My Travel Blog
It feels as though we didn't accomplish much today, but considering that we saw most of the top tourist sites yesterday it's hard to compare! Today was another cloudy and slightly cool day so we thought it was the perfect day to go to Aquaboulevard. We discovered this waterpark 5 years ago and the kids absolutely loved it; it has a bunch of indoor and outdoor waterslides as well as a wave pool. When it's nice outside there is a faux beach and a nice pool but today wasn't hot enough to lay outside, although we went on a very cool slide that was half inside and half outside which was an fun surprise!
It was interesting to see how much more the kids could do today compared with 5 years ago and they loved all of the waterslides. They started off fairly tame and worked their way up to the bigger and faster slides. This place also had a tube slide, a toboggan slide, and a raft slide! The tube was good - just one person in an inner tube, but the toboggan was better - it was like a skinny two person tube and it was fast! I went with Julia and all I heard was "Wheee hee, whoooo hooo!". ( I may have said that as well.) The raft was interesting but only held us three girls so Jeff went on a single person slide called the Mikazee (we assume it's like the word kamikazee because Jeff said that it was insane!). It was basically just a straight down drop and I'm glad it wasn't me who went on it. We checked out the outdoor slides and found ourselves on what I called the Crazy Carpet ride because it reminds me of those rides at the Stampede (or any amusement park/fair) where you sit on a carpet and slide down a long and slightly bumpy slide. This looked just the same but without a carpet, and it was fun until halfway down you realize your bathing suit bottom may have to be surgically removed as this slide is an extreme wedgie maker. It also slams you in the face with water at the end, so although I was excited when I started it I wasn't super keen on doing it again. We went inside where I showed off my underwater summersault skills and then had to retire to the hot tub.
We thoroughly exhausted ourselves and went for lunch - or at least what we thought was lunch until we looked at the clock and it was already 5 pm!! We located an Apple store to buy an iPad charger (forgot it!) and marvelled at how different the Apple store in downtown Paris is compared to the shiny modern one in Market Mall. (We had to go down an ornate spiral staircase into the basement to find the accessories, and there was an old archway covered in interesting little tiles that looked like they led to a swimming pool from long ago.) The similarity was the blue-shirted friendly workers everywhere you looked and that happy little apple! 
Coming back to our apartment turned out to be the wrong idea as we all wanted to sleep as soon as we got back. We had a short rest (no sleeping!) but then it was rally time, which meant changing our clothes, slapping our faces and pretending we had more energy than we did. We searched for a suitable dinner place but we were indecisive (as well as not that hungry) so we ended up walking for longer than we'd anticipated. (Disclaimer - I wasn't wearing proper footwear for leisurely strolling). The fresh air and walk was actually quite revitalizing and the funny thing is that we ended up at the restaurant two doors down from our apartment after walking in a giant 2 km circle! We initially passed that restaurant up because it was an Italian pizza place that smelled delicious but we felt that as we were in France, not Italy, we should eat French food. In the end we succumbed to the flat pizzas and bruschetta and I felt like it was the summer of 2011, not 2012. (I have nothing but fond memories of the food in Italy…) In any case, our dinner was delicious!
So now we're home in our cosy abode watching the Canada-USA women's soccer game. It's tied 3-3 after regulation time and it's very exciting considering that Canada hasn't beaten the US in something like 22 games, or years (not sure which!). Jeff is an avid soccer fan (and player) and we are stupidly patriotic so it's fun to watch this game on French national television being broadcast in fancy Parisian French. (Ugh - just saw they lost… too bad. Great game though, and it’s hard to believe that one can win gold and the other 4th place after a game like that. Let's hope our girls get Bronze!)
Good night from Paris… sweet dreams to all!
Well, that was an interesting night!
We are usually pretty good when it comes to our jetlag sleeping techniques, but for whatever reason all 4 of us were out of sync last night. Jeff and Julia both started off really well with an 11 pm start - but then woke up at 3 and spent a few hours hanging out. Chloe and I, on the other hand, had pretty much the opposite schedule to them as neither of us could fall asleep (there was a brief period of time when all 4 of us were awake at the same time, but it was no reason to throw a party!) Needless to say it was pretty late by the time we all woke up and got ready to head out for the day. (Late meaning noon…!)
We had no specific plan for the day so we just started wandering. We are staying in the 1st arrondissement which is a stone's throw from the Louvre and great shopping, as well as literally covered with amazing cafés and restaurants. We already had a basic breakfast in our apartment so we ambled with no particular destination while seeing just the tip of the Eiffel Tower in the distance as our guide. We crossed the Pont des Arts which is bridge loaded with locks of all varieties; people write their initials and the date and lock up their love! It started to drizzle, which luckily coincided with our desire for refreshment, so a maroon covered awning beckoned us in and we sat in a lovely window seat watching the passerby try and contend with (what had turned in to) a fairly substantial rainstorm.
As it was cool and drizzly Jeff and I both ordered French Onion Soup (which of course here is simply Onion Soup) and washed it down with a delightful glass of rosé. The kids opted for a very healthy (*ahem*) plate of French Fries and a sugar crêpe. Can't really say much as ours wasn't exactly brimming with health either… In any case, we had hoped to wait out the storm but with no signs of it letting up we dove into the nearest metro station and headed for home.
Home at that point in the day proved to be dangerous… we quickly realized that if we sat around we would fall asleep - and a nap at 5pm is never a good idea if you want to get to bed on time. Figuring that our tiredness was at least partially due to a deficiency in caffeine we thought a coffee/hot chocolate stop would be a good idea; we changed into weather appropriate clothing, shook off our sleepiness and went in search of a suitable café. We soon felt revitalized and explored the area around our apartment. A lot of the stores were closed (Sunday night at 6 pm) but the souvenir stores still beckoned so we bought a few cheap umbrellas and Eiffel Tower keychains. We stumbled across a huge indoor mall where everyone was lined up for the movie theatre to get out of the rain. After killing enough time (and felt it was a reasonable dinner hour) we decided to go to the kid's favorite Parisian restaurant chain - Hippopotamus. They have a kid's meal for under 7€ that includes a drink, meal and dessert - that's a hard price to beat in Paris for a sit down restaurant! We were so happy to discover the rain had stopped while we ate and the evening turned out to be clear and beautiful - hooray!
There came a point in the evening when we had to make a decision - either head home to bed (at only 8:30pm) or push through. We decided to do an entire Paris tour as fast as possible so we hopped the metro to the Arc de Triomphe, then went to the Bastille, then onwards to the Eiffel Tower. Our metro pass got a workout!! We hit the Arc right at dusk and the lighting was beautiful. The Bastille was nostalgic because the first time we came to Paris with the kids 5 years ago we rented an apartment just down the street from it. We decided to stroll down memory lane and check it out and were surprised to see the restaurant on the corner that we ate at multiple times had been turned into an electronics shop. It was nice to go there and felt like no time had passed at all… funny how that works. Onwards to the Eiffel Tower! We have seen it at night before but on our last trip here it rained the whole time (hmm, pattern here?) so the evening pictures never quite turned out. Tonight we exited the metro station and our first view of the Eiffel Tower was breathtaking - not only was it lit up but it was sparkling! That sounds cheesy in writing but it really was spectacular, and quite fortunate it turns out because the sparkling didn't last long and I'm not sure how often it happens.
Feeling like the evening was complete we headed for home with tired feet and happy hearts. I saw many interesting people today which warrant mentioning, the first being a young backpacking couple waiting for a metro. Young love… they were permanently joined at both the lips and the hips. Walking becomes difficult like that, particularly when wearing large backpacks, but somehow they made it work. Love was definitely in the air as I heard proclamations of love all over the place (I may have fallen victim to it and had a kiss under the Eiffel Tower). C'est Paris! I also saw a dapper man riding a bicycle; he stood out to me because of his salmon colored pants jauntily rolled up to mid-calf and his distinctive Harry Potter glasses. For some reason it worked for him, not sure I could say the same if I saw him in downtown Calgary. And finally my evening was complete with a lady standing alone under the Eiffel Tower. She had a cellphone in her right hand (into which she was excitedly talking) while her left hand contained both a lit cigarette and a giant fluff ball of cotton candy. She was trying to eat it, smoke and talk all at the same time and was having trouble figuring out which thing was most important. Perhaps she needs to take a course on time management or decision making.
Full day? Mais oui! The kids are getting ready for bed and the adults are relaxing with a glass of wine and hoping for a normal night of sleep for everyone tonight.
Until tomorrow… bon nuit! Zzzz.
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