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Thursday, February 24, 2011

....lionfish, tiger sharks and eels! Oh My!

Well after being cooped up in the house waiting on furniture to show (or not to show), I decided the kids and I would go on an adventure.  So one Tram ride and two buses later (not as bad as it sounds~only abount 25 minutes total) we arrived at Trocadero and the Paris Aquarium!

A little pricey to get in, but it was amazing.  Plus we got to see the Eiffel Tower again close up since the aquarium is so close.  Lots of cool fish and a good number of sharks, which pleased Max.  There was "touch pool" filled with koi and both kids got to touch one.  The consensus was that they are "slimy and smooth".


Of course, even here in Paris, they exit you through the gift shop, so each kid got a stuffed critter to remember this adventure.  Max, of course, choose a hammerhead shark and Samantha got a stingray.  No names have been assigned yet.

There was a whole tank of eels that was quite scary looking but I couldn't get a good picture of them because the tank was in the shadows.

There were these great theater-like sitting areas scattered around inside where you could sit and watch the tanks like a movie.  

There were also real movies you could see, however they were all in French so we bypassed them.  Maybe in couple of months we will have a better handle on the language and be able to enjoy them!

Now give us kiss.......

and we will bid you
"Bonsoir"








Monday, February 21, 2011

...we visited the gargoyles and had ice cream

Sunday we decided to set out and see a couple Paris institutions.  So we took the Metro to the Champs-Elysées, you know, the most famous shopping district in France! 

 We figured we would start with a trip to the Paris Saint Germain Soccer store for Max.  We had laid down the ground rules ~ NO jerseys.  Glad we did because at 100 Euros each, one could quickly go broke.  He settled for a poster and a pencil pouch complete with pencil, sharpener, eraser and ruler.  Then we headed across the street to the Disney Store for Samantha.  Wow, two floors of Disney complete with grand spiral staircase to access downstairs!  She decided since she had to leave a lot of stuffed animals in N.C. that she would get a small King Louis (the Orangutan) from Jungle Book. I was then forced (ok, not really!) to sing his song, "Oo, oo, oo, I wanna be like you, you, you" until I was told to stop!  Ah, nothing like embarassing your kids!

We stopped for some lunch, French pizza for the 3 of them and a salad for me.  Max's favorite right now is a "bacon and egg" pizza.  

Yep, that's a sunny side up egg in the middle of the pizza.  Not bad really and bacon here is more like sliced ham.


Then we took off to find the famous ice cream.  
The Berthillon ice cream shop, on a small island in the Seine, is known for its all natural ice cream. Unfortunately, the main shop was closed for holiday but other shops around serve their ice cream. So we stopped and had a yummy treat. We WILL be going back. They say to get the full experience you have to go to the original shop.


After ice cream, we went to Notre Dame to see the church and the gargoyles. The kids were impressed with size of the church and all the stained glass. We showed them the gargoyles on the outside and told them to look for Quasimodo. The line to climb the steps to see the gargoyles up close was long, so we opted to do that another time.

One of the famous stained glass windows in Notre Dam




Took the Metro home, with Max counting down the stops (his new favorite thing to do to pass time on the Metro) and Patrick set up the kids' computers.


It was a good weekend and we look forward to many more, seeing the sites and eating our way through Paris!