Journal Day 06

06 October 2016

Palace of Versailles 

We went back and forth on going to Versailles or not. I wasn't sure if we'd want one more day in the city. I was very impressed by all we were able to do in the time that we've been there, so I didn't feel like we'd be missing out if we decided to go. 

So we decided to head out first thing in the morning to Versaille, there's a train that heads right there, and the stop was close to where we were staying so it was pretty easy. It was about a 45 minute journey from the time we left our apartment to walking up to the palace. 

I wasn't expecting it to be essentially in the city. When we walked out of the train station there was a starbucks. For some reason I always imagined Versailles in the country side. Which it once was, but I suppose quite a bit has changed since it was first built. 

We bought tickets there and there wasn't any line so we headed right in to view the rooms in the main palace. It is crazy how every inch of the place is decorated. It's really a bit overwhelming. There's a lot, and I believe it took us over an hour and a half to make it thought. We did stop for a break to grab some hot chocolate from Angelina's. It's known quite well and I was glad that they had it there, because we weren't able to get to it. It was delicious, of course. 

Next up, the gardens. Truly, the most spectacular part of Versailles, they go on and on. They have more restaurants on the grounds so we stopped to grab lunch and found a spot in the gardens to eat. 

We walked through the gardens a bit and headed to the other buildings on the premise. We first stopped at King Louie's other palace, which I enjoyed way more than the big one. The architecture was more simple and less overwhelming, it wasn't as busy, and had way more furniture. 

In hindsight, I would have skipped the first one, or just spent less time and go to only a couple rooms. It's easier to say now that I've seen it, but we could have spent less time there. 

The gardens just behind his second home were my favorite. The flowers were still blooming and there was a lovely mix of outgrown almost wild flowers with defined edges. 

I got some photos, but at this time Jordan somehow that it was like three hours later haha! I was trying to get a family photo and he got all frustrated saying we needed to move on. He didn't realize until later that we had plenty of time until everything closed. So we slowed down our pace again. 

We were very excited to see the Queen's Hamlet, a village Marie Antoinette created, because she loved the idea of peasant life. It was so beautifully bizarre. Sadly the main house, her house was being renovated, but we were able to still see the rest of the village. She had all different houses for livestock, gardening, and such. They still had some farm animals there, so we stopped for a bit so Ruby could see them. 

Afterward we took our time wandering around the gardens, getting a little lost. We walked back to the main gardens and stopped for a gaufres with nutella, which is harder than you would like to pronounce in french. I tried really hard, but to me it just sounds like gopher. Jordan made fun and mocked my attempts of trying to say it correctly. It was delicious, it was essentially a waffle, but the best waffle and nothing like I've had before. I'm not a waffle person, so this was our first time getting one, and we are still kicking ourselves for not trying it sooner. 

At the end of our Versailles trip it was around 6 o'clock (the time Jordan thought it was a few hours earlier) and we had spent way longer than we thought we would. We were just thinking a few hours, but we spent the entired day exploring Versailles! 

We got on the train and headed back to the city, stopping Le Marais for dinner. Determined to make our first falafel experience right, we headed there. The initial place we were hoping to go, L'as du falafel was open so we were able to get in pretty quickly and sit down and enjoy some yummy falafel. It was so delicious, and a lot better than the last place we went to, so I am glad that we ventured out again for it! 

Afterward we walked by the Pompidou center that we missed the last time we were there and then stopped the Amorino's across the street. We got another gaufres with gelato and nutella on top! Sooo good! 

We went back home as this was our last full day in Paris, so we needed to pack up a bit. We watched the eiffel tower light up every chance that we could from the view from our window until we went to bed. 

Journal Day 05 

5 October 2016

Paris, France 

(not edited) 

Today was our last full day to explore the city of Paris. Our goal today was not to see everything we could but to enjoy Paris fully. And to eat good food. 

We set out in the late morning for breakfast. Learning from past mistakes, we researched the best place in out neighborhood. We settled on a place called Kozy which was on our way to the Eiffel Tower. We must be getting better at finding quality restaurants, because this one was delicious. We didn't try too much, I got a latte and we split a slice of quiche and a chocolate chip cookie. Everything was so good, I can still vividly remember everything about this moment. We almost went back a couple of times. Also yummy espresso to boot. 

We had scheduled to climb up the eiffel tower at 1130 so we headed there next. We can see it outside our window and had already had a picnic by it, so we were excited to be able to get inside and to see the view of Paris from the tower. 

We spent about an hour picking out different sights we had already visited. We even were able to point out our apartment. We only went up to the second landing, which was maybe 2/3 of the way up. We still felt very high up. We took the stairs down to the first floor, which Ruby loved. 

We stopped by the playground next to the eiffel tower for a little while to let Ruby play. There were quite a few other kiddos there, one even poured sand on Ruby a couple times. haha 

Our apartment is close to the eiffel tower so we walked back and let Ruby take nap there. This was the first time that she took a nap at the apartment, besides the first day that we were there. We've been so impressed with her ability to nap on the go. While she napped Jordan and I planned out the rest of our day, picking out some restaurants and such. 

Ruby was napping extra long, and we were getting a little antsy to get going, but instead of waking her up, Jordan grabbed pizza for lunch. We had walked by the pizza place down the street many times, so it was nice to still enjoy some delicious pizza and some Orangina, even if we were stuck in out airbnb. The nice thing about our place is that we could open up the big windows and see the eiffel tower and still very much feel like we're in Paris. This turned out to be one of my favorite meals we shared together. 

Once Ruby woke up from her nap we took the metro to Montmarte. On the way there we realized we didn't pack diapers for Ruby. So once we got there we had quite the experience trying to find some diapers. 12 euros later we found some pampers at a local pharmacie. I was definitely disappointed that they didn't have some cool European brand. 

We stopped by a playground for Ruby to play located next to the wall of love tiled mural.

We continued on toward the Sacre Coeur, we toured the inside and then decided to walk the 300 some steps up to the top. It was so incredibly beautiful to see all of Paris from that view. We ended up staying at the top for over an hour and a half and watched the sunset. Ruby loved running around the top and talking with the other visitors. One even gave her a bit of her ricecake, which Ruby now has a newfound love for. 

Afterwards we walked around Montmarte while Ruby slept. It was dark at this point, so we made our walk pretty quick. 

The Renoir painting of Montmarte that I wanted to see wasn't at the Orsay when we visited. So, thankfully I was able to stop by the place where he did the painting which was so fun to do. Many of the artists that I admire once lived and created in this area of Paris, so I mostly just imagined walking around the streets just as we were. 

Instead of eating dinner there we decided to head back to near our place and we had dinner Le Bosquet which I read had a yummy vegetarian ravioli gratin. Which was by far my favorite meal of the trip, it also came with a delicious simple salad. 

Today was just as we wanted, enjoyable and yummy. 

Museum Day

Today, a Sunday, the first Sunday of the month, our second day, first full day in Paris, also happens to be the day most museums are open free to the public. We took full advantage of this and crammed in as many museums as we possible could. It was a packed day, but we had a lot of fun, and saw a lot of Paris.

Here's what we did on Day two:

Louvre.

We woke up later than we planned. I had made an itinerary in advance to make sure to get to everything. We got to the Louvre about an hour late than I was hoping. We did our research and planned to use the typically short underground entrance instead of the famous glass pyramid entrance. Unfortunately, a large number of tourist groups had lined up in front of us and the wait was two hours. We managed to find the end of the line and I was trying my hardest to not blow up at Jordan for snoozing his alarm earlier that morning. Thankfully, a woman from the Louvre intervened and sent us gave us priority access and we jumped to the front of the line. We definitely have Ruby to thank for this one.

We made it through the Louvre fairly quickly. I mapped out everything I wanted to see and we stuck to only a couple of hallways. I knew I would enjoy more of the modern art museums more, so I tried to limit what we saw to only some of the masterpieces I studied in school. It was incredible to see in person.

I was so impressed by how quickly we made it through, we were ready to move on to the next museum in probably less than an hour.

We walked out feeling like we were back on track. The Musee d’Orsay was just across the Seine. We had to cross one street to get there but there was a huge 10K race going on and we couldn’t get across.

So, after wasting a lot of time trying to figure out how to cross the river and to get around the race, we conceited. We walked through the Tuileries Garden outside of the Louvre and stopped for a cafe creme and a nutella crepe which lifted our spirits. Just to the end of the gardens is the Musee de l'Orangerie.

Orangerie.

Seeing the Waterlillies by Claude Monet span an entire room was more incredible than I imagined. There are two large rooms with a painting that circles the entire room. It's lovely. We spent our entire time in these two rooms. I chose not to see the rest of the museum, although I wish I had. I was pretty anxious to get to the Orsay museum as I knew I wanted to spend the most time there. This was by far one of my favorite experiences. 

Musee d'Orsay.

With the race now over, we were finally able to cross the Seine to get to Musee d'Orsay. Even though I had done quite a bit of research and have some art history classes under my belt, I was incredibly overwhelmed. I wanted to see everything. It was fairly easy for me to narrow in on a few things I wanted to see at the Louvre, but the Orsay picks up where the Louvre leaves off, my favorite part, the beginning of modern art. I basically ran around the museum like a madwoman seeing everything for a brief second. It was crazy and wonderful. I definitely needed to slow down a bit, and maybe even take a break for a moment and grab some coffee at the cafe. Although, to be fair I spent a lot of time trying to track down a couple paintings, one of which wasn't even there at the time. In the end we spent a good amount of time at the museum, and I left feeling satisfied in seeing everything. I’ll do a run further rundown of this museum later of everything.

After the Orsay museum, we made a terrible mistake of not sitting down for lunch. We grabbed a quick bite to eat at the first place we saw, and it wasn't that good. By this point we were making excellent time and could have sat down for lunch. Instead we ate as we walked to the Rodin museum, Jordan had a disappointing croque monsieur and I had a pain au chocolat.

Rodin Museum.

I actually wasn’t sure we would be able to make it to the Rodin Museum, but we had plenty of time to explore the grounds. It was a perfect end to our museum tour, Ruby was able to run around and we were able to admire Rodin’s sculptures. We were all tired so we sat down in the gardens to enjoy another café crème. Ruby continued to make friends with every other kid that would pay attention to her.

We were finished with everything a lot earlier than I anticipated. We surprisingly still had a lot of energy left and wanted to see more of Paris. We were close to the park, Invalides and were going to see a playground with Ruby. She of course fell asleep when we got there, so we decided to go to a bistro to sit down for a real meal. Picking a restaurant was a challenge for us without yelp. There were so many and after our snack mistake we really wanted to make a good choice. We walked by  several, and picked the one that looked best to us.

Ruby slept through our meal and it was really nice to enjoy a meal together and gather our thoughts. Even though the food itself was pretty basic, it was fun to enjoy our first street-side Parisian café meal. Ruby even woke up just in time to help us finish our plates.

Our travels went incredibly smooth, way better than we could have imagined. 

As we were walking around this evening Jordan and I kept talking about how it was just way too easy to get here. That they whole flying over an ocean to a new country thing went way better than some of our quick trips to a couple of states over. We just woke up and we were in a new city, a new country, we were in Paris! 

Here's a recap of our journey so far: 

Day 0 | Travel Day

11:30 am | driving. 

We hopped in the CRV to drive to Chicago O'Hare, this was about a 4.5 hour drive. Jordan had to stop in Springfield, Illinois at Maid-Rite sandwich shop to get some of their famous chopped meat sammiches. 

4:30 pm |  arrive in Chicago, eat pizza with my friend kelly and head to the airport

Kelly is a good friend from our bloomington days. She graciously agreed to drop us off and save us the outrageous long term parking fees. I'm sure we can find a good souvenir! 

6:00 pm | arrive at O'Hare International Airport

Security and checking in took quite a while, they were suspicious of all of Ruby's beverages. We walked around and everything moved very quickly and before we knew it we were boarding our plane. 

Jordan and Ruby were disappointed to not have a little extra time in the airport to explore and find some big planes, but Ruby did get to walk the wrong way along the moving sidewalks as much as she wanted. We were all disappointed not to be in a terminal with a USO. They do such a great job of easing the stress of travel on military members and their families.

8:00 pm | board plane. 

We had two seats and three people. It's safe to say we weren't looking forward to a long, cramped trip. Shortly before takeoff, an Air France crew member offered us to move to seat with a bassinet. I had looked into this, but didn't think she would be able to use this, since she hasn't used a bassinet for over a year, but she was just fit and it worked out wonderfully! She was already worn out, and didn't nap much and we gave her a little benadryl and she slept soundly the entire night. I was so jealous. 

Day 1 | Arrive in Paris 

October 1, 4:00 am (Central Time ) /11:00 am (Central European Summer Time) | arrival. 

After washing down a better than average airline dinner (complete with mini-baguette) with a glass of red wine, cognac, and a benadryl, we woke up with only an hour or so left in our flight. The seven hour time difference was like a time warp and the few fellow travelers that opened their windows to take a peak outside were not well liked, at least in our row. They gave us a light breakfast and before we knew it we were taxiing to the terminal. Jordan was surprised to find customs was a breeze (only 5 minutes). We picked up our luggage, grabbed some euros out of an ATM, and walked to the RER metro B line to Notre Dame - St Michel stop. 

Noon | luggage haul to the apartment.

Worst part of the trip by far. We were all tired. We had too much stuff and we had to climb too many stairs to climb. Then we went to the wrong apartment (Airbnb sent us to #9 instead of #8 on our street). Eventually, we got in and crashed for a few hours

6:30 pm | time to get out and explore 

by this time we were all waking up from our naps. we were hungry and ready to explore. We stopped at the grocery to grab a baguette, formage, rose, olives, and macaroons. We are staying very close to the eiffel tower, so we walked and had a little picnic and let Ruby play at the playground near the foot of the tower. By the time we were sitting down and enjoy our picnic which was 8:00pm  the lights on the eiffel started sparkling. We finished up our dinner and walked back home along the river Seine. 

We're back now, we put away or clothes, organized a bit and are ready for our stay here in Paris. 

We have a long day tomorrow, we are lucky and are here on the free museum day! So you know this art major will be dragging her family around all day to see all of the museums. It will be a long day so, we need to get some sleep! Let's hope we get accustomed to Paris time quickly. 

We booked a flight to Paris for this fall. 

All of this seemed to happen pretty quick, once we realized that it would actually work. 

If you remember when I shared the places I wanted to travel this year, I always thought this would be the year, but we didn't think it would really happen. But, guys... it's happening! 

We were already planning to take a week vacation in the fall and couldn't quite decide where to go. As we were looking over Jordan's schedule for his next year in residency, we noticed the fall was available for a longer leave. The flights were so cheap to paris, Ruby would still be under two, and we're not sure when another opportunity will come. So, we're going. 

I've never been to Europe!

So, I need your help! 

Here are the questions running through my mind currently:

How do we survive a 10 hour flight (on top of a 5 hour drive to the airport)

Where do we stay in Paris?

Should we go to Amsterdam? 

We're definitely going to Barcelona too, what should we see there? 

We also want to do some hiking there too... are there some good spots?

What do we need to see? 

What can we skip out on (bc we will have a toddler)

Yeah, how do you explore Europe with a toddler? 

and many others...