Europe Day 9

Today was one of our big sight-seeing days in Paris. The best part of today is the forecasted didn’t show a drop of rain in sight  great! We got off to a slow start, which was fine becsuse we didn’t have too much to see. Our first stop was to the Eiffel Tower. We wanted to walk up to the 2nd floor, and were in line to buy tickets but saw that the top floor was closed. We asked and the lady said it was just closed temporarily, as is routine if there are too many visitors on the deck but it would open again in an hour or so. We decided to wait it out, since we weren’t able to buy tickets online, and they were also sold out for the following day. After a while joel talked to someone who worked there and found out the elevators to the top weren’t working quite right, so they weren’t able to let people down or up  with that news, we decided to go to a museum and try the Eiffel Tower later. 

We took the metro to Musee de L’Orangerie, which is the museum with Monet’s water Lilly painting. This was so cool to me because that has always been one of my favorite. It was on my work coffee mug, and the picture on my credit card. The paintings were so much longer than I expected, like the length of the room. And there were eight of them. So beautiful. We also saw some Picassos. The kids, of course, wanted to leave, but we didn’t need to stay long anyway. 

Then we made our way in the direction of the Rodin and stopped for lunch along the way. Caroline are spaghetti, and actually are more than half of it, which was GREAT. She gets so crabby because she refuses to eat anything, which is so frustrating becsuse she’d just be I  a great mood if she’d eat food. Really, by not giving into her every food whim, we’re just making it harder on ourselves becsuse we need to deal with a crabby kid. 

The Rodin museum was great. It wss just a beauty space. Bennett wanted an audio guide, so he was really into the tour. Caroline wasn’t so much and I was tired myself. I’ve been  sleeping 6-7 hours per night on this trip which it’s too little for such a long period of time. But the Rodin was such a nice place to visit. We saw the famous The Thinker statue, which was exciting. 

After the Rodin, we made our way to the Army Museum to see Napoleon’s tomb. War history really isn’t my thing and we were all exhausted. Joel is the one who really wanted to see the tomb and he graciously just let us see the tomb and leave. It was really opulent and physically large. Luckily this place wasn’t too crowded, was cool inside and had plenty of seating, so it was an enjoyable visit. 

At lunch we promised the kids an ice cream break after the two museums so we made good on our word and made our way to a cafe for a break. The kids had ice cream and we had drinks to take the edge off. 9 days of spending every moment with the kids (at least for me) so a little alcohol was very necessary. 

When we finished we made our way back to the Eiffel Tower. There was some kind of fun run at the Eiffel Tower today so lots of the area was fenced in, which made it hard to get to the entrance. Once we found our way, we were happy to see that the too observation deck was open again, unfortunately walking up to the 2nd floor was not. Such a bummer. We all wanted to walk up, even the kids. We waited about an hour for tickets and made our way up in the elevator. Once on the 2nd floor, we got on the next set of elevators to the top. When we got up, the kids started panicking about how high we were. Caroline was convinced the tower was swaying. Bennett’s hands were incredibly sweaty and he refused to go near the edge to look at Paris. On top of that, it was nearing sunset so it was crowded. Long story short, we were able to watch the sunset from the top floor of the observation, with all the other people. I thought it was pretty cool! 

Then we made our way back down in the elevator, to the 2nd floor. From there we decided to walk down to the bottom. If we couldn’t walk up, at least wr could walk down. On the way down, we stopped on the 1st floor. When joel and I last visited, the 1st floor was an observation deck. Now it had a bar and restaurants. Unfortunately for Caroline, who was super hungry because it was after 8:30, and we had eaten lunch around 2:00, the pizza stand was sold out. We were going to make our way down to grab dinner but Bennett was set on having something to eat so that he could say he has eaten at the Eiffel Tower. Luckily the bar sold chips and croissants, so the kids had that while Joel and I had drinks. While we were enjoying our snacks, the Eiffel Tower lit up. We could hear peoole down below cheering, and could see the lights flashing. Caroline was super bummed we didn’t get to see it, but we reminded her WE were part of the show. 

We eventually made our way down, Joel and i still drinking our drinks, becsuse it was so late and the kids were so hungry. We navigated the metro pretty easily and we’re back in our hotel area around 10:00. So late! We stopped at the first open takeaway restaurant we saw, which had pizza, gyros and chicken nuggets. Perfect for our family. Joel waited for the food while I walked the kids back to the hotel to get ready for bed. The unfortunate thing about our hotel is that it doesn’t have the Disney channel like our last hotel did. Luckily the kids are usually pretty content to watch anything in French. Last night we watched The Voice Kids, and tonight was men’s volleyball. 

Today, Caroline’s favorite thing was the Eiffel Tower. Bennett’s was the Nutella crepes. He had two today, just like yesterday. I clocked in over 21k steps and am hoping that means I’ll finally sleep well tonight.