September 1, 2015

After a rough trip out of Switzerland and into France, we finally made it to Paris.  The train ride was a little miserable because the lady at the counter did our tickets wrong, so we didn’t have actual seats and had to sit in the jump seats in the doorway for about 4 hours.  Despite that, we made it and after a 2 hour ordeal with closed train lines, buses and terrible traffic, we got to our Airbnb apartment and got settled in.  Staying in an apartment for the next week is going to be great…we have a full kitchen, a real bed, and a washing machine…yay!

We spent Monday and Tuesday doing the hop-on-hop-off bus tour of the city.  It really is the easiest way to see everything and get a good overview of the city.  I know they’re kind of cheesy, but I still like to do them!  On Monday, we spent much of our time at the Louvre.  The museum itself if beautiful and to think that it used to be a palace is amazing…it is SO BIG!  We saw all of the most famous things;  the Mona Lisa, Venus di Milo, Winged Victory, lots of amazing rooms, and Napoleon’s apartment.

Hayden was most excited that we saw (yet another) Egyptian exhibit.  I’m pretty sure that he is going to end up being an Egyptologist…he is completely obsessed and would love nothing more than to spend all of his time in the Egyptian parts of museums.  He has so much fun reading the hieroglyphics (he knows just about the entire alphabet).  We spent at least 3 hours in the museum and didn’t even come close to covering the whole thing.  I think one of the coolest parts for us was going downstairs where you can see the old palace/castle/medieval part and they had a model of what it used to look like…really cool!

We spent the afternoon driving around the city on the bus.  We got a nice once-over on the highlights of the city and planned some of our upcoming days and other things that we want to do while we are here.  The buildings around the city and the river are really nice to look at, it’s amazing the detail that is put into the architecture.  After the bus, we went back to our apartment to have a nice dinner (it’s wonderful to have our own kitchen again!) and to relax with and watch a movie before going to bed.

One of the big things that we wanted to do was to tour Notre Dame.  Hayden didn’t know much about it, so we watched The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Disney version) last night so that he would be a little familiar with the church.  The pictures don’t do it justice and it really is hard to imagine how big it is until you are standing under it looking up!  We went on a great walking tour of the church and the surrounding area.  The tour guide was great and we learned lots about the church.  It’s amazing to think that it is over 800 years old!  The highlight of the tour for Hayden was having a pigeon land on his head and sit there for a while…it was pretty funny.

We also learned that this star in front of the church is the official “center” of the city.  Although it’s not the “actual” center, anytime that they refer to the center of Paris, the distance is measured from this location.  We also walked across the “love lock” bridge where people hang their locks and throw the key in the water.

After leaving the City Center area, we got back on the bus to see some areas that we had missed the day before.  While Adam and I enjoyed the rest of the sights along the city (Arc de Triomphe, Moulin Rouge, lots of great views of the river), Hayden pretty much pooped out and spent at least an hour sleeping.  The only problem with him taking a nap in the middle of the day is that he will want to be up all night!

Of course, given his nap in the afternoon, we stayed up late walking movies (Ratatouille, since we are in Paris) and getting excited to go to Paris Disneyland tomorrow!  I’m not really sure who is more excited…probably me.  🙂