Our Grand Tour of Europe

Our train to Brussels was at 10:30 am and we had asked Benno to order our cab for 9:30 am. It was only about 15 minutes to the train station, so we had plenty of time—too much time really. The trip from Bruges to Brussels was about an hour… we watched the scenery, which wasn’t very interesting… very flat. I did see one windmill though. The schedule showed our train would stop at three different stations in Brussels, and we had to ask a couple of other passengers to be sure we got off at the right one. The main Brussels station was a big, busy station connecting to many European cities… we saw a very international mix of people waiting on the platform.

I had purchased our train tickets before we left and could have gotten an early train to Paris, but the schedule showed only a few minutes between trains and we weren’t sure how far apart the platforms would be. As it was, we arrived just a short walk from the platform for the Paris train, and the earlier train was just loading up. We watched it go and waited on the platform another hour for our train—it was easier just to stay there than haul our baggage into the main terminal. I had reserved seats on the train to Paris and was glad I did, as it was very crowded. The train had originated in Cologne, Germany—the luggage compartment and overhead bins were already packed, but Charley managed to find places for all our bags.

We sat facing each other with a very nice German man—perhaps in his early 30’s—in the fourth seat. He now lives in Canada and is in the process of becoming a Canadian citizen. He works for the Equal Rights Commission in Nova Scotia, and we told him about our trip to Nova Scotia in 2001 and how much we had liked it. He was on his way to Montpellier, France where he will be taking an immersion study program to learn French. A German becoming a Canadian coming to France to learn French—interesting! The French study wasn’t for his work—he was taking a leave of absence and doing this on his own. He spoke very good English, and we had an interesting conversation with him.

We were all very excited about arriving in Paris and to be staying for two whole weeks. This is my fourth trip to Paris, and the third trip for Charley and Kelly. I first visited in December 1991 for three days as part of a two-week trip to Europe with two girlfriends… Charley and I had just got engaged. Then Charley, Kelly and I came in September 1994, a few weeks after I went to work at Plasti-Line. Kelly was only 14 months old, and we rented a tiny apartment on the Right Bank for a week. We pushed Kelly in a stroller or carried her in a backpack—she could take a nap just about anywhere, and we really saw a lot of Paris. Then we came for four days at the end of December 1999 and were part of the big Millennium celebration in Paris—that was definitely an exciting time. We don’t usually even go out for New Year’s, but we celebrated in a big way that year. Because of the crowds—and the winter weather—we didn’t get to visit most of the typical tourist attractions, and so Kelly doesn’t have a lot of memories of Paris. We want her to really experience Paris this time.

It was about an hour and twenty minutes from Brussels to Paris, and we arrived at the Paris Nord station. There are six major train stations in Paris and I think I’ve gone in or out of five of them. We definitely had too much luggage, but we were able—just barely—to manage it off the train and out to the taxi line. We tried to get a larger taxi, but had to work to cram everything in the cab… unfortunately holding up the line of anxious travelers for a few minutes. Our apartment wasn’t far at all from the station—we’re on a small side street (Rue Therese) off the busy Avenue de l’Opera. The little street was hardly wide enough for the driver to pull over in front of the apartment building.

I had rented the apartment directly from one of the owners—a French woman living in Connecticut who owns the apartment with her sister who lives in Paris. Christine and I had corresponded for over a year. There must have been a miscommunication somewhere, because I thought the housekeeper Fadilla was going to meet us at the apartment. I opened the front door of the building using the code on my information sheet, and then called to the apartment on the phone in the lobby—but got no answers to my repeated “Bonjour.” Fortunately I had Fadilla’s phone number, and Charley went down the street to find a phone while Kelly and I waited with the bags in the building entranceway. We waited a long time—all the pay phones required some kind of phone card that he didn’t have, but Charley finally got a very nice clerk in a nearby luggage store to make the call for him. While we waited, my mind began racing—what if no one ever showed up? I had sent off over $2000 to a woman in Connecticut to rent an apartment in Paris in a very informal arrangement—what if this was a big scam and the apartment didn’t even exist? (There is a leap of faith in renting directly from owners instead of reputable agencies. You can avoid this by getting references from previous renters. Fortunately, we haven’t had any problems, but I admit I was a bit worried that day in the Paris apartment lobby!)

We waited about 20 more minutes, and Fadilla’s husband finally arrived to meet us—we saw him wave us to from his car, but then he had to circle the block a few times to find a place to park. He arrived with a big bag of towels and rode with me in the tiny elevator up to the 4th floor. Charley made two trips to bring all our bags. We weren’t with the husband for even five minutes—he pretty much gave us the keys and left. We arrived in Paris at 2:05 pm; by the time we finally got in the apartment it was almost 4:00.

The apartment is just great—even better than the photographs. I looked at a lot of Paris rentals on the internet, and I had a hard time finding the right mix of location, character and price. The location is ideal—in the first arrondissement, just two blocks off the Avenue de l’Opera. We can be at the Louvre in five minutes and walking along the Seine in ten minutes. We’re about five minutes from the famous Place Vendome. We’ve stayed in this same general area on each of our three family trips to Paris. The apartment has a lot of character—it’s beautifully decorated and interesting, with old exposed wooden beams and lots of artwork… not a typical sterile rental apartment. And I thought the price was reasonable for the quality and the location-- $1100 per week for a one-bedroom place. This is the most expensive place we’ll stay on our trip, but we decided to splurge for the right Paris location.

The layout of the apartment is unusual. You enter into a hallway and the first door on the left is a toilet room with a little sink. Then the hallway turns and on the left is a very small kitchen—really just a bit bigger than a closet with a stove, an under-the-counter refrigerator, and a sink and draining basin. There isn’t an oven or a microwave… just kind of a big toaster oven. Surprisingly, there is a dishwasher. Most people probably don’t cook as much in Paris as we will, but the kitchen is adequately equipped… just very small. There’s a closet across the hall from the kitchen, then the hallway opens into the dining room—quite large with a big old wooden table and wooden chairs and stools to seat six. A big wooden buffet holds a variety of interesting dishes, silverware and placemats. At the far end of the dining room is a bookcase with a variety of books and also a big clothes closet. Then—this is the strange part—on the end of the dining room is the rest of the bathroom… the sink, a tub with shower attachment, and a washing machine. There’s a multi-line clothesline that you can stretch out over the tub. On the other side of the dining room—visible between old exposed wooden beams—is the big living room with four big windows… we’re on the corner of the building, so we’ve got two windows on each of the two walls. There’s a fireplace, two big red couches with colorful cushions, a big coffee table, an antique desk and chair, and a couple of antique tables. We’ve got a television, but don’t expect to watch it much. The couches can each seat three people, and Kelly will use one as a bed. Because we’re in the corner and near the top of the building, the ceilings are all varying heights and there are little windows all over the place. Our bedroom is a loft area up a flight of steps from the living room… a nice-sized bed and a dresser. We just have to watch our head when we’re over by the dresser! There’s good lighting for reading, lots of books, nice rugs, and interesting accessories—and a great collection of travel books on Paris. We can tell this is a well-loved apartment and not just a holiday rental.
Charley is happy because there are two fans… it’s warm here, so we definitely need them. He immediately hooked up his own fan, so now we have three.

We unpacked as soon as we arrived. Kelly was extremely anxious to get reacquainted with the contents of her turquoise duffel bag (which she hasn’t opened for three weeks) and really wanted to get her things sorted out and arranged. Because she doesn’t have her own bedroom here, I’ve given her the prime space in the closet for her things. We have tons of dirty clothes since we haven’t done a proper laundry for at least ten days… we have all our yucky walking clothes to deal with. Charley figured out how to operate the washing machine, and we started a load of underwear. Without a proper dryer, it will take a while to deal with all our laundry.

I’m having a problem with my eyelids… they’re red and puffy… almost raw. It’s like an allergy I’ve had before to eye make-up… except I’ve barely worn eye make-up since we started the walking tour—and definitely can’t wear any now. I’m desperate to rub my eyelids, but that only makes them worse. When we went out to explore, we stopped in a pharmacy, and I showed the pharmacist my eyelids. Pharmacists in France are able to give you some medicines that only a doctor could prescribe in America. The man immediately produced a little tube of ointment for eyelids. I’m hoping this will help with my problem. I have a prescription for some skin allergy medicine that I know would fix me up quickly… oh, why didn’t I bring it with me??? The only good news about my appearance is that I definitely slimmed down on the walking tour—a pair of capris that was too snug before the walk now fits loosely.

Our apartment is at the Corner of Rue Therese and Rue St. Anne. This seems to be a Japanese area of Paris. There are several Japanese restaurants in the few blocks around us, including one on the ground floor of our building. I also noticed a big Japanese bank and a Japanese tourist bureau. When Kelly and I were waiting with our luggage in the building foyer, she noticed that many of the people passing by on the street were Japanese and then that half the names on the mailboxes in our building were Japanese.

We decided to eat out tonight, but we plan to eat “in” most of our nights in Paris. After eating expensive dinners out for the past three weeks on the walking trip and in Bruges, we need to get back on our food budget in a big way. We decided to eat at the café on Boulevard de la Madeleine where we’d eaten on New Year’s Day 2000, a place called Madeleine 7. This is just a typical Parisian café on one of the wide boulevards—nothing particularly unique, but a place that we had enjoyed. We walked up the Avenue de l’Opera towards the big opulent opera house, then turned left on Boulevard des Capucines, which became Boulevard de la Madeleine a few blocks later.

We thoroughly enjoyed our first meal in Paris. We had a great waiter who smiled a lot—he spoke a little English and we spoke a little French and it all worked out just fine. We had a table just inside, but restaurant front was totally open to the outside and we could easily watch the action on the sidewalk. We decided to celebrate our first meal in Paris and had several courses. Charley and I both had onion soup to begin, the kind with good melted cheese dripping on the top. Charley saw a man at the next table get a wonderful looking dish—he asked what it was and found out it was… a hot dog! So his main course for his first meal in Paris was a hot dog. I had steak hache (fancy name for hamburger steak) with pomme frites (fries) and a salad. Kelly had her favorite pasta bolognaise. What a French meal—a hot dog, a hamburger, and spaghetti! We all had dessert… Charley and I shared a crepe. It was hard to believe that just four days ago we were slogging around in a wet moor in rural England, trying not to step in the mess of a dead sheep!

We will have to get used to operating in a different language. That was the easy part about England… we really could communicate easily. Here it is much harder. I’m drawing on four years of junior high and high school French—I have a surprisingly extensive vocabulary… I know lots of words, I just can’t say them properly. I really wish I had recognized the importance of having another language and continued my studies when I was younger. Charley has done a fair amount of self-study and is willing to try to communicate in French—he can be quite expressive. Kelly has six years of Spanish and has gone to a one-week French immersion camp near Savannah the last four summers. To prepare for the trip, we did take a weekly lesson as a family for five months before we left. We can use the basic social niceties, order a meal, and check into a hotel quite well. (My vocabulary is at its best when it comes to food!) Our challenge over the next seven and a half months is to learn how to really communicate… to have a meaningful interaction beyond just ordering some food. We know the importance of trying to speak French—we have found that people really do appreciate your efforts to try to speak their language.

We ate early so we could stop for some groceries on our way back to the apartment. It was a busy Saturday evening, and lots of people were out walking, though it rained just a little bit during our 15-minute walk back to our neighborhood. The Monoprix is just across the Avenue de l’Opera from Rue Therese… very convenient to our place. Monoprix is kind of like Marks and Spencer in England—upstairs they sell clothes, cosmetics, and toiletry items. Downstairs it’s a grocery store. We bought some staples like coffee, orange juice, butter and jam, and also food for dinner tomorrow. Charley plans to go out every morning to bring back fresh breads for breakfast—one of the real perks of being in Paris! The grocery store was more challenging than what we had grown used to in England the past several months—not the same foods and then there’s the challenge of reading the labels in another language.

Back at the apartment we decided to figure out the television so we could watch the Olympics… we hoped to find the British Sports channel again, but didn’t get lucky. I flipped through some of the Paris books, beginning to think about what we want to do on our two weeks in Paris. We’ll begin that adventure tomorrow…

Sunday, August 29

We have committed to get up early every day and get going… I don’t want our precious time in Paris to slip away. Today we had set the alarm for 7:00 am. Charley went out to look for bread… it was very quiet on a Sunday morning. He found most of the shops closed, but did find a good boulangerie several blocks from our apartment and came back with a bag of croissants and a long thin baguette. Mmmmm! We like breakfast in France.

We had a great breakfast of croissants, baguette, cheeses, jam, and juice. Charley used about a third of the jar of raspberry (framboise) jam on his croissants, then added a big slice of brie. His croissant is really just a carrier for the jam, much like my approach to potato chips and onion dip. I like the boursin cheese and the Laughing Cow (La Vache Qui Rit) cheese on my baguette, but prefer my croissants plain… buttery and flaky.

We moved our damp underwear off the clothesline and piled it on the washer so we could use the tub for our sit-down showers. Then we re-hung our clothes and started another load of laundry. Americans sometimes comment that Europeans have a certain body odor… I don’t know if that is true, but I do know that it’s a lot harder for them to wash and dry their clothes! We have found that we are wearing our clothes many times more than we would at home, even if they are a little dirty. At home, you can wear a shirt for an hour… it’s not even dirty, just a bit wrinkled… throw it in the dirty clothes, no big deal to wash a load of clothes and then dry them in our big, fast, separate drying machine. We’ve only had a few clothes dryers in all our rentals, most of them the same piece of equipment as the washer. These tiny washing machines take such a long time, and then the logistics of getting clothes dry… especially in an apartment like this where there isn’t even an outside clothesline! We’re lucky we haven’t had to deal with the logistics of washing sheets and towels!

We have arrived in Paris in just beautiful weather… warm and sunny, ideal for capris (my newly-nicely fitting ones) and sandals. It’s a too hot for Charley’s liking, but I love it. Other than our first week in London, our summer in England was quite cool… if it got into the 70’s, it was warm. I feel in a way that we’ve “missed” summer, so it is nice to find it here in Paris.

We decided to splurge on an overview bus tour of Paris… we wanted to give Kelly a real sense of the city and all the famous places. We could then narrow down what we want to do during our two weeks. The guidebook said a couple of the bus companies operate from the Rue de Rivoli, not far from our apartment. We stopped first at Cityrama—their next bus wasn’t until 2:00 pm, and we thought it was too expensive for a two-hour tour. We walked down the street to Paris Vision—they had a bus leaving in five minutes and it cost 5 euro less… free for Kelly. We made a quick decision to go on the Paris Vision tour, though once we boarded the bus we found the upper level was full and we had to sit on the lower level. In hindsight, I would have preferred to do one of the open-top buses we saw circling the city… it appeared you could get on and off at different stops. Charley has had some skin cancer on his face though, and he has to be very careful of the sun. He needs to lather up in 45 SPF sunscreen even on an overcast day and always wears a hat… an open-top bus in the hot sun isn’t something he really should do. I’m sure he was happier—and safer—in the air-conditioned motor coach.

The bus started off to the Place Vendome… then something went wrong. I’m not sure if it was the engine or the sound system, but the driver pulled to the side of the square and turned the engine (and the air conditioning) off. This wasn’t a good sign. I began to get claustrophobic in the hot bus, and even suggested to Charley that we ask for our money back. Eventually they got the bus going, and we put on our earphones to listen to the English version of the Paris tour. It really was a good overview of the city… Paris is so big and there’s so much to see. We went by all the famous spots: Notre Dame, Place de la Concorde, Champs Elysees, the Arc de Triomphe, the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay… so many famous places all in one city! In some ways, Kelly was seeing Paris for the first time. She obviously wouldn’t remember her first trip at 14 months, but it seemed she didn’t remember much at all—except perhaps the Eiffel Tower—from our four-day Millennium Trip when she was six and a half. The bus tour lasted two hours, and we stopped at the Eiffel Tower so everyone could take photos. We chatted with two nice women from Oklahoma, who appeared to be an adult daughter and her mother. They had just arrived this morning from the US and were taking a train to Strasbourg tonight… the bus tour was pretty much going to be their entire exposure to Paris. They will see five countries in a week—quite the opposite of Our Grand Tour! Charley sat with Kelly on the bus and had pointed out various things to her along the way—the women said he was more informative than the recorded tour… they thought perhaps we lived in Paris!

After the tour we walked back to our apartment, stopping to buy lunch baguettes at an outdoor stand on the Avenue de l’Opera. I had not remembered that much of Paris is closed on Sunday… there were just a few shops and eating places open. We took our lunch back and ate in the apartment. The elevator in our building is very small… the sign says it can hold four people, but I think it’s crowded with the three of us. I really do have an issue with claustrophobia, and I try not to think about the possibility that the elevator could get stuck between floors with the three of us in it.

We decided to walk down to the Rue Montorgueil, a popular shopping street near the apartment we had rented in 1994. It really wasn’t far at all from where we’re staying now. We passed tiny Rue Herold—even smaller than Rue Therese—and showed Kelly our apartment building. We had a third-floor efficiency… a living/dining/bed room, with a kitchen, a shower and sink in a closet, and a toilet room. We got our exercise too, since there wasn’t an elevator in that building. Almost exactly ten years ago… our first trip as a family to Europe… and now look at us!

The Rue Montorgueil was very busy… there were lots of people at cafes, but almost all the shops were closed. The street is lined with various food stores—boulangeries (bread stores), patisseries (cake/sweet stores), confiseries (candy stores—one of Kelly’s favorites), glaciers (ice cream shops—Kelly’s other favorite), boucheries (butchers), charcuteries (delicatessans), epicieries (grocers), and the alimentation generales (everything else). We had enjoyed shopping on this street in 1994… definitely a different experience than the one-stop Monoprix. We got Kelly an ice cream at a sidewalk stand—she loves the framboise sorbet. We also found an open boulangerie where we bought a baguette for dinner.

On the way back we peeked into the Galerie Vivienne on Rue des Petit Champs, an old “passage,” an interior passageway that has small shops on either side… kind of a predecessor of today’s shopping mall on a much smaller scale. Most of the passages in Paris were built in the early 19th century. There was a neat looking café hidden away in this upscale passage.

I fixed pasta bolognaise for dinner (Kelly’s request), and we watched the closing ceremonies of the Olympics on television. (This turned out to be the only television we watched our entire time in Paris.) In America we watched way too much television… especially Kelly. She and I both liked several of the reality shows—Survivor, Amazing Race, the Apprentice. We also liked the fun decorating shows like Trading Spaces, While You Were Out and Clean Sweep. And Kelly liked a lot of old television shows… endless re-runs of Jerry Seinfeld, Tim the Toolman, Andy and Opie, and the Munsters. I hate to admit that we even let the television run while we ate our nightly family dinner. Our television consumption has dropped 99% since we’ve been on the trip—limited pretty much to the Islands at War miniseries and then the Olympics. It’s been good for us as a family—we’re talking over dinner and reading, writing or drawing in the evening.

Monday, August 30

Since we’re staying in France longer than three months, we have had to apply for a long-stay visa or “carte de sejour”. This has been an incredibly complicated process, beginning several months ago in America. I compiled an extensive dossier of paperwork for each of the three of us… an application form, a letter explaining our intentions, letters from our bank and broker confirming our financial resources, information confirming we have health insurance that will work in France, our rental agreement in Bonnieux confirming we have a place to live, letters from each of us stating we will not work while we are here, copies of our passports and drivers licenses. All this had to be translated into French and then we had to personally take our application to the consulate in Atlanta, Georgia… a four-hour drive from our home in Knoxville. We made this trip in early April and were notified in early May that our visas had been approved. Charley then had to go down to pick them up in Atlanta—I thought it was fortunate at the time that we didn’t all have to go. Our information said we needed to report to the Town Hall within ten days of arriving in France. We decided to go ahead and handle this administrative chore today.

Charley went out again for breads, and we had our wonderful breakfast at the apartment. This turned out to be the high point of our day actually. We knew where the big Hôtel de Ville (city hall) was and headed off in that direction, carrying our red folder of visa documents. The Hôtel de Ville was a 30-minute walk from our apartment down the Rue de Rivoli, passing the big Samaritaine department store on the way. Samaritaine takes up three whole city blocks! We were still looking for a great deal on sunglasses for Charley, and Kelly and I spotted several possible candidates. Charley was looking for that perfect combination of style and price… he will continue looking. We stopped in a camera shop to make copies of all our documents and bought Kelly a disposable camera to use in Paris… we still need to figure out the problem with her camera memory stick.

Outside the Hôtel de Ville, we spoke to two policemen (gendarme). They directed us to the prefecture (police headquarters) on the Ile de la Cité, one of the two islands in the middle of the Seine. We crossed over the Seine on the Pont (bridge) d’Arcole and realized that we were just one bridge down the river from the Pont Notre Dame. We have a painting of this bridge over our fireplace at home and consider this “our” bridge. The painting used to be in the main conference room at my company, and as I sat in hour after hour of meetings I loved to look at it and dream of Paris. In our task-oriented management group, I was probably one of the only people who noticed the painting, much less knew where it was in Paris. When our offices moved downtown, the painting didn’t fit the new design scheme. I asked my boss if I could buy the painting, having no idea what it might cost. He found the original invoice and offered it to me for $2000, a discount off the original price. Charley and I took the painting home to try it out before making a decision—it was perfect over our fireplace, and we went ahead and made what for us was a big investment. I don’t know how much I thought the painting would be, but I wanted it desperately. I found a website with photos of all the bridges over the Seine (www.pariswater.com) and looked each one to identify the bridge in our painting as the Pont Notre Dame. There are many bridges over the Seine in Paris, each one distinctive. The current Pont Notre Dame was built 1853, though there has been a bridge in this spot since ancient times. I love our painting for many reasons… and now here we were, looking at “our” bridge over the Seine. We took photos of each of us with the bridge in the background.

We found the proper room for carte de sejour applications at the Prefecture, and a nice woman tried to help us, though between her limited English and our limited French, we had a difficult time communicating. She finally took us to another room where the woman at the desk called out to all the people waiting and asked (in French) if anyone spoke English. A young woman stepped up to help translate. We were told that since we were staying in the first arrondissement, we needed to apply at a different prefecture. The woman gave us a sheet of paper with an address of a prefecture in on Avenue du Maine in Montparnasse… on the other side of Paris and just barely on our big map of the city. Apparently that prefecture handles the first arrondissement carte de sejour applications.

We had a long walk on the Left Bank to find the other prefecture. I’m sure we passed beautiful old buildings and interesting shops, but we didn’t even look around us. I had not realized that this process would be so complicated or that the language barrier would be so significant. We also now dawned on us that our temporary 90-day French visas had been dated effective the day we left America (June 11) and were thus set to expire on September 9… in less than two weeks. That created a different sense of urgency in trying to get this process complete.

We passed by the Montparnasse railroad station and the distinctive Montparnasse tower (685 feet high). Along the Avenue du Maine, we spotted a café that appeared to be a Tex-Mex place… called the Indiana Café. The name must have some connection to “Indians,” not the state of Indiana. The Indiana Café had a big area in the back with pool tables—it appeared to be part of a small Parisian chain of American-style restaurants. We decided that Mexican food would lift our spirits. Charley and I had enchiladas, Kelly had a burger, and we shared a big bottle of Evian. Soft drinks at French cafes are enormously expensive and no free refills.

We didn’t have any luck at this prefecture either… we were directed to a big waiting room where lots of foreign-looking people were waiting to have their number called. We waited in the initial line to speak to a busy, brusque woman. We didn’t have the right papers relating to our stay in Paris (our rental agreement, a copy of our owner’s identity card, our electric bill), so we couldn’t apply here. Once again, she had limited English and we had limited French… she couldn’t understand why we didn’t have an electric bill for our apartment.

It was a frustrating day of dealing with government bureaucracy… also frustrating to recognize the limitations of our communication skills in the French language. I was enormously disappointed that despite all the work we’d put in on the application process, we’d apparently done something wrong. Why hadn’t I noticed the wrong dates when Charley brought our visas back from Atlanta?? Why hadn’t I taken a day off work and gone with him to Atlanta?? We headed back to the apartment, taking a much more direct route through St. Germain-des-Prés. We noticed a few internet cafes on Rue Bonaparte—the first we had seen in Paris. We decided to stop at one that described itself as a cyber jardin (garden). I spent about an hour on the computer, struggling with the different keyboard. Charley and Kelly went in search of ice cream and then waited on a bench out front while I plugged away. We walked back through the Place Vendome, searching out the famous Ritz Hotel where poor Princess Diana had her last meal. Kelly and I stopped by the Monoprix for a few groceries, while Charley went home to call the American Embassy and ask for their help with our visa issue. He was transferred to an American Services desk—the department that was supposed to help traveling Americans with their problems. He didn’t find them all that helpful. One of their suggestions was that we make a trip to Provence before our visas expire and apply for our carte de sejours there. Another suggestion was that we just do nothing now and try to work it out when we got to Provence. The woman felt sure the French government would not make Americans leave the country. After all our work to follow the correct process, the thought just horrified me.

We had promised Kelly that we’d have a day at Disneyland Paris, and Charley really wasn’t all that interested in going. He volunteered to stay in Paris tomorrow and see what he could do about our visa issue. Kelly and I will go on and have a good mother-daughter day. We’ll save a fair amount of money by Charley not going to Disneyland… and maybe he’ll solve our problem.

I fixed chicken cordon bleu for Charley and I and chicken kiev for Kelly, with rice and fresh green beans as side dishes. Kelly has just started eating green beans on this trip and likes them. It was difficult to fix a meal like this in the tiny kitchen—I had barely enough pots and pans—it got hot and stressful, especially after our frustrating day. My eyelid was also still really bothering me. I managed to serve a decent meal, though I’m not sure Kelly really liked it. Afterwards, our dessert chef Kelly fixed a wonderful dessert involving raspberry sorbet.

Tuesday, September 1

Kelly and I got up early for our trip to Disneyland Paris. Despite the frustrations of yesterday, we were excited about this adventure. We’ve been to Walt Disney World in Orlando three times over the past three years, most recently in March for Kelly’s spring break. Kelly and I are big Disney fans and really enjoy the whole experience. Charley has enjoyed our trips, but can take it or leave it… he much prefers a real old castle to a pretend one. He was just as glad to stay behind. We wanted to leave at 8:00 am and made it out the door at 8:15… not bad. Charley walked down to the Avenue de l’Opera with us… I think he was worried about us finding our way! We said goodbye and headed toward the Opera metro station. We bought round-trip tickets to Mame-la-Vallée-Chessy —the train station right at Disneyland Paris. The RER train left from Auber, the station adjacent to the Opera metro station, so we just walked through a series of underground passages and down an elevator to the train station.

It was a 40-minute train ride out to the Paris suburbs, most of it above ground. The last station on the line was Mame-la-Vallée-Chessy —Disneyland. Our Disneyland Paris experience was interesting, and Kelly and I were glad we went. There are two different theme parks in the complex: Disneyland Park (a scaled down version of the Orlando Magic Kingdom) and an MGM Studios park that has just recently opened. The complex also includes a number of resort hotels and an entertainment complex called Disney Village. We decided just to go to Disneyland Park. This park was built in 1992, so it is much newer than Disneyland in California or the Magic Kingdom in Orlando. It was extremely controversial when it was built, but has ended up as a major European tourist destination. We’ve read a lot since we’ve been here, though, about the financial problems of Euro Disney… they are struggling to stay afloat it seems. I noticed that there was less staff than we are used to in Orlando, and I didn’t think it was as obsessively clean. I was also surprised that perhaps a third of the eating places were closed. Many European schoolchildren are now back at school, but I thought the first week of September would still be a very busy season.

The park opened at 9:00 am. When we first arrived at 9:30 am, it wasn’t crowded at all. The crowds built during the day, but it was never really crowded like we’ve seen in Orlando and the lines weren’t oppressively long. They had a fast pass system to bypass lines, but in most places it wasn’t operational and we never needed to use it.

We were still very much in a Disney park, with the beautiful landscaping, high attention to detail, and unique architecture. All the signs were multi-lingual… always both French and English, and sometimes other languages. Disneyland Park included Main Street USA, Fantasyland, Discoveryland (an updated version of the Orlando Tomorrowland), Adventureland, and Frontierland. The centerpiece of the park was a big fairytale castle—here the castle of Sleeping Beauty instead of Cinderella. It was strange to see American stereotypes portrayed in France through Main Street USA and Frontierland. Many of the attractions were the same as Orlando, but a few were different. A couple of attractions from Epcot or MGM Studios were in Disneyland Park in Paris… like Honey, I Shrunk the Audience and Star Tours. The Disney characters were also out-and-about, surrounded by young children and their parents.

We got our maps at the entrance and decided to start in Discoveryland. Kelly originally said she would ride Space Mountain, but decided she wasn’t up to it after all. She rode it on our first trip to DisneyWorld and was terrified—she skipped it on the last two trips, and Charley and I rode without her. I decided I’d go ahead and ride alone… there wasn’t any wait. This Space Mountain was different than the one at DisneyWorld—more of a roller coaster and almost a combination of Space Mountain and Rockin Roller Coaster. Someone I ended up in the very first car of the train, sitting next to a young girl. The train shot out of a plunger, then circled around in the dark… this version of Space Mountain even went upside down a couple of times. Although the ride was short, it was very jarring—I was really dizzy when I got off. Kelly would not have liked it at all. I decided not to do any of the other roller coaster-type rides without Kelly.

The little motor car raceway that Kelly enjoys so much was closed for maintenance. We went over to Honey, I Shrunk the Audience instead. It was exactly the same program as Epcot with the 3-D glasses and special effects. Although the actors in the film were clearly speaking English when we watched their lips, the words we heard in the theatre were in French. We used sat in designated rows and used headphones to listen in English. The headphones offered a variety of different languages.

We walked over to Fantasyland and decided to ride one of my favorites-- It’s a Small World. The attraction at DisneyWorld seems dated, and the exterior presentation of this attraction was much more appealing. But still the same sweet song… over and over… “It’s a small world after all, it’s a small, small world…” We also rode on the tame kiddy rides-- Snow White (Blanc Neige) and Pinocchio (a unique ride here in Paris). We didn’t ride on Peter Pan due to the lines. There was an Alice in Wonderland maze that was interesting, and we had our usual great time on the Mad Hatter Tea Cups. We had an early lunch since the place we wanted to eat was nearby… an Italian restaurant (of course) called Bella Norte. We sat outside and shared pizza and pasta. The food was expensive, but not any more so than at the American DisneyWorld.

We rode on Pirates of the Caribbean in Adventureland, and we walked through an area of caves called Adventure Isle. There was an Indiana Jones ride that involved some kind of backwards roller coaster—something new here in Paris. We didn’t do it, but I wished Charley had been here to ride with me. Kelly enjoyed the little farm area with the live animals in Frontierland. We got on little train at Frontierland and rode it all the way around the park… passing Frontierland again and finally getting off at Fantasyland. We wanted ice cream at a shop we had seen near where we had lunch. This was by far the longest wait we had all day—incredibly slow, though the ice cream was good. I had a waffle. A woman in front of me dropped the ice cream out of her cone right after she had walked away from paying—so much for her wait!

I really like the Disney parades, and there was a Princess Parade scheduled for 4:00 pm. We secured a spot in Fantasyland about 3:30 pm and settled in to wait on a sunny bench. We couldn’t get a good spot like that when we’ve gone in America unless we lined up at least an hour in advance. No one ever stood in front of us, and about five minutes before the parade we moved from the bench up to the rope. We loved the parade with the music, the floats, and the dancers… but it didn’t seem that the European audience was as interested in the parade as people at home. Perhaps many of them realized that this was a good time to ride the popular rides.

We waited in another long line to get our three minutes on the Flying Dumbos (Kelly’s request—we’ve never ridden them at home) and then went back to Discoveryland to see the last Lion King show. The show was already full, more than 30 minutes in advance. We walked through the Jules Verne submarine (boring!) and then watched the Timekeeper show, using our headphones. We have loved this attraction at home and really enjoyed it here—beautiful views of Paris, other areas of France, and Neuschwanstein castle in Germany. Finally we went back over to Frontierland to have dinner at an American barbeque place. We each had a burger and shared fries and a drink. We had a difficult order because Kelly wanted a plain cheeseburger… she wanted the cheese, just not any sauce or condiments. We always seem to have a hard time communicating this, and they threw away two burgers before we finally got what we wanted. The guy just kind of threw the burger at me at the end.

Kelly and I both have Disney pin collections, so we ended up our visit by buying ourselves Disneyland Paris pins. Kelly wanted to take Charley something—he could care less about Disney souvenirs—so she got him some candy. He does appreciate candy, with or without Mickey on the wrapper. We left the park and got back to the apartment about 8:30 pm. We’d had a very good day together. It was great for me to have a special day like this with my daughter, even though it was one of the least culturally-enriched days of our trip! We’ve spent more time together in the last three months than we might spend together in two years at home. (I was lucky to see Kelly for three waking hours a day during the week…)

Charley spent much of his day working our visa issue without resolution. He went to the American Consulate office and talked with the woman at the American Services desk he had talked with on the phone. He didn’t feel she was very interested in helping him at all. He got a more supportive response at the French Department of State, but ran into communication issues. He was told again that we should consider going to Avignon in Provence before September 9th and making our application there, since that is where we will be living.

On a positive note, Charley did finally find a new pair of sunglasses and had a beer at a sidewalk café up near the Opera. He chatted with an American lawyer at the next table for about an hour. When he asked for “l’addition, s’il vous plait,” he was presented with a check for 11 euro for his one beer! Wow! I later found out that he had been at the famous Café le Paix. No wonder! Still, it was cheaper than if he had gone to Disneyland!

Wednesday, September 2

Charley has found an “artisan” boulangerie a few blocks from our apartment—I think this means they make their own dough in the old fashioned way. The croissants are especially good, and some days the baguette is still warm. We really enjoy our breakfasts with the fresh bread, and Charley likes going out every morning on the streets of Paris.

We decided to set our visa issue aside today and just enjoy Paris. It was another absolutely gorgeous day. We left about 8:30 am to walk across the river to the Musée d’Orsay—our favorite museum in Paris. This museum features art from the period 1848 to 1914, including the famed French impressionist painters. We didn’t get to visit on our last trip because of the Millennium crowds, and we were anxious for Kelly to experience this wonderful museum. All three of us were really looking forward to seeing the impressionist collection. We wanted to get started early… we got there just after the 9:00 am opening time and were successful in beating the crowds.

We spent about three hours at the Orsay, only taking a short break for coffee at the café. The museum is in an old train station and the building itself is a delight. I hadn’t remembered how wonderful the old gare is, really an attraction separate from the art! There are two big clocks near the top of the exterior that are transparent to the interior—one of these clocks has been incorporated into the café. There’s also a terrace off the café with a great view across the Seine.

We went directly to the fifth floor when we arrived, and we enjoyed the Impressionists even more than I thought we would. There are entire rooms devoted to individual artists—Van Gogh, Renoir, Monet, Manet, Cezanne, Degas—including some of the most famous paintings in the world. Kelly was especially delighted to see Van Gogh’s Bedroom at Arles, the famous brightly colored painting with his bed, bedtable and chair. When she was in third grade, her class did a project where each class member painted a section of this painting. She had painted part of the window. The resulting work—surprisingly similar to the original—was auctioned off at a fundraiser (for a large amount of money) and now resides in the home of one of Kelly’s friends. When we spent a week in Provence last year, we visited the asylum near St. Remy where Van Gogh had spent several months and where he painted this room. There was a replica of the room with its stark little iron bed, and Kelly got a poster that she put up in her room at home. She has several connections to this painting. Now she was confronted with the real thing… and a whole room full of Van Goghs.

We got an audiophone for Kelly, who was very serious about learning about the paintings. (Charley had to leave his driver’s license in case we ran off with the headset.) Kelly listened intently to each of the explanations. I borrowed the headset to learn about a couple of the paintings I was most interested in. We all really liked the room devoted to pointillism… we’d stand far back to look at each painting, then move closer to look at the individual dots. Charley’s favorite painting was one of the pointillism works—Plage à Heist by Georges Lemmen, an artist we weren’t familiar with. The painting is a beach scene at sunset… beautiful shades of yellow and blue and red.

We enjoyed the Monet collection a lot also… the magpie in the snow, the women and children in the poppy fields, the cathedral at Rouen, the Japanese bridge, the water lilies. One of the paintings had the word “Dindes” in the title, a painting of some turkeys. Suddenly I realized the meat I had bought the other night to make chicken cordon bleu was labeled “dinde.” At the time, I thought it was a special cut of chicken breast, but I pulled out my dictionary and saw that a “dinde” is a “turkey.” I’d actually made turkey cordon bleu! Perhaps that’s why Kelly thought it didn’t taste quite right. You learn some interesting things at the art museum…

I love all the Impressionists, but my favorite artist is probably Renoir. I like the soft colors of his paintings, especially his portraits of people. Sitting in the gallery filled with his work makes me feel happy with the world. I especially liked the painting of two girls playing the piano, which he painted under commission to the French state. I borrowed Kelly’s audiophone to learn more about several of the Renoir works.

We also looked a bit on the lower level. Some of Manet’s paintings are down there—Olympia is one of the most famous—and I enjoyed the sculpture in the open atrium. Kelly isn’t very interested in sculpture, but she really enjoys the paintings. She enjoyed her time at the National Gallery in London, but she had a much more intense exposure to the French Impressionists here at the Orsay.

The museum shop in the Orsay is also great place… lots of books, prints, postcards, and other gift items. I gave Kelly some money, and she surprised us with 8 x 10 reprints of our favorite paintings—for Charley “Plage à Heist” and for me Renoir’s “Jeunes Filles au Piano”. She got Vincent’s Room and Monet’s Japanese Bridge for herself. She’ll use her two pictures to personalize her bedroom in Provence. I lingered over a colorful scarf based on Van Gogh’s sunflowers, but decided it was too much to spend on a luxury item purely for myself. On a “normal” trip (also back when I had a job!), I would have bought it without hesitation.

We decided to come back to the Orsay again next week and left in search of a good sidewalk baguette. We headed probably in the wrong direction along the Left Bank and ended up crossing the Seine to the Champs D’Elysees where we found a reasonably priced café that served cafeteria-style. We sat outside to enjoy this most famous of all streets. Charley and I had baguettes and Kelly had some pizza she didn’t like. She tried to be polite so she wouldn’t hurt Charley’s feelings about what he had bought her, but she ended up picking off all the ham. I actually think it was some type of Alsatian tart.

We walked down the Avenue George V back to the Seine, passing near the hotel where I stayed the first time I came to Paris with my two friends in 1991. The Prince de Galles hotel used to be a Marriott, and I had used Marriott points to get a free room for three nights. This is a very upscale area of Paris, and we otherwise would not have been able to stay here. We couldn’t afford a cup of coffee at the hotel, but we had a great room… and a wonderful address!

It was a perfect day for our boat ride on the Seine, so we walked down to the Bateaux Mouche dock at Pont d’Alma. One of the boats left at 2:30 pm, just a few minutes after we bought our tickets. I sat on the open top level in the sun with an entire row to myself, while Kelly joined Charley downstairs out of the bright sunlight. This is a great way to see Paris, especially on such a pretty day. The ride lasted 70 minutes… we went down the Seine past the Ile St. Louis, then circled all the way back to the little Statue of Liberty at Allee des Cygnes, seeing the beautiful bridges and sights of Paris along the way. Frederic Bartholdi, the French sculptor from Colmar in Alsace, also made the miniature version of the famous American statue. (We know about Bartholdi from our visit to Colmar in 1999.)

Kelly lobbied to take the Metro, but we (Charley and I) decided to walk back to our apartment. We might be walking as much each day in Paris as we did on our walking trip! We walked through the Place de la Concorde where we had stood at midnight for the Millennium celebration. It’s an amazing place to be at any time, but that night there weren’t any cars… just a giant crowd of people—most of them with bottles of champagne. We watched the Eiffel Tower until it exploded in a mass of lights amidst cries of Bonne Année and Happy New Year. Unfortunately we hadn’t thought to buy champagne in advance. We searched through the mini-bar in our hotel room and ended up with two bottles of beer and a bottle of Evian water for Kelly. But at least we were there!

Kelly guided us back to the apartment… she has a good sense of direction and is very confident in such a big city. Our child is having some amazing experiences, and it all seems a natural part of life to her. As we walked along Rue St-Honore, we passed little Rue Duphot and looked down to see the Burgundy Hotel where we had stayed for the Millennium…. it’s just down the street from the beautiful Madeleine church.

I needed to find someplace near our apartment to use the internet during our time here. My guidebook said there was an EasyInternetCafe over by the Place de Halles, but that was really farther than I wanted to go. I looked in the phone book and there were just a few internet cafes listed in the 1e, but there was a place listed off Avenue de l’Opera, not far at all. We all walked over and found the café on a small street called Rue de la Sourdiere, just a few doors up from Rue St-Honore. The internet café is actually in the breakfast room of a small hotel… about 12 PCs. It’s expensive, but very convenient and a nice environment. I checked my e-mail and sent a message to the Atlanta Consulate about our visa issue. Hopefully, I’ll hear something back tomorrow.

We had an easy dinner back at the apartment. Charley made sandwiches (turkey, ham, cheese, lettuce and tomato), and Kelly and Charley also shared the leftover pasta. Kelly fixed another one of her celebrated desserts.

Thursday, September 3

We had our physical complaints this morning. My eyelid is not getting better, and Kelly and I both have skin flaking off our feet. I’m not used to walking so much in my sandals. Kelly also now has another problem with her braces that we need to address. Charley has the assignment to get her into see another orthodontist while we are here in Paris. Our orthodontist at home had given Charley the names of a few orthodontists in France that he had gone to dental school with in St. Louis, one of which (a Dr. Castro) is in Paris. Charley planned a little speech in French and called the office this morning to try to get an appointment. The woman—who didn’t speak English—told him to call back in two weeks. At least that’s what he thinks she said! We decided to try another approach in a few days.

Today we planned to do a walking tour on the Ile de la Cité. This was where Paris was originally settled over 2000 years ago. I had a little guidebook of walks in Paris and wanted to follow one of the prescribed tours. We walked down Rue de Rivoli and crossed our Pont Notre Dame bridge to the big flower market at Place Louis-Lépine. On Sunday there is also a bird (oiseaux) market here. I think these are pet birds… not birds for eating, like you sometimes see at the food markets. We then walked over to the Parvis-Notre-Dame (the plaza in front of the Notre Dame), the next stop on the route and admired the exterior of the beautiful cathedral. The big plaza was a busy place, with a line of people waiting to go up the tower. Charley and I have both been up in the tower before (back before he got so uncomfortable with heights), and we decided not to wait in the line. We did go inside Notre Dame and walked through the dark, historic church. The construction on this church began in 1163… and took almost 200 years to complete.

Kelly was hungry, and my attempts to follow the route in my book fell apart at this point… I could tell Charley and Kelly really didn’t want to follow a prescribed route or listen to me read bits of history from my book. We walked down the street next to Notre Dame, looking for a restaurant with a menu that would work for Kelly with a price range that would work for us. The prices decreased—just a bit—the farther we got from Notre Dame. We finally settled on the Esmerelda Café, where we thought Kelly could get a baguette sandwich. We sat outside on the sidewalk at a table where Charley could be in the shade and I could be in the sun. I had a great Salad Nicoise and Charley had a croque monsieur with salad. We had problems with Kelly’s sandwich, since we were trying to order it “plain,” and we had to send it back and then still didn’t really get what we had envisioned. Charley got very frustrated—almost angry—at the waiter, who claimed he didn’t understand what we wanted. The combination of our limited French and the waiter’s limited English (and somewhat snooty attitude) made it difficult to deviate from the standard menu items. I enjoyed my food and the café environment, but it wasn’t a successful meal. We don’t get to eat out much, so I hate it when we don’t have a good experience. I wish we could be more adventurous in trying different places and different foods. One day when Charley and I are retired and we can try the different places and foods, I’m sure I’ll long for the good old days of traveling with eleven-year-old Kelly when we always needed to find a restaurant that served pasta bolognaise…

We walked through the park on the back of Notre Dame and then crossed the bridge to the smaller Ile St-Louis. This little island is mostly residential. We walked down the Rue St-Louis-en-Ile, the little street that extends down the island, looking in shop windows. We stopped in a gift shop where we saw some little hedgehogs (the French word is herisson) in the window. Kelly picked out a cute one as a souvenir of Paris. We walked on down to the famous Berthillon ice cream shop and got cones, which we ate while we wandered on down the little streets. We really like the sorbet, which comes in so many flavors here. We headed back to the Ile de la Cité, where we had earlier seen a memorial to holocaust victims at the end of the island. The Memorial de la Deportation was closed for lunch when we passed by before. Kelly has gotten interested in World War II, so we wanted to see this. The memorial commemorates the 200,000 French who died in concentration camps during World War II… quite stark and thought-provoking.

We also wanted to see Sainte-Chappelle, a beautiful old chapel that’s now part of the Palais de Justice complex. Our friend Becky Rohde considered this one of the highlights of her recent trip to Paris, and we had never seen it. We had to go through a security check to get in the facility. The chapel was built by Louis IX between 1246 and 1248, and is on two separate levels. The bottom level was where the servants had their services, and is now used as a gift shop. We then climbed the twisty little staircase to emerge in the unexpected beauty of the upper level. The upper chapel is considered one of the best examples of Gothic art—it has 15 huge stained glass windows that contain 1134 biblical scenes… really the entire Bible. The sun coming in through one side of the chapel made those windows especially beautiful. We sat on chairs along the side and looked at all the detail for at least 20 minutes. Another American couple passed us an information board in English that told about the windows.

We walked back toward the apartment, stopping at our “new” Internet café to see if I had a message back from the French consulate in Atlanta. I didn’t hear anything from them, which was disappointing and frustrating. We don’t really know who to ask for advice. I sent the consulate another message. We also found that we could establish an account at the internet café and prepay a certain number of hours—this significantly reduces the cost per hour. The man at the desk speaks very good English—almost with an American accent—and is very nice to all of us. One of the computers has an American keyboard, which I’ve been fortunate to be able to use. The European keyboards have a few letters in different places, all the numbers require you to press the capitalization key, and the punctuation marks are in different places. I probably type over 100 words a minute and drop down to 40 on the European keyboard… not to mention my frequent insertion of a “z” where there should be an “a.”

We took a detour on the way back to the apartment, turning right on Rue St-Honore, then right again onto Rue du Marche St-Honore. This tiny street is lined with little bistros, bakeries, and butcher shops and then opens into a small square of sidewalk cafes where it appeared a regular market was held. We asked a man about the market, and he told us the market is held there on Wednesdays and Saturdays. The café environment in this hidden little square was delightful, and we inspected all the menus posted outside. I want to find a neat authentically-French restaurant near our apartment for next Thursday night, when we hope to have dinner with my friend Becky from home. Kelly very anxiously checked out the menus with me too… she wants to be sure we eat somewhere she can get food she can eat. She is lobbying for Madeleine 7 because they have spaghetti bolognaise.

Back at the apartment, Kelly took her little hedgehog purchase out of its box. We got out the other hedgehogs we’ve bought so far on the trip, all of which have been packed away in the big turquoise bag. When we opened one of the other little packages, we found we had already bought today’s hedgehog in England—the exact same one! Now we have a matching pair. The Paris hedgehog was—of course—more expensive.

Kelly wanted to make dinner. She has taken an interest in cooking on this trip. Charley helped her fix ravioli and salad. We normally let the person who didn’t cook do the cleaning up, so I washed the dishes in our tiny kitchen.

Friday, September 4

We had a wonderful day today—we made a trip out to Giverny, just over the border in Normandy. Giverny was the home of the famous Impressionist painter, Claude Monet and his house and his beautiful gardens have been restored and are open to the public.

We left the apartment about 10:00 am and walked to the busy Gare St. Lazare, where the trains to Normandy depart. Kelly had planned our route, and it only took us about 20 minutes to walk to the station. I wish I had somehow checked the train schedule, as we had to wait about an hour for the next train to Vernon, the closet station to the village of Giverny. Although it was early, Kelly sniffed out a café in the station selling pizza by the slice and got a piece, dripping with cheese…. really good! After that, she was desperate to use the restroom. I was a little hesitant about a train station bathroom and followed along behind her, but it was a “pay” restroom and very clean… no homeless people hanging around due to the price tag.

The train trip took us about 45 minutes into a part of France we haven’t visited before. We moved quickly from Paris and its outskirts into pretty countryside. We passed two big car factories—Peugeot and Renault—and followed along the River Seine. The town of Vernon is a couple of miles from Giverny. We had planned to take a taxi to Giverny, but when we got off at the little train station and walked out front, there was a bus waiting marked “Giverny.” We piled on with other passengers from the train and the bus took us right to the village. Charley talked with two men on the bus who were Delta pilots, making the trip out to Giverny on their layover day.

I was so glad we made this trip—another recommendation from Becky and Craig Rohde. Giverny was absolutely beautiful, and such a contrast to the hustle and bustle of Paris. And to think that we got here in less than an hour! Monet moved to the house in 1883, first as a tenant and then later bought it. His wife had died a few years before, and he was looking for a place to settle his family and an environment where he could paint. Much of his work after he moved to Giverny centered on his gardens… he was living in the midst of his primary subject. He also became a very skilled gardener. Monet lived at Giverny until he died in 1926. We walked through the beautiful flower gardens behind the house… rows and rows of colorful flowers. He planted the flowers to make best combination of their colors in all seasons. The brightly colored nasturtiums—orange, yellow and red—were especially beautiful, though just past their peak. I hate that we just missed the sunflowers too. We wound through the flower gardens to pass under a road (and perhaps a train track) by way of a tunnel. It was a great frustration to Monet that his garden was split in two. A plaque in the tunnel said that Walter Annenberg, a noted American businessman and philanthropist, had donated the money for the tunnel. Much of the restoration of Giverny (started in the late 70’s) was funded by Americans who loved the work of Monet.

The Japanese water garden is probably the most famous part of the Giverny property, since Monet used it so extensively in his paintings… the water lilies and the pretty Japanese bridge. We wandered along the paths through the garden, which feature a big pond and a stream. There were two little green boats moored along the side of the pond… we could definitely see the artist’s inspiration, and I snapped several photos. It was very tough to get a photo of the Japanese bridge, since it was always crowded with people. One of the Delta pilots took a picture of our family. Kelly borrowed my camera and went off on her own picture-taking expedition.

We walked back over to the house, where several rooms have been restored and are open to the public. The house is extremely colorful—almost sh