Comin' Home

One thing I didn't mention about our trip was how easy it was for us to travel around with our kids. Okay, not "easy," but utterly manageable. We toted them onto planes, trains, automobiles, boats, taxis and elevators into world landmarks, most of the time without a long wait or a lot of hassle.

Surprisingly, the last flight of the entire trip was the worst. We arrived at the Charles de Gaulle Airport with three hours to spare, planning to use the time for souvenir-shopping and breakfast. Instead, we waited for a half-hour in a line under a sign for our flight... which turned out to be the wrong line. 45 minutes later, I'd checked us in via the e-ticket kiosk, but we were stuck in a massive line for baggage check-in. We were shuffling behind a couple of men with B.O. so bad that I actually put my scarf around my face (oh, and one of them was quite fond of pointing, which spread the scent around). There were only 2 people working at the Air France counters because it was lunch time.... Hmmm.... 2 people for more than 500 travelers. It didn't make any sense. Not only that, but once we raced through the three security checkpoints, we had only 10 minutes before our flight, and had to settle for a slice of quiche, potato chips and some cookies on the way to the gate (no souvenir shopping, unfortunately, but we did manage to spend our last 20 euros easily on the snacks). One more 20 minute wait to get onto the plane (and another security check), and then we were stuck on the plane for an hour and a half while the REST of the passengers (who were held up in one of the crazy lines in the airport) and their luggage got on board. Insanity.

But once we got flying, it was fine. Air France had a bunch of great on-demand movies, so I saw four (and my kids and husband got to watch their own). All of us slept at least a little bit. And the flight arrived only about an hour late. We didn't have anyone waiting for us, so we could just take our time and find a taxi home. The girls fell asleep minutes after we got into the taxi and I realized that we were in the middle of our own "groundhog's day" -- we'd left France around 2:30 pm and had arrived in Los Angeles around 5 pm... So there had been no night while we'd flown "back in time." Very disorienting.

So now we're home. Raf is sick with a cold and the kids are already begging for me to do stuff with them, I'm doing a ton of laundry and have to restock our fridge and pantry, but we're doing well. I will continue to digest our trip and may post a little more as I go through pictures, but we are home sweet home in the land of ice, half-and-half and breakfasts that feature more protein than carbs. Viva Los Angeles!

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.

Our Tour de France

So today is the final day of La Tour de France and we are in Paris, only a few blocks from L'Arc de Triomphe, where the riders will complete their nearly month-long ride through the French countryside. Although we're so close - and it's thrilling for Raf and me to be here because we've watched the Tour on TV for several years - we are watching it on Rai 2 TV in our hotel room; the thought of dragging our kids out in the craziness of the Champs-Elysses today just to hope to get a glimpse of Lance Armstrong on his final Tour is more than a little daunting. Sometimes you just have to put your own dreams on the backburner for the good of the group.

However, yesterday we rode through Versailles on rented bikes, creating our own version of the Tour and, inadvertently, a highlight of the trip.

I'd planned which day we'd visit Versailles from the moment we chose our dates for the trip. It's a short Metro/bus hop to Les Invalides, then a train switch to an RER train, then about a half-hour to Versailles, then a 10-minute walk to the palace, then long lines, long waits, and several places where you need to buy tickets to enter/pass through various areas (the gardens, Marie Antoinette's Petit Trianon estate, etc.). Needless to say, by the time we arrived at a spot where we could sit in the garden and eat lunch (bread-and-butter sandwiches, sliced meat, cheese, fruit and Oreos), the kids were wiped out and we hadn't even gone into the Chateau yet. The only thing they wanted to do was get ice cream and ride bikes. And so we found the bike rentals and took off.

I had hoped to see the palace and grounds in the same pink-hued softly punk-rock light as I'd admired in the Sofia Coppola movie Marie Antoinette. Now, I've lived in Los Angeles long enough to know that what you see in movies is not necessarily the truth and, in that respect, I wasn't disappointed by the lack of magic in and around Versailles. It's almost like I wanted to go home and watch the movie instead, preserving the sumptuousness of the era in my imagination rather than shuffling along with other rabid tourists toting cameras and speaking loudly in many foreign tongues. When I made our family lock up the bikes and go into Petit Trianon, it was like a hot maze of people wandering through empty rooms with blank walls... not at all the grand experience I'd hoped for. My imagination was at a loss to fill in the blanks, save for what I could remember from Sofia Coppola's movie. Very quickly, I realized that the "magic" would be in the experience, not in the place or the stuff.

And so we bought an orange juice (there are kiosks all around the grounds where they'll cut and squeeze fresh juice for you, memorializing the Sun King Louis the 14th, who built Versaille and even had an Orangerie where he had exotic orange trees grow even through the harshly cold French winters) and took off on our bikes. It was exhilarating to ride around the grounds unencumbered by people or signs or cars... We saw sheep and horses and goats. We got a firsthand feeling for how large the estate is, and we barely biked around the Grand Canal. For kids (and parents) who have been cooped up while traveling, it was a welcome burst of energy and fresh air.

After we returned the bikes, Raf took Emme and Nina to the cafe while Marlowe and I quickly roamed through a few rooms of the main palace of Versailles, just because we were there and I knew I'd want to see it. But the magic was in the day itself, in the people I went with, and the Versailles that I'd already created as a figment of my own imagination.

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!

Paris, Personalized

When we were planning our trip, my travel agent encouraged me to hire a private tour guide to help us navigate the touristy maze of Paris. At first I balked - I mean, I can find my way around a guidebook and figure it all out, right? - but she kept mentioning that other clients had found it to be a highlight of their trip. I looked at the website and decided, Why not? And so we chose two special tours for our family, to be led by Paris Personalized.

The first tour was planned for the morning after our arrival in Paris, a three-hour walking tour called "Highlights of Paris." I thought it might be a lot of walking for the kids, that they'd be bored, etc., but from the moment we met Antoinette (the owner of the tour company and our guide for this tour), we knew that we were in good hands. Antoinette is a petite woman who walks fast and smiles easily. She speaks with a lilting British accent and was not at all condescending to the kids; in fact, she tailored many of her facts and stories to appeal to them, winning them over with tales of a scandalous poisoner named Mme. Brinvilliers and the grisly details of medieval and revolutionary Paris. We heard about heads rolling from the guillotine, robbers using the underground sewer system to steal gold... and we also saw the actual bone of St. Genevieve enclosed in a reliquary at a small church near the Pantheon!

Not only that, but Antoinette walked us through a brief but very interesting and informative tour of Notre Dame. We got to pass all the bored, tired tourists in line and zip around the church, noting the gorgeous "Rose Windows" and then circling around the exterior to see the Gargoyles and flying buttresses. From Notre Dame, she took us through the Latin Quarter and introduced us to a boulangerie (bakery) on St. Germain that makes chouquettes (little puff pastry balls rolled in either sugar or chocolate chips) that Marlowe can eat by the bagful. She pointed out the markets that I mentioned yesterday (the butcher, the baker, the fish monger...), where we bought our picnic lunch items, and then we followed her quick steps to Luxembourg Palace, a magnificent area of Paris that features playgrounds, flowers, boat races (for kids) and pony rides, as well as the model of the Statue of Liberty. After a brief talk about the gardens and the Queen who lived there (one of the de Medici's of Tuscany, who modeled the palace after the Pitti Palace in Florence), Antoinette left us to roam through the gardens and take it in like locals, with a picnic lunch.

Far from being a boring lecture that we'd forget immediately, the tour proved to be a valuable introduction to the beautiful neighborhood where we're staying. Thanks to Antoinette, the web of streets and alleys on our map of Paris have been untangled.

This is Antoinette, pointing out the architectural wonders of Notre Dame to Raf, Serena and Marlowe. She even had on the same sort of sparkly silver shoes that Marlowe was wearing. Love at first sight!