Trip to Paris

Several months ago my cousin told me that she was planning a family trip with her two teenage daughters to celebrate the high school graduation of the elder and help the younger get settled in Oxford before a month lunch summer school program.

The trip would start in Paris, so B and I arranged to fly up last Friday evening and spend the weekend with them. I was even able to take Monday off and spend another day accompanying them.

So how did it go?
Since we were sleeping in a friend's studio, we brought our blow-up mattress and pump in our suitcase. Only to discover Friday night at 11pm when I lay down on it that there were some holes in the mattress. We tried to tape them up (we found 3 I think), but after about 20 minutes our butts were touching the floor. In the morning we woke up on the floor with two layers of plastic under us (we didn't get a great night's sleep, needless to say!)

Saturday morning we set out to Decathlon to buy a new mattress (return trip to leave it in the apartment), then headed to the Luxembourg gardens to check out some of the Fête de la Musique activities. During the afternoon there was a historic dance club performing dances from 1900-1920 in period costume in a gazebo. About 5pm we started heading to my cousin's hotel, but were delayed by the fact we jumped on a bus going the wrong direction and only realized it after 4 stops...

After meeting up with the family (they had just arrived by train from London and took showers/changed clothes), we took the metro to Cité and visited Notre Dame, le Pont des Arts Pont de l'Archevêché covered in locks. I just realized that I was a bad tourist guide and told my cousins that the bridge we saw covered in locks was the Pont des Arts, but actually it was the Pont de l'Archevêché right behind Notre Dame. I didn't realize that the lock thing was taking over all the bridges in Paris!

We walked from there, stopping along the way to listen to all the bands and singers set up on the sidewalks, to Odeon to have a drink and eat at a restaurant (Le Hibou) where our French host (the one with the studio) knew the bar tender. Now, our host was very nice, but I don't think he understood what it meant that two teenagers were visiting Paris for the first time. He wanted his friend to mix complicated cocktails for us, which was very nice, but not exactly appropriate for a 16 year old.... And we ended up waiting almost an hour and a half to have a table... I felt so bad my cousins fresh off the plane had to wait so long! Luckily the food was good and relatively quick (around 25€ for a main). We ordered the Mousse au Chocolat to share, and it came in a huge bowl with spatulas for everyone to serve themselves into little bowls. We were 6 and we didn't finish it all, and when we asked if it was possible to take the rest home, the waitress brought us tin foil and told us to put it in one of the smaller bowls and walk out with it since she didn't have any take-away containers.

We left the restaurant about 11:30, and the fêtards at Odéon were particularly drunk and noisy. After a long metro ride back to Chatillon, we finally got to sleep on our new air mattress.

Sunday morning we met up for brunch with the lovely Sam, and after I ordered my tickets for the Louvre on the Fnac website, we headed to the Champs Elysée. My cousins loved all the shops, of course, and I was able to pick up our tickets for the Louvre on a Sunday and thus avoid the long lines at the museum (my cousins purchased theirs at Gare de Nord). I have to saw we did pretty well visiting a large percentage of the museum before they started clearing everyone out at 5:40. B left us at that point to catch his flight, and we headed over to Trocadero to see the Eiffel Tower. They sell tickets online now with a specific time, which I think is the best option for anyone who really wants to go up the Eiffel tower (even at 6:30pm there were lines for the ticket counters). The girls were getting hungry by that time, so we started looking for a restaurant. As soon as my cousin's husband said "I'm sure we'll find a restaurant real close" I realized that I've fully incorporated the fact that in every French city there are places with lots of restaurants, and other places where you won't find one (right around the Eiffel Tower is one of them). We ended up finding a place across the river by the Palais de Tokyo (after asking at a peniche restaurant which was full of Chinese and didn't have any menus in English) which had pretentiously dressed waiters, but friendly service and tasty food (Monsieur Bleu if you're curious).

Monday morning we agreed to meet up at a specific RER C station at the end of the Zone 3 in order to take a taxi to Versailles (my cousins only had passes through Zone 3). Getting off at the station, we realized we were on the same train but on different wagons and decided to hop back on before the train left. Once in Versailles, I didn't get why the tourist office was closed. Then I saw from a distance that the golden gates of the palace were closed (it was almost 10am by this time). A quick check on my phone confirmed the worst: Versailles is closed on Mondays! I knew that a lot of the big museums are closed Tuesdays in Paris (Louvre, Centre Pompidou...) but I didn't realize Versailles was closed Mondays.... We took about an hour to walk around the gardens (I'd forgotten how immense they are!) then headed back to Paris. After a tasty but expensive lunch near the Champs Elysées (I forgot to take a picture of the menu with Orangina at 6€) we followed the girls to do some shopping.

Now I've done my share of long clothes shopping. But I'd forgotten how long a 16 and 18 year old can shop in H & M after already shopping in Zara and Promod. And how there is NO place to sit in these stores! In case you're wondering, these three stores sell exactly the same thing. I couldn't believe how similar their collections were. I took a few pictures of crazy t-shirts, so I'll have to post them in another post.

After that, I had to head back to our friend's place so he could take me to the airport.

A couple things my teenage cousins commented on:
- French people picking their nose freely
- Beggars more or less lying on the sidewalk
- How everyone was okay with young people drinking in the streets during Fête de la Musique
- How expensive clothes are

And a couple things I noticed:
- When you're only 16 or 18, there are so many things you haven't done yet, like eat Indian food
- Customer service in restaurants and museums seems much better than 10-15 years ago. People switched to English easily to speak to my cousins
- It's still really complicated to find a free restroom, and even some of the fee ones aren't that great (I'm looking at you Carousel du Louvre)

For all the years I've lived in France, there are still some things I haven't done, or would like to do again/longer: visit the Musée Carnavalet, Musée de l'Orangerie, row all around the Grand Canal at Versailles and see the Hameau again, visit an expo in the Grand or Petit Palais. Those will have to be for another time!