Last Week In Europe

We spent our final week trying to figure out what else we really wanted to spend our time doing in Europe.  We decided that we would just stay put in Paris and not go to any other destinations in order to keep our expenses in focus. Our European portion of our wandering was by far the most expensive. We made sure to capture as many experiences as we could despite the cost. Our justification was two fold. First, if we were to want to experience these things in the future, the expense would be so much more due to the cost of travel. Second, during our month long stay the U.S. Dollar traded at some of the highest valuations relative to the Euro and Pound in the past five years. We had to capitalize on this.

We spent our first full day back in the apartment just letting the kids veg out while Erica and I tackled laundry and grocery shopping. We did manage to make a trip out in our community of Clichy. We stumbled on a few scenic spots. We found a park that we made plans to come back to later in the week. Their community parks are beautiful but they shut down at seven every evening. It felt unfortunate to not be able to relax and watch the sun set over the park as the kids played and made friends, but I am sure there is a valid reason such as minimizing homeless occupation or something. During our month long stay, construction was being completed on our street to build granite intersections where a monument was erected to memorialize a past civic event.  We never were able to uncover exactly what it was.  

We came to appreciate the beauty of the city far more than our experiences with the dwellers there.  We had multiple grumpy neighbors who made it known that they did not appreciate our tenancy. They targeted the kids multiple times which made us upset. Walking on eggshells everyday in this apartment drove us partially out of our minds.  While the kids were noisy in our tiny place, honestly quite frequently, my observation was that kids don't get much room to explore or let off steam within the apartment complexes.  The buildings are old and provide no insulation from any sound.  We were constantly telling the kids to quiet down so much that we got sick of hearing ourselves.  The kids were sick of us yelling at them too and so everyone was feeling frustrated.  Our family has never done well being cooped up or being quiet. Generally speaking the French are...well, quite honestly they lived up to their reputation of being curt and cold.  

The week's activities we pulled off were mostly geared around the kids since they were done with touring historic sites and the daily metro commutes all around the city. We hit The City of Science and Industry Museum which was awesome. The robots and rockets exhibitions were hits with not only the kids but Erica and I too.  The large city park, Parc la Villette, around the museum had the coolest playground with a long metal slide that all of us braved. The kids played with the locals and found a few that spoke fluent English which was a bonus. 

We found ourselves at the Paris Flea Market on Easter Sunday and were extremely impressed with the size and variability in goods sold here. The Easter Bunny came that morning and the kids spent their money they received quickly.  They did not cooperate much with our want to tour the more costly antique sections so I can't wait to one day experience this place sans kids.  

We decided that since our plans to attend Easter mass at Notre Dame Cathedral could not happen due to the fire, we would still experience a Catholic mass locally.  We went to Saturday evening mass at Paroisse St Vincent De Paul Cathdral in Clichy. We walked in at 8:45pm for the nine o'clock mass. The kids had never experienced a service like this before.  They did well for the first fifteen minutes while the priest entered and lit their candles.  Once the service hit the lighting of the second of seven alter candles they began to get antsy and tired so unfortunately we walked out after the first hour.  So they didn't get the entire experience. It created a lot of conversation though so we were glad we went.

We spent a full day at Sacre Coeur Cathedral and the Montmartre neighborhood where we ate lunch on the town square amongst all the local artists who were selling art.  We ended up buying a small painting from one of the galleries here. This day was a highlight as the kids rode the old carousel and we reveled in the beauty of the city views from the church steps. We wandered the neighborhood and stumbled onto Moulin Rougue and the famous cemetery near it.

The best part about our last week was the perfect weather we were given to get us excited to be outside. The Spring days were filled with sunshine and 75 degrees, we seldom needed long sleeves. This helped as we waited for two hours outside in line to view the Catacombs under Paris. This was a highlight of our year as there is nothing remotely similar to what you experience here anywhere else in the world. It was eerily intimate. The kids were highly interested but freaked out by seeing the remains of six million dead people. 

We did make it back out to the park in Clichy and capped the trip with horderves and wine in the park while the kids ran around playing.  

We made the most of our time in Paris. The day before we left we went to view the beautiful Pantheon crypt where Voltaire is buried. We made a quick stop at Notre Dame Cathedral to witness it after the fire and the Grande Mosque-Paris to see it's beauty before heading home to finish packing.

Peace and Love