Day three was Museum Day.  And boy, was it.  We left the apartment after breakfast at about 10:30 a.m. and didn’t get back until almost midnight.  The kids were absolutely delirious, but for what all we did, they behaved amazingly.  Garbanzo had no nap (and ultimately had no afternoon nap the entire week, except for a few snoozes in the stroller here and there — nothing longer than an hour).

The first stop was the Musee de l’Air et l’Espace — the Museum of Air and Space.  We saw tons of airplanes, starting from models of the earliest attempts at flight to two modern-day Concordes.

Highlights were seeing the Bleriot, the first plane to cross the English Channel from Paris to London — Chickpea and I are going to read about that in a book for school in a few weeks; biplanes used in World War 1 (complete with the black German cross, made famous by the Red Baron), and getting to walk inside the two Concordes.  I thought the coolest plane was the Dakota, a WW2 fighter plane that would send out parachuting soldiers.

The Air & Space Museum was a few minutes outside town, so we headed back in the rain via bus and went straight to the Musee d’Orsay.  The Orsay was my favorite museum — it picks up where the Louvre ends, showcasing art from the mid 19th century to 1914.  This means it’s mainly impressionist art, heading into art deco and some other bits of modern art.

It was really cool seeing original work by Monet, Degas, Van Gogh, Renoir, Cezanne, and Toulouse-Lautrec.  These are some of my favorite artists.  There was also plenty of sculpture.

There was lots of nudity, as is usual in art.  Chickpea found this… interesting, to say the least.  Lots of questions were averted.

After this, we went straight to the Louvre, which was just a few blocks away.  It was already almost 7 p.m., and we were tired and hungry.  The Louvre is actually attached to a mall (weird, I know) with a fancy-schmancy food court.  We ate there, and the kids were getting seriously restless.

By this point, we decided that we could not ask the kids to wander the Louvre with us for hours, after having spent the day at two other museums.

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(Oh, by the way, the reason we did it all in one day was because we got this great deal museum card thingy, where for a set price, you could see like 30 museums.  But we got the one with the shortest amount of time, which meant we had two days to see everything on the card.  It covered the Arc de Triumphe yesterday, and the three museums today.  Anyway, back to the Louvre…)

So per the recommendation of the really good guide book we were going by, we decided to see the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, and whatever we could see along the way.  We’ll just have to come back to Paris, either sans kids or when the kids are older.

Yep, the Louvre is huge.  Huge.  Unbelievably huge.  We saw one little speck of it.  The art along the way to our two stops was amazing, so we are really excited about coming back one day to see more.

The Mona Lisa is actually bigger and better than we anticipated, because we’ve heard all our life that it’s really small and kinda unimpressive.  So with low expectations, it’s great.

The Venus de Milo is much bigger than I thought it would be, and was really cool.  I don’t know much about its history, but honestly, there was equally impressive sculpture along the way.  All the sculpture there is really unbelievable — the fact that human beings can carve that kind of intricate work out of rock is mind boggling to me.

We left the Louvre absolutely exhausted, with aching feet and swirling heads.  All four of us were definitely ready for a break.  So we headed to the metro station inside the museum, ready to plop down in a chair and veg for a few minutes before walking the rest of the way home.

But we just managed to walk through the doors to the station to have missed going through the gate to board the train, yet were locked in the opposite direction at just that moment because the Louvre closed.  So in other words, the doors we just went through were locked, and the gate in front of us was locked.

We were trapped with about 20 other people, and the metro people took their sweet time unlocking us.  Apparently, this stop closes earlier than all the other stops because the Louvre closes before the metro does.  But they don’t so much have a plan to make sure all the people get through the metro before the shut the doors.

So 20 minutes later or so, we pass through the metro station, get on a train, and head back to the apartment.  What felt like hours later, we crashed in bed.

On the way home, Chickpea summed up our day perfectly, and quite possibly said the best line of our entire vacation:

“Well, we sure saw a lot of cabooses today.”

That we did, Chick.  That we did.

On Tuesday morning, we had a quick breakfast of eggs, heavenly yogurt, granola, and BACON! (a rare treat for us these days).  So we left the apartment much fuller than we did the day before.  Off to a good start.

We headed immediately to the Arc de Triomphe, the famous arch built by Napoleon to celebrate his glory.  Nazis marched under there during their occupation, and then a grand parade passed through five years later when Paris was set free.  It’s also the setting for the Tour de France grand finale.

I suppose it goes without saying, but the thing is huge.  And intricate.  And impressive.  We went to the top, which had a great view of all of Paris.  It was cold and windy, but it was worth it.

The Arc sits in the center of Paris’ famous 12-spoked roundabout (remember European Vacation?), and one of the spokes is Champs Elysses, the city’s most famous and snobby street.  We spent most of the afternoon strolling down this huge, three mile long street, fighting crowds and the cold.  We window shopped some of the flagship stores of well-known designers, like Chanel, Guerlain, Yves Saint Laurent, Prada, and Armani, just to name a few.  I tried to convince Kabob that he needed a 37,000 euro, diamond-encrusted watch from Cartier, but he felt it was more important that our kids have a fighting chance of attending college.  I guess so.

We bought lunch at a deli and hoped to rest inside a bit, but there were no seats.  So we sat outside on a bench, where the kids let us know that they were not happy.  Chickpea was freezing, Garbanzo didn’t like his lunch, and they were miserable in general.  So we moved on a few feet, and browsed the Disney Store.  For some reason, they were now fine.

The kids played with toys and watched Disney blips while Kabob waited in line for eternity to buy Disneyland tickets.  The store looks pretty much identical to the ones you see in the States, but it’s a treat for our kids.

Oh yes, in between the meltdown and the Disney fun, I popped into a well-known restaurant and bakery called Ladurée.  I took one step inside and knew, yeah, our kids aren’t setting foot in here.  They have a counter adjacent to the dining room where you can buy their most famous specialty, macarons.  They’re not the macaroons we’re used to; the coconut flaked cookies.  These are coconut wafers sandwiched with a flavored ganache and then dipped in some sugary, delicious concoction.  You can choose from a myriad of gift boxes and sizes, so I bought a little black box with eight mini macarons.

So after the Disney store, we popped into this little bakery and ordered hot chocolate, coffee, a few croissants and pastries, and cracked open the macarons.  Heavenly.

We continued down the street, which eventually morphed into a seasonal Christmas craft show of sorts, with little white wooden booths shaped like old-fashioned houses.  They had everything from giant chocolate-covered marshmallows to Russian caviar to pashminas from Iran.

These booths went on for ages, on either side of the street.  Finally at the end, we were at the Place de la Concorde, a garden and giant obelisk from Egypt, surrounded by beautiful buildings (of course).  But most importantly, it is home to an enormous ferris wheel.

We coughed up the 25 euro for our family to ride, and we were glad we did.  It’s a slow-moving ferris wheel with fully-enclosed cars, complete with heaters and a radio.  It rotated five times, giving us excellent views of the Louvre, the Arc, and lots of other famous buildings that we know are important but which we can’t identify.  The kids loved it.

Having finished Champs Elysses in one piece, we went after one more thing — Le Bon Marche.  Normally we wouldn’t care to go out of our way to see the world’s first department store, but we read that it has a great toy store inside, along with a fabulous food department selling great edible souvenirs.  So we took a quick metro ride to the store, which is just behind a cute little playground with equipment made for kids our size.  We let them play with the French kids for a good 30 minutes.  The kids all seemed very sweet, which I think Chickpea enjoyed.  Where we live, the kids can be a bit more aggressive than we’re used to, so these kids’ style of play was more her style.

We finally made it inside Le Bon Marche, and making a quick circle of the perfume and accessories section, where Chickpea managed to hop and slip into a display, cutting her chin, we made a beeline for the toy department.  I didn’t want her bleeding on any 300 euro Hermes scarves.

The toy department was indeed wonderful, full of sweet little wooden French toys, like play kitchens, food, riding cars, train sets, and dollhouses.  We were probably in there a good hour, and we managed to distract the kids long enough to buy Garbanzo his first set of Lego for his upcoming birthday.  Lego are insanely overpriced where we live — like $50 for a small kit — so 21 euros for 650 pieces was livable.

Onto the food department, which is actually across the street.  It felt like shopping at Central Market in Austin.  It was mostly French food (duh), but they had different international sections with Mexican, Italian, and Asian foods.  The aisle labeled “Etas Unis” had marshmallow fluff, boxed macaroni and cheese, Oreos, and Dr. Pepper.  We picked up two cans of Dr. Pepper and a box of mac and cheese (or as Chick now calls it, “mac and fromage”).  It’s vacation, we decided.  We’ll let the kids eat freakishly yellow processed cheese.

We were exhausted and famished by this time, so we made a beeline for the metro to head home.  The journey back was stress-free but long.  So when we finally walked in to the apartment, we collapsed.  We mustered up enough energy to make the kids’ mac and cheese, and to throw together a salad for us grownups (no powdered cheese, thank you).  We threw the customary brie and bread on the side, and it was a great dinner.

And like the night before, we had grand ambitions of watching a movie on the computer once the kids were down, but as soon as we were horizontal, we knew it was wishful thinking.  We all crashed at the same time.  I have no idea what time it was.

I decided to journal our days on vacation as they happen, because I can never remember the specifics when we get home. I’ll be shocked if anyone actually reads this all, but just in case I thought a grandparent or two might want to keep up with us, and I’ll go ahead and hit publish.

In fact, it’s now a week later, and I thoroughly enjoyed my week entirely offline (save for Skype conversations with the parents on Thanksgiving). I’m up to my eyeballs in email, but in the meantime, I wanted to go ahead and post this stuff.

There’s also more photos on Flickr.

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Today, our first morning in Paris, we woke up hungry. The night before, we got to our apartment really late, straight from the airport, so all we essentially did was crash. The kids were out and we were out, all night long. Our place is nice — tiny — but nice. It’s basically a slightly larger hotel room, which is just fine with us. We definitely couldn’t live here, but for a week-long vacation, it has everything we need.

So in the morning, the kids were starving, and all we had in the apartment was a few apples and some nuts, our snacks for the journey last night. The kids munched on those while we got ready, and then we set out to find breakfast. Our plan was to eat breakfast and dinner at the apartment, to save money, but since we hadn’t had time to gracery shop yet, this was an exception.

It’s lame but true — the only place in our area that seemed to serve breakfast was McDonald’s. Kabob and I looked at each other and decided this was a ONE TIME thing on this vacation, and bit the bullet. Turns out it was the nicest McDonald’s we had ever seen. Chickpea never even knew it was a McDonald’s, which was fine by us (or an Old McDonald’s, as she calls it). The decor was nice, not cheesy, and the chairs were leather-like business chairs. Like what you’d see in an executive’s office. The food was actually good, too, and the espresso was surprisingly palatable. All in all, one of the best McDonald’s experiences we’ve had.

As we left, Kabob realized he’d left the video camera in the apartment, so he went back while the kids and I slowly started walking in the general direction of Notre Dame, our first stop. What seemed like three hours later, we met up again. During our little stroll, Chickpea was — for some reason — fascinated by the pigeons, even though we have scads of them back home, often visiting our balcony (well, doves, but whatever). She also amassed quite an autumn leaf collection, which was fun — it’s nice to be in a place that feels and looks like fall. Garbanzo flirted with an older woman who was talking to herself while we sat at a bench and waited for Kabob to catch up. It seemed to make her day.

Back together, we headed down in to the metro station. You never know which station will have escalators, and which have nothing but stairs. Not a problem, normally, unless you have a stroller. Well, we do, so thankfully, Kabob is okay with carrying it up and down the stairs with Garbanzo having the best seat in the house on this journey. The metro is fast and efficient for all our traveling, so we’ll have no problem getting anywhere this week. It seems older than the Underground in London, almost as though it’s been around since World War II. Maybe it has, I don’t know.

At our destination stop, we emerged into rain and serious wind. It wasn’t too bothersome; just mist, really. We all had hats and jacket hoods and stroller covers, so it didn’t phase us. We walked towards the Ile de Cite, an island in the Seine, where the Notre Dame stands. I never knew there was an island in the Seine, but if you didn’t see it on the map, you’d probably never notice anyway. You just cross one of the bridges and keep walking.

Chickpea enjoyed understanding more of why Madeline is described as someone who “nobody knew so well how to frighten Miss Clavel.” This is the general area where Madeline walked along the railing of one of the bridges crossing the Seine.

Speaking of, in the airport, Chickpea said, “Mom, I saw someone dressed up like a nun. It was funny.” I said, “Chickpea? That IS a nun.” She said, “Really?! Maybe it’s Miss Clavel! Let’s go find out.”

Anyway, we walked to the Notre Dame, passing equally beautiful and breathtaking buildings. These Parisians really know their architecture. Truly. If we didn’t have little kids with us, I’d take more time to really take in all the buildings and the statues. Kabob and I decided that at one time, having statues of people every ten feet carved on your house must have been the “in” thing, because they’re everywhere.

The Notre Dame does not disappoint. We explained to Chickpea how old and intricate this church is, and how difficult it must have been to build it so long ago, but it didn’t really seem to sink in. She was impressed by the stained glass and how high the ceiling was, however. Garbanzo was impressed that he got to get out of his stroller and point at things, doing his usual grunting noise that sorta sounds like “Look!” One day, he’ll look back at photos and find out he was once in the Notre Dame.

It is extremely hard to take photos inside because flash photography isn’t allowed and it’s quite dark. After a number of tries for a non-blurry shot without a tripod, we gave up and just decided to enjoy the ride and get postcards later, if we needed to. I know it’s kind of a “duh,” but Notre Dame truly is amazing. The stained glass, the buttresses, all the paintings… Well worth the visit.

We left starving, and it was raining a bit harder now, so we just went to the nearest cafe, not 15 feet from the church building. It was warm and cozy, and all you’d expect from a little French cafe. The waiters wore tuxedos and white aprons (“like in Ratatouille!,” says Chick), and the service was impeccable. It was fun to have great service. We enjoyed our lunch surrounded by other tourists.

When we got the bill, Kabob and I looked at each other and started laughing. 86! Euros! That’s about $120 US dollars. I had quiche and a salad, Kabob has lasagna, and the kids split a ham and cheese sandwich, fries, and a salad. Granted, Chick got some ice cream for dessert, and we grownups had cappuccinos, but still. We knew food would be the bulk of our expense in Paris, and for this reason, we were only going to dine out for lunch (prices are raised for the same food at dinner). Plus, we were right across the street from a major tourist site, so not all places will be this spendy. Still… We shrugged our shoulders, paid our bill, and went on. So glad we saved up plenty of cash for this trip. We might end up needing it all.

It was already starting to get a little dark by this time, and it was still rainy and crazy windy. The only nearby indoor thing we wanted to do was the Louvre, but we didn’t want to start that in late afternoon. So instead, we just strolled around, looked at the beauty of Paris, and enjoyed the sights, sounds, and smells. We stopped by the Pompidou, but it was closed because of a strike. Oh well — Kabob mostly wanted to see the outside anyway.

We slowly headed to the nearest metro station, and on the way, happened upon an old, very French carousel. Well, Chickpea just had to take a ride on the black horse with the pink saddle, and it was only 2 euro per kid (free for standing adults), so we said sure. We paid for Garbanzo to hitch a ride as well, but he wasn’t nearly as impressed. Early evening, no nap, sightseeing a crowded church where you have to be quiet, and walking around in the cold rain, and I was surprised he didn’t do more than cry. He was such a trooper today.

So we got to the metro station, and 30 minutes later we finally got to our train. I don’t remember which station we were at, but man, it was HUGE. And crowded. And confusing.

Back in our neighborhood, we walked to the grocery store and got some stuff for dinner that night and for the next few days. The total came to — 86 euro. The same price as lunch that day. This was why we were eating at home for dinner.

And oh my goodness, was dinner good. We had bread and brie, meat-stuffed ravioli with bolognese sauce (both store brand), soda water — and chips and guacamole for an appetizer. We nearly squealed with excitement when we saw that at the store. Sure, it’s Old El Paso brand guac, but beggars can’t be choosers. It tasted like caviar.

The kids went nuts running around the apartment after dinner. I think they were pretty pent up after a day of sightseeing and stroller sitting and metro crowd squeezing. They did so well today. So we let them blow off steam while we cleaned up from dinner, and then it was jammmies and story time. And that’s when Chickpea lost it.

She was so tired, she went, in one breath, from crying about missing our home and her bed, to wishing we could move here and get all our stuff into this apartment, back to wishing she were in her own bed. I did my best to not bust out laughing at this scene. Bless her heart, she was delirious. She wanted to sleep in bed with Kabob and me, but seeing as it’s about a twin-and-a-half, that is no option.

Kabob and I crashed soon after, equally exhausted. It was a great day. Other simple pleasures we’ve enjoyed so far:

• Drinking water straight from the faucet. Oh how we miss that, and miss not paying for drinking water.
• Christmas decorations. This is a major treat.
• The variety of choices at the grocery store. If we came here from America, it would probably feel like fewer choices, but from our perspective, it was perfect. All the cheese, the meat choices, the jams, the yogurt flavors… Heavenly.
• The food really has been amazing. Even our 86 euro lunch was delicious (thankfully), and the store-brand bolognese sauce was perfect. Good food, here we come.

I’ll post the next day tomorrow. Tonight, we’ll be decorating our Christmas tree!