Video of Paris Re-Loaded

I found out why the photo video we did of Paris took so long to upload into YouTube. I had chosen some music (which I purchased and downloaded through iTunes) to go with the slideshow, not realizing you can't put it on YouTube for copyright reasons. I got an e-mail from YouTube telling me that "Koch Entertainment" had registered a complaint. The music I used was Edith Piaf's version of "La Vie en Rose", as well as Louis Armstrong's version of the same song, and "I Love Paris" sung by Dean Martin ad Maurice Chevalier. Cheesy yes, but we liked it! The only reason the kids liked "La Vie en Rose" was because of the movie Wall-E. Anyway, I had to do something called "AudioSwap" so here is the same slideshow but with different, approved-by-YouTube music. The thing I like about YouTube better is that you can enlarge their videos. So please enjoy!

Our Week in Paris

You may have noticed we changed the masthead on this blog - just a joke really. We're not fluently bilingual yet (except for Ted of course).

We haven't posted for a few days so there is lots to say and lots of photos to help say it. We have been to so many Jardins, museums, cafes, and monuments that we could not possibly post all of the pictures we've been taking. This is truly a gorgeous city! Instead of uploading a boatload (bateau-load?) of photos, I put together a slideshow using PhotoStory (free download from Windows and extremely easy to use). Be warned - it's over 6 minutes long . . . so some night when you have insomnia, click below . . .

Ted suggested I should just list all the places we've visited, so here it is:

• Jardin du Luxembourg (near our apt./ place for children to sail real wooden boats)


• Jardin des Plantes


• Jardin des Tuileries (huge ferris wheel and beautiful gardens)


• Jardin d'Acclimatation (kids' park with carnival and water park)


• Musee de Louvre


• Musee d'Orsay (impressionist masterpieces)


• Musee Rodin (we thought of Kelly and Patrick - they need to see this!)


• Centre Pompidou (modern art)


• Le Conciegerie (prison where Marie Antoinette was held before her execution)


• Notre-Dame Cathedral


• Eiffel Tower (Flat Stanley climbed it too!)


• Arc de Triomphe


• Champs Elysees


• Latin Quarter (5th district - the haunt of academics and literary types supposedly)


• St. Germain de Pres (6th district - where we stayed)


• Montmartre (18th district - bohemian artist hang-out - Darlene's Jacket was here!)
  
• Sacre-Couer (famous basilica)

We feel like we've seen so much yet, unbelievably, we're not completely exhausted. To keep the kids happy, we balanced museum visits with visits to all the beautiful Jardins the city has to offer. We also did fairly cursory sweeps of these museums (using our Paris Museum Pass, which is a good deal), honing on those few special things we really wanted to see.

Mitchell asked me which park did I like better - Central Park in NY or Jardin du Luxembourg (the one we visited most often as it's so close by). I like them both - hard to compare becuase they're so different. Central Park is surrounded by skyscrapers and has winding paths, lakes, wooden benches, buskers, and inventive play structures for kids. The parks here in Paris are more formal and structured, with stone or pea gravel paths, perfectly-round cement ponds, usually a merry-go-round, keep off the grass signs, and green metal chairs to sit on. Different, but both types are such an oasis in the heart of a large metropolis.

It's been great to live the life of a Parisien but I can see how, on subsequent visits, this would be even more so. You would not go to so many museums, for example, and you would spend less time standing on street corners trying to decipher which line on the Metro you need and how to transfer on to it. You would also not burn through the Euros as rapidly as it feels like we have! You would spend more time sitting in cafes, shopping for your cheese, wine and baguettes. And eating them in your appartartement or at les Jardins or along the banks of the Seine. You would take your children to the Jardins (but you would not allow them to wear Speedos like actual Parisien males).

We leave this morning for the house we have rented in southern France. Not completely sure yet how we'll get hooked up to the Internet so next post may take a little while . . . we plan to settle in, start some schooling, and stick to a more modest weekly budget after the bright lights and big prices of Manhattan and Paris . . . a bientot!

PS (Can someone please let us know if this video worked or did you have to have Windows Media Player? It was taking too long to process on YouTube but might try again later).

At the Finish Line in Paris

(I loved Manhattan but I love Paris even more. The boys would tell you the same, if I could get them to write a post. They are most definitely in "summer vacation" mode, but school mode will kick in soon enough. New York and Paris have so much to see, so it's been go, go, go but things will slow down for us soon. We leave Paris on Friday the 30th (driving) for the house we have rented in the Languedoc region, near Castelnaudary. Ted got a great deal for a car "rental" that he will write about later.

When we were in Toronto the weekend before we left, we learned that the Tour de France would finish in Paris while we were here. Despite feeling jet-lagged and overwhelmed by the amazing architecture and history (and not to mention food) all around us, we strolled down to the Champs Elysees area to be part of history. We wanted to witness the finish of the 2009 Tour de France, and the great comeback of Lance Armstrong. I have never seen so many die-hard cycling fans, from all over the world. A sea of yellow Livestrong T-shirts. We met one girl who toured around watching three separate stages of the race, including one stage in which she had to hike 5 miles up a mountain. We even met a couple from a small town in the Okanagan (I think it was Grand Forks?) and they came to do a three-week bike trip and timed it especially just to see the finish of the Tour.

Here's a video we took of the cyclists streaming by us on the rue de Rivoli ( an even better spot to watch the events than the Champs Elysees, as it turned out). If you're wondering why Mitchell does not seem overly enthused at the end of this video, it's because it's actually one of the later laps (the cyclists do 8 laps around the Champs Elysees and the winner has already been decided). All of us had been standing for hours at this point. Still, for four people who are novices to this whole event, we did get goosebumps watching. I think it had alot to do with the helicopters whirring overhead, the media all over the place, the police all over the place, the tens of thousands of fans lining the streets cheering and waving flags, and the fact that this was not only the biggest sports event we'd ever seen but probably the biggest media event period.

In the video, you see a motorcade followed by the top elite cycling group, followed by another motorcade and then the 2nd, large pack of riders. For a couple of hours before the cyclists appeared, sponsors drove up and down the area hyping the crowd, throwing out hats, T-shirts, and other products like energy drinks. There was a large screen so everyone watched as they rode closer and closer and finally came into view.

Our place in Paris is great. We rented it through a site called Homelidays. We have a small apartment in the 6th district (St. Germain des Pres) and it's wonderful to have our own kitchen and a bit of space to spread out. The owner is a very organized guy who has thought of everything and so the apartment is very well equipped. We are half a block from the Boulevard du Montparnasse which has everything - shop after shop, restaurant after restaurant, and very central. Here are a few photos in case my video does not go live:

Lunch on Sunday at the Jardin des Tuileries (by the way that's water, not wine, that Jackson's drinking)

View of the Seine River

This caught my eye while walking by (orthophoniste is French for "speech pathologist")




The boys found a good spot a little higher up to watch the finish of the Tour de France







So did these people . . .




Seeing the cyclists whiz by on the rue de Rivoli

A bientot!