Jen's View of Paris Part 3

First of all, I need to say that French pastries live up to the hype - so yummy and buttery! We fit a lot into our last day in the city: Louvre Museum, walk around, Notre Dame, and boat tour. We started at the Louvre where we got there soon after opening to avoid lines and we made a beeline to the Mona Lisa. We got as close to it as is allowed - oftentimes you have to stand behind a crowd of people, but we were up close. After that we explored the Painting wing, the Egyptian area, and some of the Sculpture are, and we could have spent another day or two just in this museum, but we had our fill. It was overwhelming for me to see SO many of the great paintings in person that I'd studied in books - it's always surprising how different you feel when you see a great artwork in person versus in a book.

Outside the Louvre

Hall in the Louvre

Entering the Mona Lisa room, that's it across the room!

There she is!

In front of the Winged Victory of Samothrace - a Greek sculpture from around 190 BC!

Being silly imitating the sculptures!

Notre Dame was gorgeous, but we didn't go to the top to see the gargoyles because the line was too long, but that gives us something to do if we come back one day.

Outside of Notre Dame

The famous Rose Window in Notre Dame

We took a ride through the city on a Batoboat like this one.

From the boat, eyes painted on the river retaining walls

Views from the boat

This short stay in Paris was a great introduction for us, and just enough for the boys at their age. It really is an amazing and beautiful city and there's plenty for us to see if we come back one day, with or without the kids. The only thing that got to me was the language. I think after a couple of months of being immersed in the German language, and finally picking up little bits of it, to be back at ground zero again with a different language was very frustrating for me (though my frustration at ordering from the Disneyland resturant lady gave Scott a good laugh, so it wasn't all bad!).

Jen's View of Paris Part 2

Like Ethan has told you, we spent our second day at Disneyland Paris thanks to Scott's former co-workers! We find it's good for the boys to alternate days of a vacation or day trips between historic/sightseeing and fun/amusement/park days, it helps hold their interest. Disneyland had really pretty grounds, like you'd expect from them, but I was very happy that there were such extensive Halloween decorations throughout the park. I was definitely going to miss true Halloween celebrations and decorations being away from the States, so I was so glad to get some of that here!

A little side note, we've decided that one of the few things we dislike about living in Europe is that a lot of people smoke and they can smoke in a lot more places.

Jen's View of Paris Part 1

This was one of the deciding factors for us in taking this overseas assignment - the fact that we'd be able to easily travel within Europe. The boys had time off school at the beginning of October so we decided that Paris would be our first big excursion! Ethan has filled you in on a lot of the details, so I'll just add some of my comments here. Neither Scott nor I had ever been to Paris. We drove, and we figured that it took us about the same time most of us in Michigan would need to drive to Traverse City! The drive took us through the Netherlands and Belgium, and it was really surprising how much open space there was most of the way there. I always thought of Europe as being heavily populated, but clearly there are still lots of open fields, farms, and forested areas. We stayed at a hotel near Disneyland because it was a much better value than being right in the city, and we got about 4 times the amount of space as we would in a city hotel.

View of the hotel villas.

It took us 30-40 minutes to drive into the city, and yes we were crazy enough to drive into Paris. I should say Scott was brave enough to drive in the city, he took on that challenge and now he could drive just about anywhere with this experience! We had gotten used to German drivers who stay in their lanes, pay attention, and obey the traffic rules...drivers in Paris were pretty much the opposite. It is a free-for-all, with no clear lanes marked, motorcycles constantly pulling between cars and darting in and out of traffic, and gridlock. We successfully got in & out of the city and really enjoyed it!

Unfortunately, Griffin was under the weather most of the trip. He was getting over a bad cold, and we made a questionable decision to eat big fat waffles before walking up the Eiffel Tower - not so good on G's stomach. However, he was a trooper and Scott got great workouts in by carrying him around a lot (including up & down most of the tower!). The weather was drizzly a lot of the weekend, but both the city and the amusement park were not very crowded so we waited in very few lines - very uncommon in Paris, so I'll take so-so weather over heavy crowds any day.

The Tower itself really is a lovely structure, from all different angles, I've never seen anything else like it. The views from the top are definitely worth the hike.

Walking and driving around the city at night was one of my favorite parts of the trip. All of the beautiful buildings are lit up so you focus just on them and you don't see all of the practical parts of the city that may detract from the incredible surroundings.

In front of the Arc de Triomphe at night:

Part 3 of Ethan's Paris story

Hello it's Ethan again. This is my part 3 of our Paris exploration vacation. This time I'll talk about Friday. So Friday we only did one thing but it was a big thing!! We went to Disneyland Paris!! It was so cool. Some nice people that my dad used to work with in Michigan gave my family and me the tickets as a going away present to my dad. Alright back to Disneyland, so as I was saying it was so cool. One of my most favorite rides I went on is called Space Mountain 2. It was amazing!! It went upside down, went extremely fast (obviously), and it felt like you were in space!! It was supposed to be like you were in space it's in the ride name, Space mountain. In Disneyland they worked hard to make it like Halloween. Another ride I really liked was a ride that is called Indiana Jones and the Temple of Peril. It was super cool!! It went upside down, and at the beginning there was this huge climb and then you turned a corner and down you went almost as fast as a rocket. And finally, I saved my favorite ride to talk about last, it is called Big thunder mountain. It was super, amazing, extreme, cool, and a bunch of other good stuff. At one point it went under ground, under a lake to be exact. Then it went on to this big mountain in the middle of the lake. It was indescribably good, great, amazing well you get the point. Plus our whole family could go on it. Well that's pretty much it for Friday so as Mickey Mouse would say toodles.

A Few Rooms in Our House

We all have a lot more to tell you about our Paris trip, but I wanted to experiment with uploading videos here, and show you some of our house. Here goes:

Part 2 of Ethan's Paris story

(All pictures token by Ethan)Hello again its me Ethan doing my second post about Paris, France. Last time I left off talking about the Eiffel Tower and it was Thursday evening. In this post I'll talk about Thursday night. Thursday night after we had left the Eiffel Tower we went to a place called the Arc De Triumph. The Arc De Triumph is a monument built by king Napoleon the first to show how powerful he was. If you are walking to the Arc De Triumph you have to go underground into a tunnel because the Arc De Triumph is right in the center of this huge free for all road. Cars are driving everywhere they cut right in front of another cars it was crazy! So you had to go underground. We went to the Arc De Triumph when it was night time so it was cool seeing all the car lights and the Arc De Triumph lit up. You could walk up under the Arc De Triumph and all under it were carvings and words. When my family and me were looking at the words under it we saw the name of the city that we live in in Germany (which is Dusseldorf). As we were walking back from the Arc De Triumph to find a place to eat dinner at we saw this one window display that was unique and creative but a little weird at the same time. We ended up eating at a place that was on the Champs Elysees street which is a very famous street. As we drove back to our hotel it was amazing seeing Paris at night for example seeing all the street lights, the Arc De Triumph, and of course the Eiffel Tower glowing. So as they say in french au revoir (which in English is bye-bye).




This is a memorial to men who have died in war. (It was under the Arc De Triumph ).

These were some pictures I took showing some of the steets by the Arc De Triumph

These are pictures of cool buildings in the streets of Paris.

Part 1 of Ethan's Paris Story

(All pictures in this post were taken by Ethan)

Bonjour. It is Ethan. Bonjour comes from the french language and we just went to France. Specifically we just went to Paris, France. Yeah that's right my family and me just went to Paris, France! It was my families and my first exploration vacation in Europe. We left our house at approximately 8:30 a.m on Thursday morning . It took us about six hours to get there. (By the way we drove to Paris). Our hotel wasn't exactly in Paris so it would take us about half an hour to drive to Paris from our hotel. The name of the hotel we stayed at was called the Marriott. It was a great hotel but it wasn't like a regular hotel, it was a hotel that you literally got your own little house. There were two rooms (Griffin and me shared a room) three bathrooms, a living room, a kitchen, and a dinning room.

The first day we were there which was Thursday afternoon we went to the Eiffel Tower! It was amazing! It was humongous!

We went right under it. The tower had four incredibly large legs, we went in the east leg. It was incredible walking up the Eiffel tower. There was a first, second, and a fourth floor there was no stopping point on the third floor like there was on the first, second, and fourth floor. You could walk up to the first and second floor but you have to ride the elevator up to the fourth floor which is the top floor. They used so much metal pieces to build the tower and a lot of rivets. Once we had gotten to the top I was relieved because I had broke a few sweats. The view was amazing from the top.

You could see the whole city. There was this one river that you could see from the top that was humongous it is called the Seine River.

It was a lot easier walking down than walking up.

Fun Fact: The person who built the Eiffel Tower is called Gustave Eiffel!

This is the tippy top of the Eiffel Tower.

Griffin, Mom, and me in front of the Eiffel Tower.

This is a view under the Eiffel Tower.

Cologne and an Art Exhibit Tour

Last weekend we went as a family to Cologne Germany for the day, which was about a one hour drive. The most famous and outstanding site in Cologne (or Koln as it's spelled here) is the Cologne Cathedral. The original structure on this site was consecrated in 870, then a new, more ornate structure was started in 1248 that would be more befitting this pilgrimage church that held famous relics from all over Europe. The main part of this new structure was finished in 1265, but different sections were added through 1560. Then again in 1842 construction was resumed by Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia and was completed in 1880 by Emperor Wilhem I. I've posted some pictures below, as well as some postcards I've scanned, because it's too massive a structure to get good amateur pictures. It really was an amazing space to be in, though it's hard to catch everything you'd like and keep the boys interested. We had a low-key scavenger hunt inside using my guidebook, the boys were on the lookout for specific paintings, sculptures, etc.





I don't know who this depicts, but Scott & I thought it was funny and out of place in the cathedral.

A cool mosaic floor that Griffin liked.

Light through this stained glass window.



Altar of the Magi, Stephan Lochner, 1445


Outside of a sports museum in Cologne.





After exploring the Cathedral, we took a very lighthearted turn in Cologne to the Schokoladenmuseum, or Chocolate Museum. We could have probably done without the history of chocolate, but the cool part was the chocolate factory, and the samples! We all like to see how things are made, so we all enjoyed the candy making machines, and did I mention the samples?!

A chocolate fountain.

He was trying to get the huge Lindor ball for us!


And lastly, I became a member of the American Womens Club of Dusseldorf, and the club arranges a lot of events, including art appreciation tours. Last week I went on an art exhibit tour with the group and we had an English speaking tour guide. The artist was one I'd never heard of, Per Kirkeby, a contemporary Danish artist, and his art isn't the kind I immediately love or know much about, but that's the point of these tours, to learn something you wouldn't otherwise. I'm trying to take advantage of as many opportunities like this as possible in our limited time here. A few postcard scans of Kirkeby's works - most of them were physically huge, at least 10 feet by 10 feet. He didn't title most of his works, so you don't even have that to get you started when looking at his paintings, but it's good to be challenged by art sometimes.