Today was a fun day. It's the birthday of my oldest daughter, Katie. She turned 11 today, and we let her direct the day's activities. She put together a great day!
While she, Laura and Elodie went out to get some special birthday breakfast pastries this morning, I went on my own errand. I needed to mail back the Italian (TelePass) and French (Liber-t) tolltags I'd rented from tolltickets.com. If I haven't raved about them yet, they were awesome! I was able to zip through the automated lanes on the toll roads in Italy and France... added up, I'm sure it saved at least a couple hours over the weeks I was driving in those countries. Tolltickets gave me a nice return label sticker and I went in search of a post office (La Poste) nearby to send them back to Germany this morning. I was shocked at how helpful the staff was at the one I found just a couple blocks from the apartment. They had folks that spoke English and helped me pick the right products to ship my tags back. They were friendly and fun.
Back at the apartment, the birthday breakfast pastry eating and present opening was in full swing.
Once we left the apartment, it was time to head to the Eiffel Tower. Since the RER C train had a construction bus detour, we opted for a Metro route that brought us in from the École Militaire side. We had a full tower-beyond-the-park view as we approached
Our family is a stair-climbing family so we piled into the stairs-only line and a quick 40 minutes later, we were climbing the stairs of the tower.
Before continuing, I need to tell you about "Rose, Thorn and Bloom". We play a game around the dinner table called "Rose, Thorn, Bloom". We go around the table 3 times. The first time, each person says something they liked about the day that's just past ("Rose"). The second time, each person says something they didn't like about the day ("Thorn"). Then, on the last time around, each person says something they are looking forward to on the next day ("Bloom"). I mention this, because we've modified this game to add a fourth category... "Stars". A Star is something special someone noticed in someone else in the family during the day that was especially cool or noteworthy. Stars are optional and don't require going in order and are interjected between the Thorn and Bloom rounds. Anyway, today Elodie got multiple "Stars" because she was afraid going up the tower steps and it was hard for her but she stuck it out and pull it off like a champ. (Elodie likes getting "Stars"!)
After the tower, we walked to Luxembourg Gardens -- Katie's choice for the afternoon. I know it's surprising, but standing in line at a museum or wandering around looking at things was not high on Katie's list of activities for today. The kids rented model sailboats to sail in the pond. I was unprepared for how much they enjoyed this. You can't control the boat. You put it in the water, point in in a direction get it a little shove with a stick and then follow it around and do the same thing when it gets to the side again. It's pretty low-tech. In fact, someone came up and asked me, incredulously, "You mean, there's no RC controller?!?" Nope, just a stick and the wind. My kids loved it. They did one 30 minute round, broke for a snack and then went back and did another 30 minute round. Well, the older kids did a second round with the sailboats. Elodie opt'd for a pony ride instead.
Meanwhile, Laura was trying to line up dinner, unsuccessfully. While Paris may have 10,000 restaurants or more, many of them are closed on Monday or the owners take their own holidays in the summer. Then, there are the ones that don't look as nice in person as the pictures or reviews would lead you to believe. So, Laura went on a mission of discovery and came back empty handed and frustrated. We finally decided to let Katie pick out a place on the walk back to the apartment and if that didn't happen, we'd rely on friends' recommendations.
Our route back went past St Sulpice and into the Saint-Germain neighborhood. We ended up walking down Rue Guisarde where we found Le Machon d'Henri. It was exactly what we were looking for. The staff was friendly, the food was good and we enjoyed our meal. When we produced candles and explained that it was Katie birthday, they put them on her chocolate mousse and joined us in singing "Happy Birthday". The whole restaurant clapped. It was fun.
Bellies full, it was time to walk back to the apartment and rest up. Tomorrow starts with a private, family bike-ride tour!
