my three sons: Paris is always a good idea!

Paris. It is always a good idea. This was the second time for my husband and I(third time for him) and the first for our children. We took the train from Cologne, Germany to Paris, France. We got in around dinner time, so after we met up with our BNB person, we dropped off our bags and went searching for dinner in our neighborhood, or arrondissment. We found a lovely French restaurant just a short walk from our apartment. We dined on escargot, French wine, French beer, real Cokes, steaks, for the boys, and a salad for me. It came with an egg, which I quickly took off and gave to my husband. It also came with potatoes and cheese, which was so good! Everyone enjoyed their dinner and we walked back to our apartment for the evening. The next day, we walked, yep, we walked to the Eiffel Tower for our reserved time to go up the elevator. We stayed in the 15^th arrondissment so it was a mere few blocks away. How cool is that, right?!

The Eiffel Tower blew us all away. The view is amazing. If you are in Paris, this is a must, but be sure to order your tickets online or you will be standing in line for hours. We could show the boys all of the things we wanted them to see. After we got our feet back on the ground, we hit the subway for Notre Dame. The line to get in was wrapped around the building, so we looked, took a picture and moved on. J We went to a place down the street for lunch that Trey and I loved. It sounds silly but it is so good. This place sells hotdogs with gruyere cheese inside of a baguette. Pair that with a Coke and wow, it is soooo good. Don’t knock it until you have tried it and I hope you get the chance to do so. We walked across the Seine to Hotel Deville. They had some animal set ups from the Global Warming meeting they hosted earlier in the year. Then, what do you know, I found a Lush just steps from the Hotel Deville. Score for mom! Afterwards, we took a subway back towards the apartment and saw that the Louvre was one of the stops on the way, so we got off there and got some good shots of the pyramid. After that, we went back to the apartment to regroup and rest up. We went out to the Champs-Elysees. At night, it is glorious. Add to the fact that it was Christmas and it made it so magical. The lights were so beautiful and at the very end were Christmas markets.

We went shopping at a big grocery store the day before Christmas. This is a testament to our love for travel and adventure. I say this because we shopped in a foreign country with minimal understanding of French the day before Christmas. You know how stores are crazy busy, add that to the fact that we knew nothing of what we wanted or where anything was and people there had no time for us newbies. I think we did a good job and are ready to do it again!

Everything is closed on Christmas Day, so we hunkered down in the apartment and made pasta and played card games with the kids. It was so wonderful to spend Christmas in such a beautiful city. It was a good day to rest up and kick some of the colds that were lingering. Definitely a Christmas to remember!

The next day, we met up with our friend Karthik. He is a coworker of my husband in their Paris office. Karthik has spent a lot of time with us and our kids. He took us to the Montmartre part of Paris. This is one of my favorite arrondissments. We have been to Sacre Coeur before and climbed all 270 steps and claimed we would never do it again. Well, Karthik convinced us that it wasn’t that bad, so we did it again. Oh my. It is not for the out of shape, but we made it and were quite proud once we made it to the top. There is such a beautiful view of just about every part of the city! We walked through the church and took a few more pictures before heading back down. (The easy part) With all of those stairs, we worked up an appetite. We went to a place that Karthik loves. It was an Italian place. Great pizza, great everything! It was so good, that we ended up going back a few days later! We saw the Love Wall, which was awesome. We walked past Moulin Rouge and then on to Place de la Republique. This was the area that was attacked in the October terrorist attack. There is a beautiful memorial set up in the square. We parted ways with Karthik and then on to the Musee de l’Armee. This was probably the boys’ favorite part of Paris. This museum represented every decade of military and the wars. At the end, we saw the tomb of Napoleon Bonaparte. We took a quick trip to Trocadero (the plaza across the street from the Eifeel Tower) to see the Eiffel shine and sparkle.

The next day took us to the Lourve to visit inside of the museum. We spent about half a day there. The kids really liked it! They were amazed to see things that they had only seen in history books.

Our last night in Paris was spent at an Indian restaurant with Karthik, and two other people from DNP Paris. It was so good to visit with them.

We braved the train back to the airport the next morning and boarded our flight from Charles de Gaulle to Philadelphia and then onto Charlotte.

We enjoyed our trip so much that we are already planning our next one! Stay tuned!

Love,

K