You may be able to tell that these photos were taken in Paris. Nothing quite prepares you for the experience of turning the corner of a busy, crowded street, past an industrial looking building, climbing a few stairs, and all of a sudden, happening upon the view of the Eiffel Tower on the horizon. I think we spent a good hour taking photos. It was just so beautiful. The sun was out (we'd experienced a bit of rain and cold on our trip); it was warm and wonderful. The kids were having a ball, goofing off and enjoying the incredible view, so they even indulged some curious Chinese tourists who were watching us, and apparently quite interested in our loud and noisy group. They asked if they could have their picture taken with our kids. With a lot of laughter, the kids obliged and posed for pictures for the Chinese couple. I wonder what they will do with their photos they took with a huge crowd of children. Print them out? Show them to their friends? I guess I will never know.
We made our way to the Louvre when we were finished taking pictures and walking around the Eiffel Towed. Considering we didn't go up in it or anything, I'm surprised how long we spent there. I guess it was just the glorious weather and the happy kids, and the amazing view that made us take so long, but we eventually wanted to get to do something else on our day in Paris, so we finally made it to the Louvre. Since we didn't have a lot of time, and the Louvre is so enormous that I think you could pretty easily get lost in there and not find your way out for a month, we picked just a handful of things to see. The Mona Lisa, obviously, was a must. The fact that so many hundreds of people crowd the room it is set in, every single day (you have to kind of wait in line to get close enough to see it), after hundreds of years since it was painted is really quite remarkable. I'm glad the kids got a chance to see it in real life. Like music, paintings in real life are much more exciting than looking at replicas.
We walked through Napoleon's apartments and then statues from ancient Babylon. Actually, I'm pretty certain the Babylonian statues you see in the pictures are replicas. After this, we took the picture where you see the kids about to fall over from exhaustion. We still squeezed in the ancient Egypt exhibit, that included a real life mummy. Naturally that was a favorite of everyone. Then we began to get the feeling that we might never leave the ancient Egypt section, as we wandered around looking for the exit. I can't begin to tell you how big and meandering the Louvre is. At the end of a day in Paris, wandering through a museum trying to get out and find something to eat with a huge group of exhausted kids is not terribly fun, and I think we all had the sense that we may end up with those mummies for the rest of our lives. Thankfully, as you can tell, we eventually made our way out.
At this point, the one thought on our minds was dinner. Walking past the handful of tiny cafes outside the Louvre gave me a sinking, worried feeling in my stomach that it would be near impossible to find a cafe to feed all of us, and if we could, we would likely not be very welcome with our loud, large group of so many kids.
So when we walked past yet another cafe and gave a passing glance at a menu, and were flagged down by the owner, begging to know if we needed to eat, I was quite shocked, but very pleasantly so.
"You have a table for seventeen?" my friends and I asked doubtfully, feeling it was too good to be true.
"Yes, yes, come in, come in, we will seat you right away!"
"There are thirteen kids, and we need two high chairs."
"Yes, I have just the perfect table for you. Come with me!" And he pushed aside two or three customers so we could get through the tiny doorway with our strollers. At the back of the little cafe were several long tables, and the owner pulled a couple of people out of their seats and moved them to another spot so that we could all be seated.
We didn't really care too much what was on the menu at this point, instead just felt grateful to be able to sit down and feed our children. And the food was fine; it was definitely more of a touristy type of restaurant in it's location right outside the Louvre and mainly served the somewhat cliched, quintessential French foods, like crepes, and beef bourguignon, and snails, and croque monsieur, and of course, French onion soup. But it tasted great and the owner waited on us, and seemed to fly through the restaurant bringing us water, and ketchup, and another order of crepes, and cleaning up spills. Best waiter I've ever seen.
The meal and the waiter put smiles back on everyone's faces, and then, as we stepped outside, deciding whether to head straight back to the train station, we heard a brass jazz-type band playing just outside the Louvre.
The musicians were really good, I mean really good. They put so much charisma and energy into their playing. The music sounded amazing being played in the center of Paris on a quiet moonlight evening where the busy streets had emptied. Upon hearing the music, the kids had their energy restored to them and the little ones began dancing, the older ones clapping. First we put a couple of euros into their open instrument case as a thank you, then stayed for one song after another. They played several songs that I now can't remember the names of, then "Eye of the Tiger" and then they did a really cool rendition of, "I'll Fly Away," even singing it in English. It was pretty awesome. We stood and listened for at least a half hour, and ended up putting another ten euros in the instrument case- such a small payment for such an exciting performance. When they had begun playing, we were the only ones listening, and when we finally left to catch a train, there was a crowd of nearly a hundred people gathered around, at 9:30 in the evening. It was quite the finale to an exciting and eventful day in Paris.
