Rain, Rain, go Away!

The goals for today were... See Rodin’s thinker in the Rodin gardin, visit the Musee D’Orsay, Visit the Versailles palace, and go up the Eiffel tower. When we left the apartment it was nice although a bit cool. We went to the marketplace again and got pain, gruyere fromage, jambon, and cherries. We carried our breakfast thinking we would eat it in the garden, but the garden was not public and we didn’t want to spend any time in the musee so we continued to the Orsay. We ate our breakfast in front of the musee and then went in.

Once again the Rick Steve’s commentaries were really good. I learned more about realism, and impressionism than I ever knew before. Renoir, Monet, Manet, Whistler, Rodin, it was really good. D’Orsay used to be a train station and the huge high arching ceiling is still preserved.

When we finished we noticed that it had started to rain, so we decided to take the train straight out to Versailles. On the way, we passed the statue of liberty, it looks just like the one in New York except it is on the river here in France.

By the time we reached Versailles the weather was really cold and rainy. We dashed across the street to get some food at McDonalds! The bacon on the burgers was excellent! After lunch we tried to start walking but it was so cold and rainy we turned right around and ran back into the mall. We found a souvenir shop that had some sweatshirts, we bought 4 sweatshirts and 2 umbrellas. We have vowed that we will do better at checking the weather forecast for the day in the future.

The Versailles palace was moderately interesting. Admission included an audio tour but it was not nearly as interesting as the Rick Steves guides. The rooms were interesting but the commentary most mostly about who made the furniture when, and how many coats of laquer were applied. Not so intersting unless you are a furniture maker. We did learn more about the history of Louis XIV, XV, and XVI which was good. We stayed through 2/3 of our tour but the line to get into the kings chambers in the main hall was just too long to stand in during a cold rain so we headed back and took the train back to town.

Once back in town we came to the apartment to rest and relax a bit.

Dinner tonight was at a Bistro down the road. Kaia and I had Chicken Shishkebab with curry sauce, Jane had Duck with honey sauce, Josh had Beef rib, which was a ribeye steak. Again it was all good. After dinner we had a chocolate crepe and a crepe with sugar, almonds, cinnamon and citron (lemon juice). A great desert.

So far the best part of the trip is.…

• Kaia: Notre Dame, the food in general
• Josh: Notre Dame except I had to pee really bad, and the crepes
• Mom: Notre Dame
• Dad: Musee D’Orsay

Walking, Walking, Walking

Yesterday morning we got up and walked down to the marketplace for breakfast. Josh really wanted to buy a box of raspberries, so we did and they were the best raspberries anybody had ever had. A little further down the street we discovered a bakery. So we had a baguette, and chocolate eclair, and a doughnut. All very fresh and good. Decorah really needs a market area like this... (perhaps as part of the Kellog grant proposal Brenda could do this)

After our little breakfast we walked, over the bridge to the grand palace, down the road to the obelisk, onward to point zero, further still to the Louvre. In the Louvre we walked. The Rick Steve’s iPod tour was really helpful and interesting.

Our family seems to have three speeds when going through a museum. Josh and Mom lead the way, Dad is in the middle, and Kaia wants to savor every work of art. In the Louvre we saw many classic greek and roman works of art.

the Louvre was very interesting we saw the Mona Lisa of course, along with many other famous works including Winged Victory, and the Venus DiMilo. It was a good learning experience as we learned how the greek artistry influenced the romans and other artists for many years to come.

Lunch was at the Cafe Beaux Arts, just a random place we picked as we walked by. Josh had a cheeseburger, can you believe it? Kaia had Penne with fresh basil and red sauce. Jane and I both had a hot ham and cheese sandwich (Jambon avec Fromage) on toasted bread. The sandwich was delicious. In keeping with French tradition we had a small glass of wine. So far the idea that wine is cheaper than pop does not seem to be true.

After lunch we continued walking, walking, walking down the the island in the Seine. We went to Notre Dame cathedral, and the center point which is right out front. The center point is the place that all other distances in France are measured from. The cathedral was amazing. When we got there the line to go in to the main cathedral was long so we went around the corner and got in line to go up the tower. This turned out to be a good decision, as the views were just great. In addition once at the top you get to go into the bell tower itself to see a GIANT bell. The radius at the bottom must be a good 10-12 feet and is so heavy you can’t really make it move back and forth by pushing on it. After the large bell we were able to continue even farther up the bell tower for even better views of the city. The weather was a little cloudy so the Eiffel tower was in a haze in our picture.

When we got done with the tower tour the line was nothing to get into the cathedral. So we went inside. Mass was in progress but tourists were still allowed to wander around the perimeter. The rose window and the organ were both beautiful.

By the time we finished the cathedral we were getting pretty tired, so we decided to get a quick snack. We had a crepe chocolate to split. Very very good. We continued down to the last little island called Isle St. Louis. Here there were many nice shops and restaurants. On the way off the island we stopped to watch a street performer for a while. He was an acrobat and had a fun show.

By that time we were really tired and wanted to catch a boat ride back up the river. But we couldn’t seem to find the right one so we gave up and walked, walked, walked back to the apartment. We were all very foot sore by the time we made it to the apartment. I think none of us thought we would walk that far and we were sorry we didn’t have the pedometer to keep track. We do know that we climbed 400 stairs in Notre Dame!

After a short rest, and some consulting of Rick Steve’s we decided to find dinner somewhere close by. Dinner was at La Arcade. We tried to get in at several of Rick Steve’s recommended places but they were all quite busy. Josh had Duck, Kaia had Chevre in Phyllo Dough, I had rack of Lamb, and Jane had Prawns.

The Long Road to Paris

A long day! We drove through some rain and thunder to get to the airport in Cedar Rapids. Unfortunately it was also windy in Chicago which was a bad omen for us. Our flight was delayed getting to CR and once we got out to the end of the runway the dreaded ground stop announcement came. Chicago was not allowing us to take off because they had no landing slots. So we sat at the end of the runway for 45 minutes and one more rain squall before we could finally take off.

As we began our descent into Chicago we watched helplessly as the time ticked closer to 4:30, our scheduled departure time. Our only hope was that our outbound flight was as delayed as everything else. This was not to be. We got off the plane and ran across 2 concourses to get to our gate only to find out the plane had left without us. We were told to go to K6, the rebooking gate. The line there looked 2 hours long at least. Jane tried to talk to the gate agent for the paris flight but they told us there was not enough time to get our bags on the flight.

So there we were standing in line, using Kaia’s cell phone to call the rebooking number with a hold time of more than 28 minutes. Finally I was able to flag down a manager (Shawn ) and I asked him why we couldn’t get on the Paris flight. When I explained that it looked like we were going to miss an entire day of our vacation I think he felt sorry for us. So, he looked on the computer and said we could fly to Frankfurt and then back to Brussels. That flight left at 7:00. When he went to change our booking he discovered that we had already been rebooked on a flight to London connecting to Brussels. How we were ever supposed to discover that is a huge mystery.

On the flight to London we were given the very back row of seats in the 777. This means we were even behind the bathrooms. The flight attendant told us he would move us up because it was a very smelly place to sit. He was a really nice guy and moved us to bulkhead seats in row 20, which made for a pretty comfortable flight.

We had five hours in Heathrow to kill, so we tried to get some sleep in the international lounge. Once on our plane to Brussels we were seated in front of three obnoxious women (kind of like the nightmare version of Bridget Jone’s Diary)

Once in Brussels everything went very smoothly, all the luggage was intact, we zipped through customs and didn’t even have to wait at the car rental counter. We had a little fun trying to get our first tank of gas since I went to the Belgium card side of the gas station and none of my credit cards would work. I finally learned that we need to go to the other side of the gas station to fill up.

Now we are enroute to Paris! So far the GPS has been working and have not gotten lost yet. We hid major rush hour traffic in Brussels and were zooming along toward paris until just a moment ago when we hit a big slowdown. Josh is enjoying our drive to Paris by looking at all the cars he would like to drive.

As I write this in the car, we are all tired and hungry so are very much looking forward to getting to our apartment and having an evening meal.

After Jane and I left the kids in the apartment and parked the car we all went for a walk to check out the eiffel tower at night. Beautiful.

We had late night pizza at La Gourmandise. A little Pizza shop that seated about 16 people max. Josh and I split a Pizza Margherita avec chorizo and Jane and Kaia split the four fromage pizza. Very good.