Days Seven, Eight, and Nine
Topic: Trips
Our first morning in Paris, we wound up sleeping in and missing breakfast. (Luckily, Ryan slept in, too!) The plan was to take a bus tour of the city. We went to the Metro, and somehow I managed to get stuck – with Ryan – in a turnstile. (The machine didn’t like my ticket.) I handed Ryan to JoAnna and managed to crawl out.
We had lunch at an Italian placed called Pizza Restaurant Domenica. It was good and the people were nice. They didn’t have a high chair, but we were in a booth, so I made do with Ryan. He was fairly well behaved.
We went to catch the bus for the city tour. You’re supposed to pay at the bus, but for whatever reason they couldn’t take payments, so we didn’t pay! (We really didn’t feel too badly about it, since we paid an exorbitant amount for the bus tour we took in London. We figured it evened out!) We didn’t stay on the bus for long, because it was really hot. We got off the bus and shopped along the Champs Elysees Avenue. That was fun. Luckily Ryan slept through a lot of the shopping, since he’s not too keen on it. I got some tank tops at the Gap, and wore one of them out of the store feeling a bit more fashionable.
I would like to mention here that our days in London and Paris were punctuated with stops for ice cream. It was the perfect pick-me-up refreshment for walking around in hot weather. It was definitely a hit with Ryan!
After shopping, we walked to the Arc de Triomphe (Arch of Triumph). From there we turned right around and made our way back towards where the bus tour started. It was quite a long walk. Along the way, we let Ryan run around in a park. He seemed to enjoy himself quite a bit.
We wound up having dinner in the same restaurant we had lunch. (Well, it was good!) Afterwards we had ice cream from Haagen-Dazs for dessert. In the shop, I leaned over to give Ryan a taste of my ice cream. I looked up to realize a boy of about ten was looking straight down my tank top. Oops. I straightened up and figured he’d probably seen a lot more, considering the advertisements posted around Paris!
We were back at our hotel at a decent hour, but since Ryan was right there in the room with us, he didn’t fall asleep for quite a while. JoAnna and I stayed up late reading our books.
The next morning we managed to miss breakfast again. Ryan was up before we were ready to be, so I pulled him into bed with me. By this time, his blankie truly reeked. I didn’t see how on earth he was dealing with it. I didn’t want it anywhere near me! However, if it was keeping him happy, it was keeping me happy.
The blankie wasn’t Ryan’s only comfort item. I don’t know if it was the night before, or this particular night in Paris, but one of the nights in our hotel, Ryan walked over to his stroller and sat in it. We weren’t going anywhere, and I didn’t belt him in. He just sat there in it. I took a shower, and JoAnna told me he sat there the whole time. I think the stroller (and his blankie) became his only real constants, therefore they were his comfort zone. I have to say, he was quite the trooper throughout the whole trip.
Since we’d missed breakfast, we decided to walk up the street and look for a café. We found a little place and had café au lait and pain du chocolat. (We got orange juice for Ryan.) Yum! The place was very authentic, including proprietors who didn’t (or weren’t inclined to) speak English. We had our breakfast at a small table outside. It was really nice. I thought of how it would be to live somewhere you could do that every day: have your coffee and croissant outside while watching the world go by. Paris is a really pretty city, and very much a place to experience joie de vivre.
After breakfast, we went to a local store and picked up juice boxes and milk for Ryan. That made our load heavier, but it was nice knowing we had provisions for Ryan.
Our next destination was the Sacred’coeur. This had plagued me a bit last time I visited Paris. I had spent five days there and had seen and done a lot. However, this was the one thing that for some reason unknown to me, everyone kept asking me if I’d seen, which I hadn’t. So this time I made sure to see it.
We took the Metro, then walked up a somewhat shabby street filled with souvenir shops. From there we rode a funicular (oh I just love that word!) up to where the cathedral was. This was JoAnna’s first cathedral (actually, I think it’s a basilica, but I’m not sure what the difference is). It was definitely beautiful. It had been a while since I’d been inside of one. I kept my tradition of lighting a prayer candle. JoAnna lit one, too. They had these huge pillar candles you could get for ten euros, the thought being your prayer would last just that much longer. Unfortunately, some of those candles had melted awkwardly and had extinguished themselves after a short time. Wonder what those prayers were for.
A little way outside the basilica was a disabled man talking animatedly in French while making cute little doggie keychain souvenirs. JoAnna bought one for herself and one for me. (Mine lives on my purse’s zipper now.)
We started walking and wound up in Montmartre. I fell in love with it! I was so glad we went. It’s a village on the highest hill in Paris. It’s very artsy – literally. There are artists everywhere painting and drawing portraits. JoAnna wanted to get hers done. I was just going to wander around and wait while she did, but I got sucked into getting Ryan’s done when an artist asked me if I had pounds, which I did. After haggling over exchange rates between the euro and pound sterling (I’m still not sure who got the upper hand, but I suspect it wasn’t me), I sat down with Ryan and had his portrait done. It turned out pretty well, and I’m glad I did it. It’s so neat to have something where I can say, “Yeah, we had that done in Montmartre.”
Just in case you thought you were safe from any mentions of a certain bespectacled fictional wizard, while walking around Montmartre waiting for JoAnna’s portrait to be done, I saw a portrait of said character on display. I laughed to myself. I wasn’t going to mention it, but when JoAnna walked by it with me and Ryan, she pointed it out. “Harry Potter is inescapable.” (For those of you familiar with Glen Cook, yes, that’s a Garrett Files reference! At least the “inescapable” part is.
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From there we went to the Louvre for about two seconds to see the Mona Lisa. I think it’s weird how noisy it is there. I always thought museums were supposed to be quiet. Parts of the Louvre are almost more like a mall, atmosphere wise.
We had dinner in a nice café with a friendly staff. (Again, there were no highchairs.) We discovered that all this time, Ryan’s been speaking French! Even the waiter thought so! Ryan’s at that point where half the stuff he says is intelligible, and half is still in his own language. While we were in Paris, it was remarkable how much what Ryan was babbling really did sound like French.
When we got back to our hotel, Ryan was in dire need of a diaper change. I was trying to clean him up and he was struggling. (For some reason, he thinks that’s funny.) I was saying, “Ryan, stop!” To my utter horror, he looked at me and said, “YOU stop!” I was stunned. He’d never done that before. I know you’re not supposed to laugh, but JoAnna was laughing, and Ryan was laughing a demonic little laugh, so I gave in and started laughing, too. JoAnna tried reassuring me by saying he was just repeating me and probably didn’t know what he was saying. I sincerely hope that’s true! (My hopes are buoyed by the fact that for a while after that, Ryan would at random intervals for no particular reason spout off, “You stop! No!”)
On the bright side, he also said, “I love you,” for the first time while in Paris. Unfortunately, he was just repeating what his toy phone said. I can’t wait until it’s directed at me!
That night there was a really cool thunderstorm. It was very windy and the storm lasted a long time. We had the window open for a while to let the wonderful rain smell in.
The next morning we finally had breakfast at the hotel. It was good. It was very similar to the European style breakfasts I had so many times while living in Germany.
After breakfast, we checked out. We had a rough time getting going, at first. Apparently there are no taxis to be had in entire freaking city of Paris on a weekday in the morning. For some reason, I find this hard to believe. However, the concierge at the hotel was unable to raise one on the phone for us, and we were completely unable to hail one on the street. We wound up having to lug everything onto the Metro. Luckily some very nice people helped.
(I am proud to say that during our whole trip, I only got us going the wrong way on the Metro once!)
We got checked in and onto the Eurostar just fine. There were nice people on the train. It was very international. There were Spanish speakers in front of us, and German speakers behind. Ryan made friends with a little German boy, and they kept each other busy for a while playing peek-a-boo.
Breakfast was good. They were serving French toast, so we couldn’t pass up a French version of French toast! Breakfast also had all the expected accoutrements, such as yogurt, juice, pastries, coffee, tea, etc. They also served hot chocolate, much to Ryan’s delight! We could have had champagne as well (I can’t remember, but JoAnna might have had some).
After a while, Ryan fell asleep on the train.
As I said a while back, it took us quite a while to get home. It was a three hour ride on the Eurostar, then another hour or so on the London Underground. It was a short walk from the Ruislip station to the car. During the walk, I kept praying for the car to be ok. It was a leap of faith leaving it parked in an unsecured lot for three nights. However, it was just fine. When Ryan saw the car, he started clapping enthusiastically while saying, “Bye! Bye!” We let him run around for a while before packing up the car and heading home.
It was another three or four hours on the road before finally pulling into our driveway in Harrogate. I couldn’t believe it, but when we got out of the car, Ryan went right around to the trunk wanting his stroller, as if to say, “Ok, where to now?” He seemed distraught at going inside the house. I tried to tell him that we were home. I thought that after being gone a week, he would have been happy to be home! He did calm down after a while.
Even though we were tired, we did wind up taking a walk to asda for a few things. That made Ryan happy. I’m not sure, but that might have been the night we tried Indian food. I’d always been curious. Asda has it to go, where you just heat it in your oven. It was pretty good.
All in all, our trip to Ipswich, London, and Paris was a great one. I’m so glad we went!
Paris
Posted by hkvlayman
at 4:34 PM BST
Updated: Thursday, 10 August 2006 5:08 PM BST
I keep forgetting things. The day JoAnna and Ryan and I came back from Paris, we took a side trip (from Ruislip) to a dog rescue shelter. JoAnna participates in a dog rescue program in CA, and also runs a kennel, so she is always interested to see how things are done in other places. This particular one seemed very nice. It was clean and the animals were well taken care of. There seemed to be a very rigorous screening process for prospective families for the dogs.
Last night he didn't go to sleep (even though I put him to bed) until very late. I had to wake him up early to go get Larry from the airport. He refused to nap all day. (He took a bit of a nap in the car on the way home, but that was it, and that was still early in the day.) So, that added up to one tired little guy.
At least you know I remembered on the day!
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(This picture was taken at Betty's, when JoAnna and Ryan and I went to lunch there last.)
(This picture is of Ryan walking in JoAnna's shoes. He picked hers out all by himself!)
Monday there was a URG meeting. Those are a semi-social occasion, so that was nice. The rest of the week has been filled with running errands, running (well, a bit of jogging around), going to the shopping area, playing with Ryan in the back patio, trying to catch up on my blog, that sort of thing.