These messages are from a series of e-mails written after our vacation to Paris and Italy, in the summer of 2002. The events recounted in this internet diary occurred on Saturday, June 22.
--Jim McQueen
Saturday morning Susan and Mom came over to do laundry. They'd been unable to decipher the controls on their French washing machine. We needed to cash travelers checks, so I went with Mom and Susan to the Amex office by the Paris Opera.
The Opera is a magnificent building trimmed in gold. As we were walking around, trying to find the best spot for a photo of the Opera, we spotted a restaurant that made us laugh -- the Indiana Tex-Mex restaurant. (Note to international web readers: Indiana isn't the first place that Americans would think of for Tex-Mex...)
It was too early for lunch, so we went back for Nancy and the kids.
Love,
Jim
Near our apartment was a shop selling this outfit -- the top is trimmed with a Playboy bunny in fur, and the checkered hot pants have matching fur trimming the leg holes. I couldn't get Nancy to buy this, either.
Love,
Jim
Saturday we figured we'd better get around to seeing the inside of Notre Dame. (We didn't want to go on Sunday, when they'd be open for business.) On the way, we dropped off Mom and Susan's laundry, then walked down to the Seine.
Although we'd seen lines of tourists, it turned out that the longest line was for a tour of the bell tower. We skipped that, and pretty much walked right in, past a man who was turning away women in immodest dress. (In was a warm day, and lots of women were in strappy tops and shorts. Nancy was smug that she'd dressed well enough for church.)
Inside, it was dark and cool, and we wandered around. About 2/3 of the way back, there was a sign in English saying something like, "No visitors beyond this point, mass in progress." Most of the tourists went on anyway, but we kept to the main part of the sanctuary.
Love,
Jim
We probably spent an hour inside Notre Dame, then crossed over to the Left Bank of the Seine to admire it from the outside. We walked along the stone quay, dodging artists wanting to sketch us in charcoal, looking at Notre Dame's flying buttresses. Then up by the road, there was a stand selling reproductions of old maps and prints, but we didn't buy any.
We were ready for lunch, so we walked into the Latin Quarter, looking for just the right café. There were a couple right across from Notre Dame, but they were a little expensive, and struck us as too touristy. We wandered back into the narrow, twisty streets looking for a quaint, shady place free from Americans.
An hour later, we were ready to settle for anything. We'd found our way back to the river, and we had (by now boring) baguette sandwiches at a cheap café. It was memorable only because they didn't total their bill correctly, and had to call after me for more money as we left.
Love,
Jim
After lunch by Notre Dame, we split up. Nancy, Mom and Susan went back to our apartment to change loads of laundry. (I remembered it wrong a few e-mails ago, thinking that we'd dropped off laundry on the way to Notre Dame. The travel diary is really paying off now, though I don't know how important the logistics of our dirty clothes are...) Anyway, Nancy and Susan then left Mom napping at our apartment, and went to see the impressionist paintings at the Musée d'Orsay.
I got to spend the afternoon with the boys. On our first walk in Paris, Sean and I had seen a carnival set up in the Tuileries Gardens. Any time the family had started a discussion about "what are we going to do now?", the kids had wanted to go to the carnival -- so, I finally let them spend an afternoon the way they wanted.
We took the metro a quick couple of stations over, and emerged from underground right at the entrance to the Tuileries. The carnival was just like any travelling amusement I've seen in America -- rides, side-show booths, video game arcades. Scott even found some cotton candy.
I gave the kids each twenty Euros and told them to stay in sight. We all wandered down the line of amusements, and it only took them an hour or so to (a) run through their money, and (b) get hot and tired enough to leave.
I lost almost all of the photos from that afternoon when my camera malfunctioned, but there was only one that I really wanted -- and enough of it survived for me to get a dark, grainy scan.
The carnival had a bungee ride, just like the one we've seen in Panama City Beach for years. (This thing has two tall towers, and a cage with chairs dangling between them on giant bungee chords. They pull the cage slowly to the ground, which stretches the bungees tight. Then a pair of brave (or drunk) riders strap into the chairs, and when they release the cage, the bungees shoot it up almost twice the height of the towers. It's just like a giant slingshot.)
Anyway, the Sean has seen the one in Panama City for years, and has always marveled at it. In Paris, he decided he was old enough to ride it. He asked me to go up with him, but I pointed out that I had to stay on the ground to take the picture. Sean bought his ticket (it took the whole 20 Euros), and strapped into one of the chairs, while the ride operator tried to get a second rider from the small crowd of onlookers. That took a couple of minutes, since the people there were just looky-lou's like me. During that critical time, Sean came to his senses, and got back out of the cage.
Even though there was a sign saying "no refunds", they were very nice about giving Sean back his money, and he blew it all on other rides and flavored ices. But I did get one photo of him climbing into the cage on the bungee ride.
From the carnival, we joined Mom at our apartment for naps. When Nancy and Susan returned from their museum, we all made our way back to the fountain at Pompidou Center, trying to return to our favorite café. We found that one all filled up, so we had dinner at another café, a little down the line (there were three or four all in a row by the fountain.)
The waiter at this café was a charming old guy who said Coca-Cola was "American Champagne". Dessert was Grand Marnier crêpes, and I finally got a photo of Scott sleeping through dinner.
Love,
Jim