The Seine, a Market and the Eiffel Tower

Emma and I left the apartment early this morning for a quick walk down the rue Rivoli in the Marais for some breakfast. We bought a kilo of cherries (they’re in season here, along with apricots and fresh almonds, which the French coat with olive oil and salt then grill…) at a fruit shop and a baguette, a croissant and a pain au chocolat (John’s favorite…like a square of croissant pastry with chips of chocolate squished inside), and took it all back to the apartment to share with the boys. Then we walked towards the Hotel de Ville to buy tickets for the Batobus, which is a boat that goes up and down the Seine all day, allowing you to get on and get off at any of the stops. I wanted to ride only one stop over and calculated that the boat would take us right there, but when the boat came I realized that it was going in the other direction, so we were treated to an unplanned tour of the entire city of Paris by boat. That was fine by me, and I took lots of pictures of the bridges, but the kids got a little restless after a bit, especially when it started to get hot. We finally got off the boat in the Left Bank, at the Jardin des Plantes, which is a botanical garden. We strolled through on our way to the Latin Quarter, an area of Paris in the 5^th arrondissement so called because it’s near the Sorbonne and other French universities where the Latin language was spoken in the Middle Ages by academics and scholars. We walked towards the Rue Moufettard, a narrow pedestrian area of winding cobblestone streets that features a market a few days a week. The market was full of people, food, wine, great smells, flowers…just what I picture a French market should be. I made a few purchases at some stalls, and tried to be a bit more confident with my French: at the cheese shop, I asked for two different things, and then when the woman gave them to me along with my change, she asked if Emma and John would like to sample a different kind of cheese, I said yes, and thanked her for her generosity (sounds simple enough, but it took me a while to work out what she had asked me in my head!). I bought some fresh apricots at a fruit shop, then a roasted chicken from a woman who David overheard being rude to a few previous customers, and felt triumphant that she was merely curt to me. And when I bought a baguette, I also got a little brioche au sucre wrapped up in an elaborate swirl-shape, but only after asking the girl at the shop if she thought it was something the kids would enjoy.

Then we stopped at a Franprix for some napkins and drinks, and walked to the Arenes de Lutece to eat our picnic lunch, which are the remains of a Roman amphitheater constructed in the first century that once seated 15,000 people for gladiatorial events (I omitted that part of the spot’s history for Emma), discovered in the late 1800’s when the nearby Rue Monge was constructed. It’s now a popular (though dusty) park, and was filled with kids playing soccer in the stage area, and families and couples perched all along the “bleachers” area. We enjoyed our lunch, though John struggled with wanting desperately to play soccer with the kids below but being intimidated about joining in without knowing the language (and I can’t say as I blame him…and kids are much harder to understand in a foreign language than adults anyway). After our lunch, we headed back to the Seine, stopping at a bookshop where I bought a Where’s Waldo-type book about all the sites in Paris for the kids (including one that is the exact view from the windows of our flat) and a French copy of Le Petit Prince for me. Then we got back on the Batobus and took it to the Pont Alexandre III, a bridge that goes from the Grand Palais to Les Invalides. We were headed to the Musee Rodin, but were left with a bit of a walk to get there, and had to search a bit for an ATM on the way (and I have no idea how to say “ATM” in French!), and by the time we arrived, the Museum had just closed. I had promised the kids (and David!) some ice cream in the gardens of the Museum, so they were quite disappointed (all three…) and we began a long, long walk from the garden in front of Les Invalides (where Napoleon is buried) to the Champs de Mars, the park in front of the Eiffel Tower. We were on the lookout for ice cream along the way, but couldn’t find any (surprisingly) so ended up at the park a grouchy, tired bunch. I had purchased tickets ahead of time online for the Eiffel Tower to avoid the long line (and wow was it long when we arrived!) but we had about 45 minutes left to wait, so we walked down to the Seine to sit on the steps and eat the remains of our picnic. While we were seated, David turned to me and said, “You know, I really never liked the Eiffel Tower…” I ignored him, chalking it up to a lack of ice cream, and told the kids a simplified story about the tower: it was built by Gustave Eiffel for the World Exposition in 1889 and at first considered by many Parisians to be an eyesore. After a time, though, Parisians came around and began to love the monument—all except Eiffel’s rival designer William Morris. He began to call the tower the Giant Asparagus, and refused to visit. And when he finally did visit the tower for the first time and people asked him why, he said, “Why on Earth have I come here? Because it’s the only place in Paris I can’t see it from!”

At 7:30, we presented our previously-purchased lift tickets, and cut to the front of the line for the elevator (John did a little victory dance as we walked, shouting “See ya later, suckers!” to all the people in line, who I hope did not speak English!). We rode up, and all very much enjoyed the view (even David, despite not liking the tower and despite having his opened bottle of wine from our picnic lunch confiscated before we were allowed to enter the queue…). John spent some of his souvenir money on a little bear with a shirt that said “Paris” on it and the Eiffel Tower embroidered on his foot, that goes with the Scotland and London bears we already have, and Emma got a little purple keychain of the tower from one of the many, many plastic-tower-hawkers outside. It’s possibly the world’s cheapest trinket, but it made her very happy! We walked back down to the Seine, got on the Batobus again, and rode back to the Hotel de Ville, in the Marais. We took a stroll through the neighborhood, and the kids said they were hungry, so we stopped at a creperie on the Rue de Rosiers. I ordered a crepe with butter and sugar for John, and when the guy making the crepe put on lots of sugar, I said, “And now he won’t be able to sleep…!” I had to repeat the sentence a second time to make myself be understood, but when he did get it and smiled, I felt quite triumphant. We walked a bit more in search of falafel for Emma but found that the spot we had stopped the first night was closed, so returned to the crepe place for two more…one for Emma and one for David. This time, when David held John up to see the process and Emma was struggling to see on her tiptoes, the man making the crepes first encouraged her to cross the small street and stand on a door stoop to see, then told her to come into the shop and around to where he was standing. He then proceeded to let her help make her own crepe, which was very sweet (I noticed that he kept glancing up a tv screen showing the Barcelona-Manchester United football game while she was making the crepe, and I figured that he must have been a Barca fan and was in a good mood). I took a few photos of her working behind the counter, since I’m guessing the experience will likely end up being the highlight of her trip!

So, we took our crepes and walked through the Marais eating them, which was fabulous. The streets were crowded, and we were all having a great time. It was certainly one of those moments that David and I will always remember about being in Paris. The kids are having a fabulous time, too--Emma loves the markets and the shopping, even though we haven’t yet bought much other than food and wine. John keeps proclaiming, “This is a really good city” as he walks through all the neighborhoods with us, and he has also started to show his appreciation of French food by kissing the tips of his fingers and opening them with a flourish and a “supoib!” when he tastes something he likes. And, when he overhears someone speaking French, he comes out with a loud “Oh la la…croissant!” in a French accent, which actually gets funnier each time he says it. We’ve got two little contests going: one, to find the thinnest woman, and two, to spot the most French-looking man. I think I’m in the running on the first one, after having spotted a pregnant woman in the Jardin des Tuileries pushing a little boy on a slide and wearing four-inch high heels on legs that weren’t much wider than cigarettes. David’s winning the second, as he saw a man on a bicycle wearing a red scarf and a black and white striped tshirt, though Emma and I did see a man outside the Louvre who was able to smoke a cigarette, pick his nose and text on his cell phone all at the same time. We’re trying to provide photographic evidence to support our entries, which can sometimes prove difficult and requires us to use the kids as a “photo-foil” from time to time. Our contest will continue, and we’ll see what we come up by the end of the trip!

I posted some more photos from our second day at: Paris 2 Photos