Eiffel for Paris (get it?)

Here I am, on the 2nd Floor observation deck of the Eiffel Tower. I'm not including the picture of Serena crying hysterically because she had wanted to go to the 3rd Floor (or "summit"), unable to even enjoy the delight of being so high above the prettiest city in the world, and I'm not including an image of Emme sitting on some stairs feeling sick. I'm also not including the picture, taken a few minutes after this one, of the girls eating slices of pizza at the cafeteria on the 2nd Floor - surprising only because it was one of their favorite meals of the whole trip. Instead, I'm going to just post this single photo of myself enjoying the 360 view of a sunset in one of my favorite cities. Not thinking about the 20 years it's been since I stood in the same spot or worrying about when I'll return. Just being there, memorizing the moment.

Since it was close to 10 at night (isn't it cool that the sun sets so late on summer nights in Paris?), we waited for the tower to "sparkle" at the top of the hour. When it's dark, hundreds of lights glimmer randomly on the exterior of the Eiffel Tower for about five minutes on the hour. As it glittered, we opted not to squish ourselves back into the elevators and instead walked the 300 or so steps down to the ground, bathing ourselves in the light of one of the world's most famous landmarks.

Back on the ground, Marlowe begged for a cheap illuminated Eiffel Tower. I'm so used to saying "no" when my kids ask for this sort of stuff that we were halfway to the taxi line before I really looked at her and realized that this could be the one thing to help her remember the moment. There were dozens of vendors prowling the base of the Tower with light-up Eiffel Towers and shooting glow-in-the-dark toys high into the air like airborne jellyfish that would flutter slowly to the ground. I stopped one of the vendors (they're interesting, too: many of them are of African descent who have immigrated to Paris to sell trinkets on top of small blankets or sheets that they lay onto the ground at various landmarks; when the police arrive, they gather up the corners of the blanket and take off with their wares as though they were just walking around) and bargained the price down a little. The glimmer of the mini tower and my daughter's face under the glow of the Eiffel Tower is one of those things that I don't think I could forget. I actually went back and bought another one for Emme (Nina didn't want one), hoping that this new "night light" will remind them, too.

Louvre It or Leave It

Ah yes, the Mona Lisa. Infamous. Well-loved. A world-wide symbol of art and museums. Much, much smaller than you would have thought.

The Louvre Museum, the largest art museum in the world, is far more massive than I anticipated. We visited maybe a thimble-full of the exhibits, racing past centuries-old sculptures and important works by dead artists, trying to keep up with our amazing guide, Leontine from Paris Personalized. I'd decided that, in addition to a half-day city walk of Paris, our tour time would be best used with a guide through the Louvre. I know that the girls will hear about the Louvre and its famous works for the rest of their lives and I just had to give them a taste of it, but I knew I didn't have the patience to guide us through it, so a guide was the way to go.

Although I've been to Paris before, the Louvre was closed; the famous welcome pavilion, topped by glass pyramids, was being built and the foundation of the castle's medieval moat was being excavated. So though I'd seen countless Leonardo da Vinci works throughout my travels in Italy and in an amazing exhibit the last time I was at the Uffizi in Florence, I'd never seen the Mona Lisa for myself, up close and personal.

Leontine made our tour like a little treasure hunt, giving us insight into the kings who had lived at the Louvre before it was a museum as well as the history behind the art and the politics of the paintings and sculptures. For instance, Napoleon had the pope painted into his big coronation scene, even though the pope did not consent to actually crowning Napoleon as "emporer" (a self-imposed title by the tiny ruler); in another painting, Napoleon had the artist show him touching ill soldiers in Israel, though the truth is that he scorned the afflicted. All of it was propaganda. I especially liked the realization that none of this is "truth" -- I mean, was Jesus really crowned by a gold halo of light, and was each artist really there at the Last Supper? In one painting, the largest one in the Louvre (I think; after a while, it's very easy to get museum vertigo), Jesus sits at the head of the table at a Venetian wedding party. Naturally, he's in the garb of rich Italians from the era, and there are dogs on the table, a monkey on someone's arm, wine flowing (turned from water into wine by Jesus himself) and portraits of several monks from the monastery that commissioned the painting. I suppose it's not unlike Angelyne in Los Angeles having herself painted as young and beautiful on billboards...

Anyway, the mob around the Mona Lisa was rabid, very much like paparazzi. Flashes going off in all directions. I knew the picture wouldn't be incredibly good, whatever angle I took it from, so I chose instead to have my kids in it, to show them later on that they had been there. I can always buy a Mona Lisa postcard - even from our own LA County Art Museum, right?

And I'll say something snotty about the Greek and Roman statues, too... I've seen "better" in Naples and in Florence. The sculptures were gorgeous, of course. I'm a huge fan of the big M (Michelangelo), and I spent a long, long time at L'Accademia in Florence (and all around the city) just admiring the way in which his sculptures capture the way that blood flows through his subjects' bodies. They feel alive, vivrant, and I always expect them to just walk right off the marble slab and stand among us. The ones at the Louvre are no less spectacular -- and there was also a beautiful room at Versailles celebrating goddess statuary that I liked very much -- but when you've walked alone in a room stacked full of these statues (as I did at the Archeological Museum in Naples, Italy), you sort of expect the same thing. But that's not the French style. Instead, the sculptures are curated, given a wide berth to show off their significance. And I suppose that's the best way to truly appreciate their majesty in such a large museum that receives 7 million visitors a year; I guess I was spoiled by being able to truly experience Roman sculptures in a personal way.

The Venus de Milo -- what I was able to see of it from our vantage point at the edge of a Chinese tour group -- was remarkable in that it is an actual Greek statue, not a Roman reproduction of a Greek statue. It's beautiful, and its beauty is derived from its humble discovery by a Greek farmer in a field, as well as the fact that it has not been "restored" and is in the same condition (which is excellent) as when it was found over a century ago. There is another amazing statue, "Winged Victory," that I loved because the marble was sculpted to look like a sheer gauze rippling across Nike's body in the wind. I can't imagine how stone can be worked to look like movement or softness, but that's part of its mystery.

We didn't stick around after our three-hour tour. The kids were done, and Raf and I were dying for a break from art, too. I keep telling myself that it was for the kids' sakes that we had to leave and take a break, but the truth is that the Louvre is too much museum for a single day or a single visit. There's a lot to digest, so much to discover. Leontine said that it could take three years to see everything and I totally get it. Next time, I'll see a little more.

See? I have to come back.

Luxembourg Playground

After walking and learning and listening and being told to follow grown-ups for hours, it's no wonder that our kids went CRAZY for the playground at Luxembourg Gardens. It's not free but it's only 2.5 euros per kid (it's a nominal fee for accompanying adults, too, but we chose to sit outside the little fence and read instead; smart, eh?). There's a rope Eiffel Tower to climb, a poma ride (where the kids can stand on a little seat thing and fly around a small area - that's what Emme's doing in the picture to the left, she's the one in the gray shirt and green shorts), a few incredible climbing walls, rocking horses, an honest-to-god merry-go-round that we used to ride on when we were kids, and so much more. Very fun for them, and relaxing for us. I read an entire article about a Parisian art scandal while they played and then, after an hour and a half, everybody was ready for the rest of the afternoon.

Paris, Salsa on the Side

Leave it to us to find a Mexican restaurant right around the corner... This one, called Fajitas, is rumored to be the best Mexican place in the city (we were surprised there were any Mexican places here!). We arrived around 2 pm and had the place to ourselves, but when we passed by at 7 pm it was packed. The margaritas were delicious, the chips and guacamole were exactly as we'd expected, and my nachos were worthy of any plate in Southern California. They even had a hot salsa arbol that, if I lived anywhere nearby, would become a staple in my daily diet. The kids ate like there was no tomorrow; as I've mentioned before, they are not huge fans of French cuisine, so this was a tremendous treat for them.

Too bad it's closed on Sundays and Mondays!

Ten More Pounds!

Paris is a dizzying display of deliciousness. The cakes and cookies and pastries rival the cheese. Our tour guide yesterday was telling us that there are strict rules about how to make everything in Paris and that there are "millions" of societies (guilds) for each food. Like bread. She said that you cannot have the same person make bread AND cakes in a boulangerie. It's not legal. And if that happens, you will be fined. A lot. So bakeries don't do it.

They also use the freshest, best ingredients. American meat is outlawed here and has been for 30 years - why? Because hormones and additives are not allowed here. Neither are GMOs (genetically modified organisms; these are fruits and vegetables that have been chemically altered to produce larger or more "genetically favorable" results, such as thinner skins or frost-resistance); in America, many of our foods may be "organic" (farmed without the use of pesticides) but their seeds are genetically modified, so who knows what their chemicals are doing to us internally?

I hadn't given it too much thought in the US, just tend to try to buy organic, but here's what happened when my kids begged us to buy strawberries in the supermarche on the first day: the kids said, "Mom, why are the strawberries so little?" I shrugged but we bought them anyway, hoping they'd be okay. When they bit into the berries, they said, "They taste different." I grabbed one, saying, "Is it bad?"

"No, they're amazing!" The kids had red juice oozing from their mouths and the entire pound of berries was finished before we'd walked the single block back to the hotel.

What's the difference? Instead of being "meaty" and fleshy with a "strawberry" flavor like what we're used to, these berries were like perfumed gem-like candies, tasting like tiny bursts of juice. They don't even taste like strawberries... it's like a cross between a raspberry and a sweet plum... or a just-picked cherry... It's delightful. Not created for mass-consumption, just a revelation of berry sweetness.

But the entire city is filled with stands like this, for every little thing. Antoinette (our tour guide) took us to a tiny block that has thrice-weekly produce markets and is surrounded by brick-and-mortar shops; the butcher, the baker, the candle-stick maker... Seriously. There was a fish monger, then a cheese store, then a butcher, then a bakery, then a gourmet sundry store... It was intense, this focus on the quality (not the quantity) of the food.

For an American with just a few days here, it is overwhelming. I want to try EVERYTHING. But it is enough to know that it's here and it has already changed my perspective on food. It makes me want to grow my own food and make everything fresh; a Sisiphyan feat for an American mom with kids who have typically American palates, but I am intrigued. If they can love strawberries like that and can appreciate the difference in the quality of the bread and butter we're eating, then maybe they can learn to want to eat differently. It's a start, anyway.
I only wish I had my running shoes so that I could (maybe) counteract my new love affair with food. I can now appreciate Julia Child's love for French cooking.

Ahhh, Paris!

In Paris, the gelato cones (from Amorino on Rue du Buci) look like blossoming roses of chocolate and strawberry.

In Paris, the riverbanks look like little parks (at least during daylight and twilight hours), with people gathering to eat picnics, drink wine, sing songs (like the warbled Bob Marley "Satisfy My Soul" rendition that some French teens were belting out as we passed, or the kids who were humming the beginning notes of the Shins' "New Slang" on the Bateaux Mouches). Lovers kiss. Children roam and play. Tourists gawk and take pictures that are probably blurry or have people in them that they don't know. Ancient monuments hold the sky up.

I'll be honest: Paris scared me. I haven't been here for more than 20 years and I was a teenager in French Club when I was here the last time. I was in love and in love with love. I was crazy and stayed out too late and my French teacher (a short guy from Dallas) tried to reprimand me, but he was too nice to follow through. I lived in Italy at the time, a hedonistic and primitive place compared to the sophistication of Paris, and it never occurred to me that eating at McDonald's and wearing a red beret were lame choices. I remember being treated so rudely by a French waiter near the Musee d'Orsay, even though I spoke reasonable French with a fairly good Parisian accent. I didn't see the Louvre because it was closed (they were constructing the famous pyramids for the welcome pavilion). I went to Versailles but was bored to tears as we roamed aimlessly around the grounds. I almost didn't climb the Sacre Coeur in Montmartre because my boyfriend didn't (but I did do it and it was one of the highlights of my trip). Ahh... seventeen. So young. So naive. So long.

This time, my trip is vastly different and I am no longer living in Europe, so I was worried that it would be harder. I worried about my French being so rusty that we'd be scorned publicly, so Raf and I took French lessons last year (until my French teacher, a strict Quebecoise, made me feel inferior for not speaking the language 100% of the time with her). I fretted over my wardrobe and hoped that navy and white stripes would not be considered gauche or too cliche. I packed way too many pairs of heels. I read a little too much in my Rick Steves guidebook. I was about-to-vomit nervous in Toulouse before we left the airport.

The big reveal? It's positively the most wonderful part of our trip. I am in heaven. EVERY girl and woman (and man) that we pass on the street is both stylish AND wearing navy and white striped shirts... and many of them (women AND men, straight AND gay) are wearing slim-cut denim with the cuffs folded up twice just above their ankles. French words and phrases are coming back to me; I can communicate with nearly everyone and my accent is at least understandable enough to order food, shop, get directions. My high heels have been surprisingly comfortable on the cobblestone streets (and cute, too). Although it's been incredibly helpful, I've also found that I'm reaching beyond what Rick Steves can show me. My nervous stomach was gone as soon as our kind driver Fabrice met us at the airport and began to encourage me to speak French as much as possible. "Your accent is not as bad as many I've heard," he said. That was enough for me.

We're staying at the Citadines Apart'Hotel in the St. Germain-de-Pres area, which is in the middle of EVERYTHING we want to see. Not only is it conveniently located (just off the Seine on the Left Bank, two blocks from the St. Michel metro station, a bridge walk and a block or two from the Louvre on one side and the same distance from Notre Dame on the other side), but it's a one-bedroom apartment with a fully-equipped kitchenette and plenty of space for our cinq personne family. That may not seem like a big deal, but we were able to walk to a supermarche on the first afternoon and then come home and cook veggies for our kids (the first they'd had in nearly two weeks). There's a laundry room downstairs, free coffee in the lobby 24/7 and free internet in each room. Heaven.

Raf had told me that I had nothing to worry about, except maybe someone mistaking me for a local and asking me for directions, which I scoffed at. And then it happened last night. We were leaving the supermarche Carrefour in the Latin Quarter with the kids around 10:45 pm (I know, we're living on Euro time), baguette in hand, and watching a few street performers break dancing. Two young French girls approached me with a map asking for help in finding the St. Michel station. I answered them in Franglish, even though I knew the words in French - I was scared to send them in the wrong direction, which I think I may have anyway (but where better to be lost than in the 6th arrondisement in Paris?). Just go toward the Rue des Grands Augustins, I advised. Find the Seine and go right. St. Michel is just a few blocks down. Can't miss it.

"See?" Raf said. "I told you."

And so he did. I could get used to this city.

City of Light, Love and Lost Teeth

A few weeks before we left for Europe, Marlowe lost her first tooth. Soon after, she showed us that the one immediately next to the new little tooth vacancy was also loose. We wiggled it and jiggled it and tried to make it come out before we left, but to no avail.

On the drive to LAX, Raf tried to grab it and make it come out, but it held steadfast to its moorings.

"Marlowe, where will we be when your tooth comes out?" I asked her and she shrugged, smiling.

Each time we arrived in a new city, our whole family took turns feeling the looseness of that tiny tooth. "Come on, Mar! Barcelona!" we said as we rode the aerial cable car high above the city. In a few days, we said, "South of France!"" Finally, in the Toulouse Airport, en route to Paris, we all sort of came to the conclusion that the little tooth was to come out in our new house, like the other one.

Oh, but Paris has a magical hold on all of us and that tooth decided to pop out and see the city by night with the Tooth Fairy. On the very first night, no less. That oh-so-cosmpolitan Tooth Fairy left three American dollars and 2 Euros. How she found us, we'll never know.

Au revoir, petit dent!

Lessons from The Darjeeling Limited

Arguably, Raf's and my favorite movie (collectively) of the past several years is Wes Anderson's "The Darjeeling Limited." I've read so many unfavorable reviews of this movie that it makes me scratch my head and wonder why we love it so much... but then we'll watch it again (and again) and I just have to believe that we all just love what we love. That, and the timing of when we originally saw it was spot-on.

If you haven't seen it, it's about three estranged brothers who reunite in India at the request of the oldest brother, Frances (played by Owen Wilson), a year after their father died unexpectedly. The younger two brothers (Adrien Brody and Jason Schwartzman) don't know it, but Frances is hoping that they'll track down their mother, who has run away to become a nun, and secretly Frances is hoping that both the journey to find her AND her motherly instincts will provide spiritual insight and somehow protect them, much in the way that their father probably did.

Right, so you can imagine how this goes... the brothers disagree on most things and argue about who was the father's favorite, etc. They travel with an army of their father's monogrammed Louis Vuitton luggage through train stations and into remote villages, trying to get a sense of what this life is all about.

When we saw Darjeeling, it was nearly a year after Raf's father had passed away suddenly and the poignant sadness and loss of direction that pervades the film resonated with both of us, as well as the three brothers on a quest to find themselves (Raf is one of three sons and also has an older sister, so it's a little off, but the feeling is right). There is a searching in the movie... and though the characters never really find themselves, it's as though it's okay to just keep putting one foot in front of the other without a real spiritual direction. And that message was hopeful to both of us when Raf's dad died.

Now, in light of Raf's brother Max's death, it's hard to even find a reason to put one foot in front of the other. Raf and I talked about it extensively yesterday, sitting in the small clearing behind our suite at the Chateau, enclosed in oleander trees. Without Max, who was Raf's main business partner and closest friend, he feels as though there's nothing that we have to go back "home" for. It's both disorienting and freeing. I've found that I don't have the same homesickness that I usually get when I travel, either; maybe it's because I'm with my family, maybe it's because I don't have a connection with my new home yet, maybe it's because life has changed so dramatically lately that I don't know what to expect or what I should be doing or even what the point of any of it is. If there is a spiritual connection, I don't quite get it. Maybe this is all there is. As Jack, the youngest brother in Darjeeling, says, "Maybe this is part of it."

Anyway, I was thinking of the movie this morning when I woke up because we're about to embark on the last leg of our journey and fly to Paris. I wondered what my lessons have been on this trip and I thought of a line from Darjeeling, when the train that the brothers are riding stops suddenly and they disembark to see what's going on. Frances asks his assistant where they are and the assistant says, "They don't know... We haven't located us yet."

Frances repeats the line to explore its spiritual meaning, and I will, too:

We haven't located us yet.