Paris, oh la la

On this particular occasion, it was less of choice and more of necessity that we made it to Paris. Not because we didn't have the desire to go back, we did. The opportunity never really presented itself as we had so many other first-time visits to other countries to make. However, our hands were forced (don't feel sorry for us) to return to Paris because Sharma's parents were flying to Europe and decided to fly into Paris. Darn! I guess we will have to go back to the city of lights. I researched various options on how to get to Paris. We could take the ICE train, we could drive. If we drove, where would we park? If we drove would we pick up her parents or would we just meet them at the airport? A lot of questions needed to be answered and I needed to get busy on answering them. We priced ICE train tickets, once we figured out the price per person, although they weren't terribly priced, we could still beat them if we drove our car. So that was answered. Then we needed to figure out where to park the car. Our first option was to park at Disney Paris, which we know our friends have done. This apparently is a very convenient way of going to Paris. You park at one of the Disney parks and then take the train into Paris, spend the day, return to the park and leave. All great points, except for one key item...this is only good for a day trip. There are no overnight parking facilities. So I moved on to my next option, driving into Paris. Driving into large cities is never something I long to do, in fact if I can avoid it I will. But more often than not I find myself there, in the midst of the city, frantically telling the kids to "Look at the Eiffel tower before you miss it!". We found some parking garages near our hotel, some reasonably priced and some not. Ultimately I decided that I would drive into Paris, straight to Charles de Gaulle airport and pick up my in-laws, then park the van near our hotel. That was my choice and I was sticking with it. We left early in the morning from our hours, needing only four hours to get to Paris. Driving in France is not unlike driving in Germany except for two items, there are no stretches of unlimited speed in France and they charge you so much in tolls that you may want to consider taking out a loan just to visit. Tolls amount to, from our house near Kaiserslautern (Germany) 29 Euro each way. They make this very quick and painless, drive up to the toll station, insert your card and you are on your way with barely a tap of the brake. We made our way to Charles de Gaulle airport, wondering the whole way if I had made the right choice to pick up my in-laws. Airports in general make me a little nervous, with all of the hustle and bustle, a tornado of signs telling you all sorts of information, police, taxis, white zones...ahh! Now add to this list, all of the signs are in french. I know some french, I took it for four years in school, I had to read it while I served in Haiti, so it is not totally foreign. But when you are under stress, the words 'bonjour' and 'banjo' look about the same. We actually did pretty good for our first time there. In advance of them arriving I did my due diligence and looked up which terminal their flight was arriving. With this bit of information I followed the signs and found my way to the parking garage. We found a parking spot that could accommodate our large van (took up two spots, kind of). We walked to the the exit and took the elevator to the next floor, where all of the arrivals were. Actually it turned out to be a great move on our part and not difficult at all. After waiting for 45 minutes Sharma's parents showed up. After several minutes of greetings and conversation we left doing what we just did in reverse. We left the airport and now made our way to our hotel. Our hotel was located near the Sacre Coeur area of Paris. We were following our GPS and as we were getting near our hotel we were keeping our eyes open for anything resembling a parking garage. This was a crazy area of Paris; so many people and cars going every direction that really I just wanted to get off of the street, so the first garage we came to I drove in. It turned out to be quite a ways from our hotel (1/2 mile) but I felt better knowing that we just had to walk. The price ended up being okay as well, for our van we were charged 50 Euro for 48 hours, a small fee was added on for every hour over the 48, which meant we could explore some on our third day and not worry about being charged for a full extra day. We dropped off our luggage at our hotel, located in a very bustling, very diversed part of Paris. Our hotel won't be listed on any five star rating system. It was a clean room with a bed and a bath, these are our requirements anytime we go on a trip. This helps to defer the cost of lodging and gives us more money to play with. There was no elevator, so we were obliged to carry our bags up three flights of stairs. Our first destination was Sacre Coeur, a short walk from our hotel. We passed a Monoprix (grocery store) and purchased our usual. A diet of baguettes, sliced cheese, salami, red peppers, a couple of bags of chips, drinks and a small dessert. Again, this is a cost cutting measure first and foremost, but the great thing is everybody in the family likes it and we can still be mobile if we need to be. We hiked a couple sets of steep stairs to the top of the hill where Sacre Coeur sits. It was a busy day of tourists, the skies were cloudy but not threatening. We took in a rest at the top, ate our food and enjoyed the view from our vantage point from the steps in front of the church. After touring the church, we walked down off of the hill and caught a metro to the Louvre. We got off of the metro and walked back toward the Louvre from the direction of the Obelisk, at Place de la Concorde. We walked along the gardens outside of the Louvre, taking in all of the sites. The line to get in was short and we were in in a matter of minutes. We had a list of three things on our to-do list: Mona Lisa, Winged victory and Venus de Milo. The crowds were present but not overwhelming, it helps to visit late in the afternoon. We walked from the Louvre to the Metro...next destination, the Eiffel tower. We arrived at our Metro stop and walked along the Seine toward the Eiffel tower. As we got closer and closer the crowds became exponentially larger. We found some places to take pictures with the tower as our backdrop. We bought some cotton candy for Maddi, that always keeps her happy. This time we decided to watch the Eiffel tower from a perch 1 km away. We walked north of the Eiffel tower (away from the large expanse of grass), toward an overlook, there was already a crowd gathered, so we had to wait patiently for our chance to move to the front. We waited for 30 minutes until the Eiffel Tower started to sparkle. It twinkled for about 5 minutes and then the lights were shut off and we were left to bask in the afterglow. We caught the Metro back to our beds. The next day McKay and I had tickets for the French open at Roland Garros. Growing up I watched any sport on television, this meant that, from an early age I was exposed to all things tennis. The French open would be awesome to see someday...well that day is today, and doing it with my son? Even better. We took the metro to Roland Garros. We found the right line to stand in and were soon entering the park. We had printed off our tickets in advance and they scan them in and give you an actual ticket to get into the park. We had purchased a day pass (24 Euro) that granted us entrance in to courts 2-18, none of the big ones. I figured this time I would just get a feel for the tennis venue and then next year get tickets to a big court. McKay were definitely novices at this as we had no idea of schedules, who was playing, where to go or how to get into each court. We tried to get into court #3, the guy at the entrance let us in past the rope. We walked around the court and up some stairs and joined the line to get a seat. But nobody was moving. Was this court closed, not letting anybody in? We decided to leave and move to another court. Court #2 was next door. We stood in line at that one and saw that the line was moving. We soon realized that they only let people into the court when there is a break in the play, meaning that the players are taking a small rest. I am a dummy, I should have realized that. We got to see a Women's double on court #2. Then we decided to catch a Men's double, so we walked to one of the smaller courts, past the main courts. Wow, was it crowded and sunny today. They have huge television screens that people will just sit and watch the matches on. After sitting at the men's doubles for a while we decided to make our way back to court #2. It seems that they put the best matches, of those that didn't qualify for the big arena, in the lowest numbered courts (i.e. #2 and #3). We waited patiently for our turn to enter the court. We found great seats about three rows up from the court, right behind one of the players. The sun beat down on us from the right hand side. I brought sunscreen and did apply it, just not very well. I was burnt on he right side of my face, arms and legs. We were fortunate enough to see a Women's single match that went three sets. Then we watched a Men's singles match. This was awesome, 5 sets, 2 tiebreaks, serves going in excess of 130 mph. Truly a great match. It was Juan Monaco vs Milos Roanic. The only thing was that we had such great seats, that we didn't want to lose them, so we sat in our same seats for 5.5 hours in the sun. The best part of the match was when the water guy would come out and spray down the clay between sets. He got the loudest cheers and hollers because he would spray the crowd occasionally. It was such a hot day that any relief was appreciated, and he knew that. We didn't eat, drink or use the bathroom for 5.5 hours and we were spent. We caught the metro back to our place but because we only bought one way metro tickets we had to stand in line to purchase our return trip, us and about 200 hundred other people. Now we know all about the French Open...and I can't wait to get back. The next day we took our luggage to the car and dropped it off. We caught the Metro to Musee d'Orsay because it was a free museum day. We got to the museum and the line was starting to grow. Lucky we got there when we did. In fact we were even more lucky, because the guy running the line saw Maddi and let our whole group go through the VIP entrance saving us some time. The museum was an old train station converted into a Museum. They had many impressionist painters, many sculptors and a variety of other artists. The crowds were large but not unbearable. From here we took the metro back toward our hotel. Sharma had a flea market that she needed to go to...and yes, I said 'needed'. The flea market was called 'Les Puces de Saint Ouen' and apparently it is the largest flea market in France. Upon arriving we walked through the open air market past booth after booth of 'stuff' and when I say 'stuff' I mean 'stuuuffff'. We walked quite a while, just meandering around with no sense of purpose. This is where learning the art of orienteering would come in handy since it was very easy to get lost and turned around. We walked back to the car and drove home. Mode of Transportation: Van; tolls 29 Euro each way; Metro 6,90 Euro/adult for 1 day Mobilis ticket, Jeune ticket (students on Sat and Sun) 3,10 Euro/day. First Sunday of month all museums are free. Hotel: Bervic Montmartre Parking: Clingancourt 50 Euro/48 hours Sites: Louvre: 10 Euro/adult, 18 and under free, French Open tickets: 24 Euro/day, outside courts No 2-18; Les Puces de Saint Ouen- 27 Rue lecuyer, St Ouen (in Paris)