We left Lyon this morning to head to Paris. We had so much stuff packed. Not only did we have our four suitcases (though they are on the smallish side) and our four backpacks, we had two bags of food stuffs we were hauling to Paris. We looked like gypsies. I am sure more than two Frenchies said, "Look at those ridiculous Americans." Oh well.
It was hard to leave Lyon. It has been so so so so nice to be with Agnes, to sit and talk and catch up and share. I love her and I don't know when I will see her again. It makes me sad to be so far away, but I grateful for the gospel and the knowledge that we will meet again, even if it isn't in this life. She is young, I am young, and I hope it will not be the last time we are together. It was wonderful to be with her and I am grateful that we made Lyon a stop in our trip.
We took the TGV (train grande vitesse) to Paris, a trip of only two hours. We also paid just a bit extra and sat in first class. It was a double-decker train and we sat up top (of course), and because we had paid a bit more, there were only two other people in the carriage with us. The children were thrilled to be on the train; they poked their noses into every door and wanted to explore the train from front to back. They thought it was super cool how fast we were going too, and even Kent and I thought it was pretty great. I love train travel which is much more comfortable than air travel, and we had a good time. We passed the most charming little villages that would be delightful to explore someday. Well, I assume they are charming--we zipped past them so quickly we mostly got a brief view before we had raced past.
A charming village zooming past.
At our niece Michelle's suggestion, I booked a small flat through a service called Air BNB. Private people offer their apartments for rent to travelers, usually for much less than it would cost to stay in a hotel, especially one in Paris. We had not been able to really find a reasonably priced hotel, and I was pleased with the flat we found. It was small with a loft bed, a futon, and a smaller bed under the loft, a tiny bathroom, and a small kitchen (I've used small three times and tiny once in this sentence alone), but it was charming and the kids thought it was great. It was nicely located a short walk from a metro station with a hub for three lines. We were pleased with the results of our reservation and found our host (although we didn't actually meet him) to be accommodating and easy to work with.
The shower.
Did I mention how tiny the bathroom was?
The shower was so small I had difficulty bending down to pick up the soap when I dropped it
because there wasn't any extra room to move around.
I did love the bright green tile, however.
The sink space was small too.
Hardly room for the toothbrushes.
This is the kitchen. There is a cooktop, mini refrigerator, sink, and microwave.
There was no oven, not even a toaster oven.
We didn't realize this and bought a frozen pizza and salad stuff for dinner.
Frozen pizza cooked in a microwave leaves something to be desired.
Quite a large something.
At least we didn't go to bed hungry,
and we didn't spend $80 on dinner.
We knew that we were going to have to find kid-interest sorts of things to do while in Paris. This was not going to be a museum going trip. We knew that the next best thing to a train ride was a boat ride, to this afternoon we went down to the Bateaux Mouche for a boat tour of the Seine. The river was extremely high because of some water phenomenon upriver, and so we were not able to have the full tour as is typical when the river is running normally, but it didn't matter. We were all happy to be outside, in the sun, on the water, seeing interesting things.
Unfortunately, much of what we saw was Chinese derrieres. We were first in line to get on the boat and got seats on the very front row; unobstructed view, we thought. However, a very large group of Chinese tourists got on and stood in front of us the whole trip. Blythe asked me several times why they were standing in front of us, and several of our fellow travelers were vocally unhappy with them, but what can you do? We saw what we wanted to see, we had seats, and I suppose we can't be choosy about who is traveling at the same time we are.
Large metal T-rex above the entrance to the bateaux.
I'm not sure what it has to do with anything,
but it sure is cool.
Watching as we get started, pre-Chinese invasion.
The Chinese
The Musee d'Orsay
I am fairly confident that Kent is trying to insure that there is not any fighting between these two.
Although we were on a boat (exciting!), we were sort of captive, unable to wander around.
Brandt and Blythe got a bit froggy.
These are the last pictures I have for today, and as time has passed (I'm actually writing this on Dec 31), I'm not entirely sure what we did the rest of the day. We might have returned to the apartment for a bit of screen time, emailing, and news watching. We did have our microwaved pizza, and I think we called it a day. At the tail end of this long vacation, Kent did not want to be racing around trying to see a gazillion things in a day, and as he and I have both been to Paris several times, and knowing that the children didn't really care, we took it easy.
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