Finally...Paris, Day 4

**Warning! Another LONG post!**

Wow, there is just not enough time in the day to get down all the details that I want to write about! There have been so many "blog worthy" stories over the last fourteen days that I'll just have to write about later on.

In the meantime, let's try to wrap up this crazy Paris trip, shall we?

So, we began Day 4 the same way that we had begun Days 1, 2 and 3...at McDonald's. By now, though, we were feeling like expert french McDonald's breakfast orderers. We even got the correct items that we ordered this time, too! Oh, Happy Day! :-)

So, we left McDonald's and headed for the Metro. We had collectively decided the night before that we all wanted to go to the Louvre to see the awe inspiring Mona Lisa painting. Let me say that we were warned (by several!) that the Louvre was not the most kid friendly place in Paris, and we probably should wait until the kids were older before we ventured here. But, the kids were excited about it, and we figured that we should take advantage of the opportunity, so off we went to the enormous Louvre Museum.

When we first walked in, we were greeted by L-O-T-S of naked statues...even more than at the Musee Rodin! Of course, the kids were having a hay-day with this. Chris and I were mortified by the crassness of our crazy unrefined offspring, so we tried to look quickly and make lightly of the nude figures. Didn't help. And, Avery's laughing voice seemed to reach every corner of the huge museum, despite our efforts to stop it. Finally, we made it to what seemed like a much more "family friendly" area. Aaah...now we could take time to stop, look at our map and try to find the fastest route possible to Mona Lisa.

Well, really all we had to do was follow the hoards of people, because apparently, we were ALL at the museum for the same reason. Once we finally came to the famous picture, we could barely see it over the mob of people that had gathered in front of it. Chris made his way up fairly close and managed to snap a couple of pictures with our camera. Then, he held up each of the kids so they could see, and Aaron even snapped some pictures on his iPod. I have to admit that seeing the Mona Lisa was pretty awesome, but it would have been way better if I could have seen it minus all the heads of the people in front of me...and quite frankly, it looked JUST like all the other prints that we saw in every gift shop surrounding the Louvre. FYI, I made sure to take another good look at her in the gift shop on the way out, just for good measure. :-)

After seeing the Mona Lisa, we considered our visit to the Louvre a complete success...in fact, anything else that we got to see was just "extra!" So, since the kids were still in a fairly good mood, we decided to try to go for the Egyptian artifact area. Now, the Egyptian artifact area was REALLY interesting...we saw the Sphynx, some mummies and several Egyptian coffins. But, I guess the kids thought, "Well, if you've seen one coffin, you've seen 'em all," because they were ready to go not long after we got into that section.

So, we decided to leave there and begin our search for food. We left the museum and headed down to the bottom floor "mall" area to find the Metro. However, on our way through the mall, we happily discovered a food court, of sorts. We decided to check this out and "go for it!" We went up the escalator, and guess what the first sign we saw was?

McDonald's.

Kids were thrilled.

We were not.

I decided that I did NOT want McDonald's, again! (In fact, I really couldn't care less if I ate at another one...ever.) Poor Chris decided to take one for the team and suffer through another McDee's meal, just because it would be faster and easier. But, I told him that I was going to go out on my own and find something else. So, with Chris' bank card in hand, I went through the food court looking for something very French. I found a cute little shop that had salads and quiche...right up my alley! So, I jumped in line and began to scan the menu. Crud...my two years of high school French proved to be useless. I couldn't make heads or tails out of that menu. I tried to listen to the people in front of me to figure out how the meal plan worked. As I watched, it seemed to me that one could order salads for one or more people, but you could also add your main dish to your salad. I was hoping the order taker was going to speak fluent English, and she did speak English...just not fluently, and she seemed quite irritated with the tourists in front of me. I ordered salad for one, and I thought I had ordered meal number 1, which included a main dish, too. But, apparently, I hadn't, because she flopped my salad onto a plate, threw my plate on a tray and never looked up again to ask what I preferred for my main dish. I thought I had missed the main dish boat. Sad and disappointed, I walked on up behind the line. I told myself that a salad would be plenty and that it was, in fact, a larger than normal salad. I stepped up to pay for my salad, and the money taker said, "Do you wish to have something else with this?" OH, I was thrilled! "Why, yes, can I get slice of quiche Loraine, too?" So, I paid and confidently carried my tray of salad AND quiche back to my family feeling like I had just conquered the world. :-)

We ate and then we left.

We Metroed over to Napoleon's Tomb, because this was something that Chris really wanted to see. This really turned out to be quite interesting, and inside the building where Napoleon's tomb actually is, is quite beautiful! We didn't stay very long here...long enough to see the inside of the building and take a stroll through the gardens.

On our way out of the Tomb, the kids found a little old French lady selling popsicles, so they sweet talked their Daddy into getting them a frosty treat. I was pretty glad we had gotten them, though, because the Metro was a pretty good little walk down the way, and it had begun to get hot...for Paris, anyway. The kids had already begun to complain about being tired and hot while we were going through Napoleon's gardens, so I think the popsicles ended up being a smart move.

Then, we Metroed over to our final Parisian stop...Notre Dame. Notre Dame is breathtakingly beautiful on the outside, and we had every intention of walking up the three hundred some odd steps, but by this time, Avery was dragging, and the other two really weren't that interested in seeing another "rooftop view of Paris"...especially one that they had to climb themselves. So, we got in the line to go through the Cathedral, and we decided to forego the climb. Let me just say that the inside of the Notre Dame Cathedral was absolutely gorgeous! It was huge, too! Not being Catholic, I was unsure of what some of the rooms were actually used for, but I was overwhelmed at the beauty of the inside. I do have to say, though, that I was reminded of the story of Jesus becoming mad and overturning the tables inside the temple when He saw there were people making money off of "religious" things. Inside the Cathedral were a couple of machines where you could put in a penny and stretch out a design (for a small fee), and I was also surprised to see a Nun seated at the exit holding out a bowl. Is this normal? Maybe it was for those who needed to tithe, I guess.

Anyway, after Notre Dame, we noticed a quaint little French cafe across the street right beside a gelato stand. So, once again, the kids got ice cream, but I sat down at the cafe to have a French coffee and chocolate dessert. Aaaah...why had I waited until the end of the trip to do this?! J'adore Paris!

After our coffee break, we embarked, again. But, on the way out, we noticed a sign for public toilets! I asked around to see who needed to go, and of course, all of the boys needed to go. So, off they went, and Ashlynn and I walked over to the side of Notre Dame. We happened to notice that there were a TON of pigeons around. Ashlynn loves animals, so she was drawn like a magnet to that area. As we got closer, we noticed that there were also TONS of people over there, and several kids were holding out their hands and feeding the birds. Ashlynn just watched and kept creeping closer to "the scene." As we were watching everything, we noticed an older gentleman with white hair sitting on the fountain in front of us. He had a blue bag that was filled with something. We noticed that he was giving the children some of what was in his bag, and the kids were feeding the birds. Ashlynn kept watching, and finally, the man kind of motioned for her to come over and take a handful of the bird seed. Ashlynn was thrilled, and she quickly walked over to get a scoop! She immediately held her hand up, and pretty soon, she had a pigeon on her arm eating the rice out of her hand! Before long, another one landed on her arm!

She. Was. Thrilled!

In fact, if you ask her what her favorite things about Paris were, she'll say, "the Eiffel Tower and feeding the birds!"

So fun.

After the boys came out of the bathroom, they watched everyone feed the birds. They thought it was neat that Ashlynn had gotten to do that, but they wanted no part of it.

Once the rice was gone, we were on our way, again. We decided to head back to our hotel room and then eat dinner at a place close by.

Not McDonald's.

The kids had already been forewarned.

So, after making a pit stop at the hotel, we walked down the street looking for a restaurant. There was an interesting looking French restaurant on the street that Chris really wanted to try, but after stopping and looking at the menu outside, I whispered to him that I hated to pay THOSE prices for food that the kids probably wouldn't eat. It didn't help that Avery was hanging on my leg wailing, "This is the worst food EVER! I don't want to eat HERE!" So, we kept walking.

We spotted the Indiana Cafe, which seemed fairly American, also. We checked out their menu and found out that they did have kids' meals, so we decided to eat there!

We walked in, and the hostess seated us in the VERY back corner of the restaurant. There were some tables around us, but they were all empty, so we had the back of the place all to ourselves. It was great! So, we ordered and ate, and we had a great time! The kids even got Ben and Jerry's ice cream that came WITH their kids' meals, too! What a great place!

Until...

We got up to leave. I scooted my chair out to stand up, and I turned around in my seat to get my purse that I had left hanging on the back of my chair.

It. Wasn't. There.

My heart sank.

I quickly looked at Chris and asked if he knew where it was. He said he didn't, and we all began to frantically search for it under and around the table.

I got up and quickly went over to our waitress and told her. She seemed a little surprised and, honestly, indifferent. She went to get her manager, and I told him. He asked if I had left it in the bathroom, which I had not. He seemed indifferent, too. He told Chris that they had that happen several times at the tables outside, but it had never happened inside the restaurant. We ended up leaving our name and hotel, and of course, they said if they found it, they'd call.

They never called.

Fortunately, we'd been given a tip NOT to carry anything valuable in a purse. So, we had made photocopies of our passports and opted to carry the copies instead of the real things. We left our passports, driver's licenses, keys, DS's, and iPods in the safe in the hotel room. UNfortunately, I happened to have Chris' iPhone, and, even worse, Aaron's iPod in my purse.

Chris was obviously upset about having his phone taken, but Aaron was devastated. Who could blame him?!

As we left the restaurant in a kind of dumbfounded stupor, we began to replay the events that had taken place. Not one of us saw anyone come over to the table. And, we were totally isolated in that restaurant (which is why I took my purse off to begin with), so we would have seen someone come by. The ONLY one over there was our waitress.

The WAITRESS!

Well, of course, it would have been our word against hers, so we decided not to go and accuse her. We did, however, decide to go and file a police report for insurance purposes. Chris ended up going to the police station to file the report, but they wouldn't accept it from him, because it wasn't his purse. They told him to have me come down, but they were busy at the moment, so I needed to come back at 11:00PM.

What?!

So, at 11:00, all five of us headed down to the police station.

It. Was. Crazy.

No one spoke fluent English. We don't speak fluent French. Good grief.

We FINALLY got the police report filled out. While we were waiting on a copy of the police report, I turned to Chris and just started laughing. I said, "Boy...we got to see ALL of Paris, including the hospital AND the police station. How's that for our first European vacation?"

Lesson learned? Always carry a copy of your passports and not the real thing *AND* NEVER trust your waiter or waitress.

Also, don't eat at the Indiana Cafe by the Grands Boulevard Metro stop.