Paris

Okay, I think I'm ready to write this post ;)

We took the kids out an extra day from school for Columbus Day weekend, and spent 4 days in Paris. We stayed at a Eurocamp again, and since Joe wasn't with us last time, he was pretty impressed.  It's not like staying in a trailer park is the nicest place to stay, but for us it's ideal.  First of all, it is SUPER cheap (4 nights for about $100), they're usually close to popular tourist places, they fit our family comfortably, and we have a kitchen, so we save money on food because we buy more at local grocery stores instead of eating out.  Joe said that in his next life he's going to own a trailer park, but I reminded him that I don't think this set-up would work nearly as good in the States, because people aren't respectful of property that isn't there own, and they don't clean up after themselves as well as people here (which is expected at the Eurocamps), and I can imagine that people would complain that you have to provide your own linens, or pay extra for them, even though it helps keep the overall cost down, and I'm sure there are other reasons too.  Just my opinion,

The only thing bad about our stay here was that it was really cold at night, and we couldn't figure out how to turn on the heater.  This is really dumb, because we could have just asked the people in charge how to do it, but every night when we came home, we were so exhausted that the last thing we wanted to do was go ask about this.  We just fell into our beds and zonked out immediately.  And each morning we were always in too much of a hurry to go have fun to ask then either.  Oh well, we survived.  I mean, I did end up getting a nasty little cold when we got home, but I'm sure that's just a coincidence ;)

Our first day we took a bus, and then a train, and then a 10 minute walk, and we arrived at the Louvre!

We didn't wait long to get inside.  I really loved it, definitely the best part of Paris for me.  My only regret is that we only stayed less than 2 hours because our two youngest kids were complaining SO much.  They literally almost died.  It was very dramatic.

The Louvre itself is a beautiful building, inside and out.

I took a lot more pictures than I'm going to post here, but I'll just share my favorite pieces.

Venus (or Aphrodite) de Milo, by Alexandros of Antioch, is one of the most iconic ancient Greek sculptures.  Created some time between 130 and 100 BC.  

Mona Lisa, by Leonardo da Vinci.  Said to be "the best known, most visited, most written about, most sung about, and most parodied work of art in the world".  It was actually a lot bigger than we thought that it was (because, ironically, we'd always heard that it's a lot smaller than you think it is), although it looks way too small in this picture, so that doesn't really tell you anything at all, lol.

Winged Victory of Samothrace.  Perhaps made in the 2nd century BC, the sculptor is unknown.  It was to honor the goddess Nike, but it was also to honor a sea battle, and shows the goddess descending onto the prow of a ship.  This is one of a small number of surviving original Hellenistic statues.

You can see much better pictures than mine on the internet, that really show the incredible detail.  The sheer fabric over the stomach, and the draping of the skirt, and the feathers in the wings.....really amazed me.  So beautiful.

And finally, The Moneylender and His Wife, by Quentin Matsys.  I just really liked this because it reminded my of a Jan van Eyck's painting called The Arnolfini Wedding.  I guess that's not really surprising, since they were both from the Netherlands, had the same kind of training, and were less than 100 years apart.

 The minuscule details are fascinating to me - I could study this painting for a long time.

 The Louvre really was impressive, and we couldn't believe how much there was to see, even though we missed seeing most of it.  Outside the Louvre we caught our first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower, and we debated walking towards it (even though it was almost 4 kilometers away), walk in the opposite direction to Notre Dame (which was only 2 kilometers away), or find a hop-on-hop off bus so that our whiny children wouldn't kill us.

We opted for the hop-on-hop-off.  Even though they're a bit pricey, we think they are worth it in the bigger cities, and with little kids who will die if they have to walk too much.  

Plus, you do end up seeing a lot of things that you probably wouldn't see otherwise.  We actually stopped by Notre Dame first, so we didn't see much until after that.
Here's Notre Dame (built from 1163-1345).

 I'm not entirely sure why, but I thought Notre Dame would be even bigger.
Oh well, look how beautiful it is! (my inside pictures aren't very good)

 Much less ostentatious than Westminster Abbey.  It felt more sacred in there....like a good place to meditate.  Supposedly the church treasury contains the crown of thorns, a fragment of the true cross, and one of the holy nails.

Outside, people were feeding pigeons, and letting them land on their arms and head.  Alex wanted to give it a try - thank goodness he didn't have anything to feed them with, because touching a pigeon sounds disgusting to me.

We hopped back on our bus, and this time we rode for quite a ways, taking in the sights of Paris, including such places as the Palais Bourbon, where the National Assembly meets.

Place de la Concorde, one of the major public squares (and largest) in Paris.  It was here, during the French Revolution, that the new revolutionary government erected the guillotine, and executed so many of the French aristocracy, including King Louis XVI.  The obelisk in the center is decorated with Egyptian hieroglyphs exalting the reign of pharaoh Ramses II.  I don't know why the Egyptian government gave it to France, and it seems out of place, but oh well.

 A fountain next to the obelisk 

Crossing the River Seine, with a gorgeous look at the Eiffel Tower.

The Les Invalides - a complex of buildings containing museums and monuments to the military history of France, as well as a hospital and retirement home for veterans (which was it's original purpose)

At the back of the complex is the Dome des Invalides, which is a large church.  This is where Napoleon Bonaparte is buried.

This monument/statue of Thomas Jefferson.  Apparently there are several throughout the city.  He lived there between 1785 and 1789, during which time he was a United States minister to France. He, of course, was the writer of the Declaration of Independence, but he also directly influenced the writing of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (which is the French equivalent of the Declaration of Independence)

And finally, driving down the Avenue des Champs Elysees, which runs from Place de la Concorde, to the Arc de Triomphe (just over a mile long).  It is known as the world's most beautiful avenue, it is where the Tour de France finishes, and it has been the sight of many famous military parades.

This is where we hopped off our bus again, to get a better look at the Arc De Triumph.

Commissioned in 1806 by Napoleon Bonaparte at the height of his career, but wasn't finished until he was long gone.  Today it honors those who fought and died for France in the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars.  Beneath it lies the tomb of the Unknown Soldier from World War !

I wanted to go to the top of this, rather than the top of the Eiffel Tower because 1) it's cheaper, and 2) you get the Eiffel Tower in your view.  There are 284 steps to the top, and I almost died.  Ironically, the little kids never complained about walking up all those stairs like they complained about walking around Paris (which came later).  Seriously, the stairs were way harder.

 There are 12 avenues that radiate out from the Arc de Triomphe.  It is quite the sight.

 Below is Avenue des Champs-Elysees which we came down, and that's where I got the first picture of the Arc de Triomphe, standing in that first cross-walk, right in the center.

 And here's the Eiffel Tower view.

After we finished there, we hopped back on the bus and finally went to see the Eiffel Tower up close and personal.  It was......not exactly what we were expecting.

 As you can see above, leading up to the tower was a huge field of dirt.  I've seen pictures from this vantage point before that showed it as a nice grassy area - I don't know what happened to the grass, but it was splotchy at best.  It was really just dirt, and you can't really see from the picture, but it was covered with garbage.  Really gross.  And every few feet we were accosted by a vendor trying to sell miniature replicas of the Eiffel Tower, in every size and color imaginable.  It really kind of shocked us, and snuffed out any notions of romance or beauty.  It was still cool to see though.  I mean, it's the Eiffel Tower.

 Then we waited for our bus to come back. And we waited, and waited, and waited.  They're supposed to come every 15-20 minutes, but we waited about 45 minutes, during which time we watched old men play Bocce...

 ...took more selfies...

 ...and tried not to freeze to death, because it was cold, and sitting around waiting for a bus makes you colder.

Finally, we'd had enough waiting, and we made the, possibly ill-conceived, and desperate decision to walk back to the train station....which was about an hour away.  Cue, whining of epic proportions. We started out by walking around to the other side of the Eiffel Tower, alongside the river.  This area was MUCH smaller, but it did actually have grass, so it looked a little nicer.  Still lots of vendors though.

Most of the walk back was along the Seine River, and I thought it was lovely.

The Pont Alexandre III Bridge, built between 1896-1900.

And this is Passerelle Solferino, a pedestrian foot bridge, and it's another love-lock bridge.  There were even vendors on the bridge selling locks.  Never seen that before.  I decided to pass because 1) whiny kids, and 2) as I've said before, we've already locked our love in Korea.

And at this point, I'd just like to say that I do not think that Paris is the "City of Love".  I don't get it, I just don't.  I have been to way more romantic cities than Paris.  Even if Joe and I had been alone (which would have made this day much more enjoyable), I still don't get it.  I even looked it up, and I found this article where they surveyed 2,0000 travelers - and guess what?  They agreed with me!  Paris came in at #5 (and I'd argue even that).  So I know that I'm not totally crazy.

We finally made it back, and like I mentioned before, CRASHED!  We were all so tired and sore (Joe and I had the worst back pain!).  Really, I think that overall it was a good day, and we enjoyed ourselves.  Cora was great, and she loved it.  Joseph didn't complain too much, but he said he wasn't that impressed with Paris.  The little kids (even though Paris was at the top of their list of places they wanted to go), could have done without it.  I really don't think they liked any of it, other than the Eiffel Tower.  Personally, I would have loved to have spent another day going from museum to museum (there are a ton of them in Paris).  We passed the Rodin museum on the bus, and caught a glimpse of the back of The Thinker (which sits in the gardens of the museum), and Cora and I looked at it longingly.

But I knew that another day in Paris was NOT going to work for our whole family, so we needed a Plan B.  We had already decided to spend 2 days at Disneyland, and we thought we'd spend the last day at Versailles.  As it turns out, Versailles was closed that day, so we ended up doing an extra day at Disneyland - which, in the end, turned out to be the best thing for this trip.  No regrets.  Okay, just little regrets.  Anyway, I think I'm going to do a separate post for Disneyland, because this is getting too long.

Right Out My Back Door

Sometimes I forget how big Wiesbaden is (over 78 square miles), and that I still haven't explored it all.  Not long ago we explored the nearby borough of Sonnenberg (Wiesbaden is divided into 26 boroughs).  It's only about a 10 minute walk out our door, and yet, we'd never been there before.

Sonnenberg Castle, built around 1201, is now in ruins, but still pretty cool to see.  There is a restaurant there, and it looks like they hold certain events there too.

I really love where I live.  I can't believe we're down to our last year here.  It has gone by so fast, as I knew it would.  I'm trying to appreciate and enjoy every minute, instead of prematurely mourning my loss, but I know I will miss Germany as much as I still miss Korea.