this is):

Chuck Liddell and "someone" at the Eiffel Tower

I’ve always liked Chuck and it was pretty cool to see him there.  But I was more intrigued by the fact that his big toenails on both feet were painted blue:

Chuck Liddell's blue toenails

Not sure what was up with that.

Anyway, we spent a while on the Tower, then dropped down and headed over to The Seine where we were considering a boat tour.  But it was close to 8:00 pm at this point and we were thinking we should find a place for dinner then head back to the condo.  We ended up walking along The Seine to a metro station (kind of far, surprisingly), then took the Metro to near Notre Dame, where Steve knew there were a number of restaurants.  We found one that could seat all of us on the sidewalk so we could sit outside and watch people walking by.  Dinner was good, but it ran late.  We sat down at 9:00 and didn’t finish until about 11:15.  By that time, both the kids were asleep.  Ethan fell asleep in his backpack and Toren on Debi.  We were hoping they would stay asleep while we headed back to the condo.  Um, yeah, not so much.  Ethan woke up when Brent tried to put him on his back and he ended up having a melt down.  He was obviously tired and ended up screaming for the nearly 30 minutes it took us to get back to the condo (via the Metro, which was, let’s say, awkward, but certainly our fault for keeping him out so late).

Anyway, we made it home around midnight.  We saw a lot, but learned an important lesson – the kids can’t handle days that long.  Toren was still a little wound up from the trip home when we got to the condo and ended up playing until about 1:00 am again before going to bed.

Once we boarded our 8 hour flight and were settled in, I napped a little, as did Toren, but Debi has found that she can’t sleep when Toren is on her lap, so she didn’t sleep at all.  As a result, when we arrived she was exhausted.  We had a little scare once we arrived as well.  I mentioned a few months back that we bought a backpack for carrying Toren, which we actually bought specifically for this trip.  On our Oregon flight, we checked the backpack at the departure gate and they returned it at the arrival gate, like they do with strollers.  In Paris, there was no backpack at the arrival gate.  Apparently they don’t necessarily return strollers or backpacks.  I scrambled around for a while until I could find someone who spoke enough English to tell me that the backpack would be at the baggage claim.  Turns out it was.  If it wasn’t, that would have been a major problem as our trip was heavily dependent upon having a backpack for Toren (as you’ll see).

Anyway, with that we resolved, I had only one real responsibility as far as the trip went and it was time to complete my assignment.  As I mentioned in the previous post, Rosemary planned everything, and I literally mean every detail.  She did an amazing job and made our lives very easy throughout the trip.  However, since the rest of our group (minus Steve, who lives in Paris) was flying in from Salt Lake, we were on different flights.  With no idea about the layout of Charles de Gaulle airport, Rosemary simply told me which flight she was on and that there was going to be a van outside their baggage claim waiting to take us to our condo.  My job: Find the van.  That would connect us with Rosemary, and she would take it from there.

It took a while, but we did, and luckily it was just after everyone else had arrived, so we promptly loaded up all our luggage into the van and headed toward our condo.  Having a van to take us directly to our condo was nice as even the driver had a hard time finding the right street.  But when he did, we saw Steve, who lives in Paris, standing outside the gate.  Our condo was in downtown Paris: 19 Rue de Pastourelle.  We were only about 1.5 kilometers from Notre Dame, and just a bit further from the Musee du Louvre.  It was a great location.  It was a very old building with a nice but overgrown and under-used courtyard.  We were on the fourth floor.  Here are some photos:

the gate into the courtyard; you can see the "19" by the gate

the very narrow and dimly lit staircase

a candid of Debi inside the condo

the courtyard from the window in the living room

the view from the window in the living room

There were eight of us sleeping in the condo, but our group included 9 total (Steve stayed in his own apartment).  Once settled in the condo (getting the luggage up four floors on that staircase was a challenge), everyone but Debi decided to go for a walk.  Debi was so tired she just wanted to get some sleep.  Some wanted lunch, others wanted to start sightseeing.  It was about 1:00 pm Paris time when we left the condo.  We went to a weird restaurant for lunch, Flunch, that was kind of a buffet/cafeteria, but also allowed people to order food cooked a certain way.  It was a weird concept, but regardless of the aims, it took a while to get everyone’s food as the cooks had some difficulties with a couple of orders.  Meanwhile, I was managing Toren on my own in a foreign country. I was worried Toren might have a hard time with just me, but he did fine.  He’s been on a heavy bread diet lately (self-imposed, of course).  He’ll eat just about any kind of bread, so long as you give him as large a piece as possible and it’s mostly just bread.  So, I got him a roll, which he devoured, and tried to get him to eat some of the other food (which he didn’t).

After lunch we walked past the Centre Pompidou, a well-known modern art museum in Paris.  We didn’t go in, but the building itself is something of a work of art (as are many of the buildings in Paris).  Toren and Ethan got a kick out of some of the water fountains and pools they had around there.  Because I didn’t realize we were going sightseeing, I didn’t bring my good camera (I did have my phone, so I took some pictures with that).  Also, I thought we were going to return to Notre Dame to tour the inside, but we never did.  So, I don’t have many photos of this walk.

From Centre Pompidou, we walked to Notre Dame, which was teeming with people.  Here’s the one photo I took, which also includes the McDonald’s arches in the foreground (McDonald’s is everywhere):

Notre Dame from a distance; that's the tower in the center

On the south side of Notre Dame, between the cathedral and The Seine, there is a children’s play area with various toys, including a teeter totter.  Since we were touring with kids, it only made sense that we stop to let the kids play.  Toren and Ethan enjoyed some of the toys:

Something interesting happened at this point.  Ethan and Toren were playing on the teeter totter when a little boy, Martin, and his sister (I forget her name), who were from Spain, joined them.  Martin wanted to ride the teeter totter and asked politely in Spanish if he could.  Ethan, who is 3 1/2, obviously couldn’t understand Martin.  But he also didn’t realize that Martin was speaking a different language, and that is why he couldn’t understand him.  So, when Martin asked politely again to play on the teeter totter, Ethan responded with, “What?”  This pattern repeated itself several times before I stepped in to translate.  Basically, Martin would say something to Ethan, and Ethan, thinking he should be able to understand Martin, would respond with, “What?”  It was pretty funny. Here they are on the teeter totter:

The adults of our group also noted at this point that we were at Notre Dame de Paris, perhaps the most famous church in the world, and Toren and Ethan could care less.  This was driven home when Suzy told Ethan we were going to continue our walk around Notre Dame in five minutes while we were at the playground (a good parenting practice so kids aren’t jolted out of what they are doing).  Ethan’s response: “Why?”

From the playground we walked the rest of the way around Notre Dame, then started back to the condo.  I was a bit anxious to get back just because Debi hadn’t eaten all day, but she needed sleep more than food and slept until we returned.  Toren fell asleep on the way back in the backpack.

Once back, Steve and I went out to pick up fallafel at a famous fallafel place in the Jewish district, L’As du Fallafel.  While there, Steve was telling me about job opportunities in his field (physics) and a couple of girls behind us overheard.  They were MIT undergrads (one in physics, one in computer programming) and they were working in France over the summer on internships.  One was working for the nuclear power agency in France writing a computer program to calculate flow rates for a new reactor.  We chatted with them for the 20 minutes or so we waited in line to pick up our fallafel.  While Steve will undoubtedly dispute it, I think they were interested in him.  I was waiting for Steve to “bust a move” on them and at least get a phone number.  But once they had their food, nothing.  I probably should have pushed harder as Steve’s wingman, as they were definitely interested in talking with Steve about getting a PhD in Physics.  But, alas, it was not to be.

Turns out the fallafel wasn’t a hit with everyone.  Rosemary and Suzy didn’t love it, but Debi and I liked it, as did Brent and Gary.  After that, Steve and Brent went out to get some crepes for dessert.  While eating my Nutella and banana crepe, I updated my Facebook status over the wi-fi in our condo: “Eating a Nutella crepe in Paris with family.  Life is good!”

After dessert, we called it a night and the adults went to bed, but the kids had other ideas.  They were both still running on a different time zone, so they woke up around 1 and wanted to play.  Both Debi and Suzy were up playing with them for about an hour before going back to bed.

Debi’s parents are quite frugal, but they do spend money on one particular luxury – travel.  Every few years, Debi’s mother, Rosemary, plans a large trip for the entire family.  Rosemary’s countless hours of meticulous planning finally came to fruition starting on July 24th, when we left Tampa and flew to Detroit, then to Paris, France.  It was the beginning of a two-week European vacation that included stops in four countries (five if you count our brief layover in Amsterdam) with: Gary and Rosemary (Debi’s parents); Brent, Suzy, and Ethan (Debi’s sister, brother-in-law, and nephew); Steve (Debi’s brother); and us.  I’ll be posting trip reports from each day on the actual date the events happened, though I am, of course, writing almost all of this after the fact.

Our first flight was uneventful – Toren slept and Debi and I got some reading done.  Debi was reading on her new Android phone using the recently released Kindle app.  I was reading for work – a future book review.

We had a couple hours to wait in Detroit before our flight to Paris and Toren, with his new walking skills, was all over the place.  He immediately fell in love with the moving walkways in the terminal where our flight was departing.  He would want to get on one, then loop right back around and want to get on another.  Of course, he can’t maneuver the entrances and exits, but he loves walking on the walkways.  We amused him with this for a while, but he eventually amused most of the passengers on our flight with this as well.  As our flight started boarding, Toren started crying to get back on the moving walkway right by our gate.  But he didn’t seem to realize that the one he wanted to get on was going the wrong way (toward us, instead of with us).  For fun, I took him on the wrong way since there wasn’t anyone on it, walked down a good 30 feet, then set him down, helped him get his balance, and let him start walking.  And walk he did.  He was pedaling pretty fast for a good 2 or 3 minutes before he realized that he wasn’t getting anywhere (though he also wasn’t losing ground – he’s getting fast).  Meanwhile, a good number of passengers saw him chugging down the moving walkway the wrong way – oblivious to what he was doing – and started to laugh.

The only really eventful thing was an ignominious start to our vacation.  I cut myself just as we were leaving the house, and the band-aids we packed with us were so ancient they wouldn’t stay on (we’ve never bought band-aids since we married; we inherited these from Debi’s grandmother, so they are at least 10 years old, but more likely 20 years old).  That resulted in some blood on both Toren and I, but nothing major.  Then, at the Detroit airport, we grabbed burritos at a Taco Bell and I somehow managed to bite a chunk out of my lip – seriously, a huge chunk.  It was nasty.  And, of course, it was just as we were headed to a different continent where I would have the opportunity to sample all sorts of new foods. Now, all that sampling would include the enlivening sensation of pain to accompany the pleasure.  Oh well – in case I don’t mention it again, the pain only lasted for about a week and a half before my lip healed enough for me not to notice it anymore.  Tomorrow – Paris!

Because we’re workaholics yet want to spend time with Toren, we’ve worked out our weekends so Debi has Toren in the morning until 1:00 while I work and then I have him from 1:00 until he’s ready to go to bed around 8:00.  That’s usually when I take him hiking or biking.  To add a third option to the mix, we bought a 1 year family pass to the local zoo, the Lowry Park Zoo.  Lucky for us (though also intentional), it’s less than 10 minutes from our house and parking is free.  The pass was $125.00 for Debi, Toren, and me (though, technically Toren would be free as he’s under 2).  Regular adult admission is $20.00 per visit.  So, one of us has to go 7 times for the pass to pay for itself.  I’ve been three times and Debi’s been once, so we’re more than halfway there.  Also, they say no outside food, but Toren NEEDS snacks and drinks, so his diaper bag usually contains a soda for me and snacks, as well as his drink and snacks.

I actually bought the pass without having taken Toren in, but figured he’d like it because he loves looking at stuff, particularly animals.  I was right.  He loves it.  He gets to be outside, see groovy animals, and even play in the water fountains they have there, which he was afraid of the first time, but now doesn’t want to leave.

Here’s a photo of Toren playing on one of the toys by the water fountains:

And here’s how Toren plays in the fountains:

I let Toren play in the passenger seat of the rental car while we were in Oregon to keep him busy while I got the backpack ready.  He loved it and remembered it, so I let him play in the passenger seat in my car one day.  Debi went a step further and let him play in the driver’s seat, which he loved even more:

"This is easy! Why should I have to wait until I'm 16?!?"