Henry VIII Lives On

We Learn About Foos Ball

Little brains can only take so much in the way of art and architecture before they need a break. Given the rigors of the Paris trip, they got one today. Laura had planned to take Aunt Linda and Uncle Bill out for more sightseeing and some shopping which wouldn't have gone over well with the girls, so when Kristin called with a proposal to join her and the kids at a local fun center, Scott agreed to take them. The Eddie Catz play center in Putney was a zoo, owing to the fact that it is school holidays here. Our girls joined Kristin's three kids and probably 90 more in running, jumping, romping and playing boisterously in a cavernous and very noisy room while parents like us sat in a cafe on premises and looked on benignly enjoying coffee and access to the wireless internet. I doubt you could do this in the states due to liability concerns, but the girls loved it. They even learned to play foos ball and air hockey, which they thought was quite fun, especially given that the opponent was Dad, who is no better at the foos ball table than Olivia.

The Chunnel To Paris

Although London is the capital of an island nation cut off from the rest of the world by water, it is still remarkably close to the rest of Europe--if you can get there. Fortunately, since the advent of the Chunnel--the high speed rail that passes beneath the English Channel--that's a lot easier than it used to be. We decided to take the opportunity while Uncle Bill and Aunt Linda are here to make a one-day trip to at least see the highlights. To do this, we had to be up at 5 a.m. for a 6 a.m departure from the house. We crossed London, and by 7:45 a.m. our train was on its way. The train ride itself is about 2.5 hours. Seats are comfortable and reserved. There are restrooms in each coach and a restaurant coach so it's an overall good way to travel. Going through the Chunnel was a non-event. It's just like an extended ride on the tube with nothing to see but black walls on either side. The only thing really noticeable is that the ride on the French side is a lot rougher and the resulting ride a bit more bouncy. It may be track condition or the fact that the train goes faster on the French side. The cost is about 57 pounds each way with kids being half price. That's not a huge savings over the air fare, but it has two advantages: you end up in the middle of Paris and there is a time savings because you don't have the extended airport check-in. That's not to say there isn't security. All the features--passport control, customs and screening are there--they just go faster. In all, it's a good way to travel.

A Trip On the Metro

We were dropped in Paris at the enormous Gare du Nord station. Talk about a maze of interconnecting systems. We then had to make our way to downtown, via the Metro, the Paris equivalent of London's Tube. The Metro is a bit more complicated than the Tube for a couple of reasons: the signage pointing out the connections is worse, there is no staff at each gate to provide helpful direction and the frequent information points are generally unmanned and several different lines apparently under different management make up the system. Unlike the Tube, there is a also a noticecable lack of escalators, so there are lot of stairs to negotiate. Throw the language barrier on top of that, and it gets interesting, although it is still manageable, provided you have the one commodity we didn't have much of: time. After finding a ticket office to buy one-day passes, we eventually made our way downtown to the island of San Martin in the middle of Paris, emerging in the back of St. Chapelle about a block away from Notre Dame.

One of the World's Great Cathedrals: Notre Dame

Paris has been around for 1700 years, having first been settled by the Romans. The site where Notre Dame cathedral is was first the site of a Roman forum and baths. We explored the underground ruins at the plaza before heading over to the cathedral to take a look. Presumably, the cathedral is a place of Christian worship in this fairly secular country. It has all the elements; however, the throngs of people crawling all over it weren't there to worship but to gawk. We did think it was notable that while state-supported Westminster Abbey in London manages to charge f12 per head to see one of England's spiritual centers, Notre Dame is free to all. For all that, Notre Dame is a beautiful and spiritual place. The gothic architecture is indescribably inspiring. The giant rose window awes. We also used the opportunity to teach Olivia, who proclaimed Notre Dame "the most beautiful place on earth", a little about architecture with mini-lectures on barrel vaults, ribbed vaults, flying buttresses and gargoyles. I would not say there was high retention but maybe something stuck. Cecily reported that she liked it, too. One wonders what she thinks she saw, since she doubled over on Dad's shoulders and slept for the entire visit. For Dad's part, he saw the bottom half of the Cathedral, it being almost impossible to look up with forty pounds of dead weight hanging around one's neck.

French Fries and French People

After the Cathedral, it was time for lunch. After six weeks of British "cuisine" (can you call it that?) we had forgotten that some cultures can cook. The steak frites and the onion soup were excellent, as of course was the inexpensive French table wine, and it was made all the more enjoyable due to the conviviality of the Brasserie setting. This was also the girls' first chance to experience that oh-so-Continental institution, the pay toilet. Olivia rather found the idea of the having to pay for the loo highly offensive. What was not offensive was the level of attention paid to the girls by proprieters and customers alike. French people, unlike their English counterparts, are extremely friendly. Many people went out of their way to talk to the girls, in French of course, and while they enjoyed the interaction it was unnerving after six weeks of British reserve where no one really speaks to anyone without first having a proper introduction by a third party. Hearing French spoken was perhaps the biggest benefit of this whole trip. Olivia was wildly unimpressed with cathedrals and such but she was wowed by the fact that Dad, Mom and Aunt Linda could all speak to people in French AND THEY UNDERSTOOD! She is now quite committed to the idea that foreign language is an essential skill and tells us she is ready to start learning.

L'Arc de Triomphe (and how one little person terrorized it)

After lunch, Aunt Linda and Uncle Bill wanted to see the L'Arc de Triomphe. So off we went to the Champs d'Elysee to find it. That wasn't hard, given the way it looms over Paris. We took the requisite photographs with the arch in the background and then decided to walk through the subterranean passage to emerge inside and take a closer look. Only at the end of the passageway did we discover the admission toll which is required to go up into the roundabout where the arch sits. I can't imagine why anybody actually pays admission to stand under a large piece of masonry in the middle of a busy city street and stare, and we weren't willing to part with our Euros either. So we returned the way we came and stopped at the local McDonald's for a pit stop. As usual, Cecily had a "I'll do it myself" moment in the bathroom, which given the circumstances really didn't work. When she was told she would not be doing it herself, she decided to throw an impressive, scream-at-the-top-of-her-lungs and even foam-at-the-mouth fit, which she continued right into the street. So here we are in the picture above along Paris's busiest boulevard with a magnificent monument as a background watching Cecily writhe and scream for the benefit of all Paris. For sure, it was a proud parenting moment.

Ponies In The Park

Post Arc, we went to the Luxembourg Garden, former home of French royals and current home of the French Senate, where, in the opinion of the girls, they got the best treat of our entire trip: two pony rides and two carousel rides. Whatever other kinds of cultural crap their parents may have dragged them to, this made the long train ride worth every pound, especially since they got to choose their own mounts. Olivia announced that this was the best activity in all of Europe, and all three girls chattered incessantly about the behavior of their individual horses all the way back through the park.

The Sun Sets On Paris

With the time to return to the station drawing near, we decided one more stop was in order. We took the rather complicated Metro journey back to Sacre-Coeur and Monmarte, the wedding-cake style church and market that sit atop the highest hill in Paris overlooking the whole city. F'ortunately, their is a finiculair (a carriage that moves up a hillside) so we were able to avoid the 235 steps from the metro stop to the top, which was good given that we have walked Linda so much that her toenails are starting to come loose. Once at the church, we got a look at the inside, were our 5-year-old, Meredith, surprised us with her interest in the architecture. She found the huge mosaic of Christ resurrected and the domed interior quite beautiful. It was, in fact, the postcard she later chose to send home to friends. With twilight falling, we also stopped to stare out over the view of the city lights and monuments. That was of mild interest, but of more interest to the girls was the enormous smog cloud hanging over the city. Having not seen such a thing before, Olivia was offended, and in fact, insisted for a while that it must just be a weather phenomenon. She was soon convinced, however, that is was indeed pollution and being the environmentally righteous 8-year-old she is, we had to hear as we hurried back to the train all about the failings of French society to adequately protect the planet. Perhaps it was all this diatribe that very nearly made us late, though the more likely explanation was the need to fill out seven boarding cards and the life history taken of us at passport control. As it was, we gone on the train, seconds before it pulled out of the station and had to walk through eleven cars to get to our seats. We finally fell into bed exhausted at 11:30 that night. All in all, despite it being a very busy day, the girls did really well, especially considering there were no naps or real rest breaks, and hopefully, we even learned something!

No Blog Posts Today

There will be no blog post today. We are making a one-day trip to Paris via the Chunnel. We'll fill you in on our adventure when we return!