Macaroons and Crowded Mona

Apparently, I was jetlagged.  Melissa claims I was saying I wouldn't go to sleep until I "had some cake" (which I have no memory of saying anything of the sort), I slept like a log.  While I was in bed, Melissa took Katie, Joey and Lily to the shop in the rain.  With the electronics bag lost, she went to pick up a new plug adapter, as well as some breakfast foods.  So after €10 for the adapter and €7 more for groceries, she came back. She also claims that she tried to awaken me several times, to no avail, she and the kids proceded to devour all but the most meager breakfast spread one could imagine. After finally getting out of bed and finishing off the specks of breakfast, we headed out. On the way to the train station, we stopped and picked up a few sandwiches and a pack of macaroons to have for lunch later on.

We picked up a few more Metro tickets before getting on the train; we should have enough for the rest of our stay in France. We got on the train about 5 minutes later, and the train doors closing was apparently the ringing of the lunch bell. The kids were on their death beds suddenly, and if we didn't want to be accomplices to them wasting away from starvation, we needed to serve lunch right then and there. Which we did because we don't want 4 kids' deaths on our hands.

We arrived at the Louvre Museum around 1 pm. Since we already had our tickets bought ahead of time, we just walked in, after a brief bag search of course. We had looked up the "secret entrances" to the Louvre, and we chose to enter through the Carousel (shopping area adjacent to the museum). We bought a small pack of stickers for the kids to use in their travel books, as well as serve as a small scavenger hunt while we walked around the halls upon halls (upon halls upon halls upon halls upon halls) of artwork, sculpture, and other visitors. We actually stayed longer than I expected to, but still less time than I bet Melissa wanted, but we started heading for the exit. Joey really wanted to leave through the pyramid, but the stairs were closed, not sure why exactly. We ran into a large mob of people near the exit we came in from, and in broken english and pantomime, we understood that they had that particular exit closed and everyone had to go out a different way. So we turned around and began our exit through the pyramid's staircase that was suddenly open - Joey was going to get his wish!! We got to the base of said staircase when, over the loudspeakers, came a voice saying "due to safety concerns, they recommend everyone exit the museum"... ummm, what? Despite what seemed a cryptic way of saying that we were all on the verge of being blown up or something, there was no pandemonium, people just kept on walking like normal. Maybe that's why the exit was closed by the shops? Who knows exactly, and we haven't found out yet (even to the point of the writing of this post).

Everyone was excited to go to the Louvre
 (except sometimes)

This one is for Grandma Terri 

Katie looked up and saw this poor cherub on the ceiling.
"Oh no, he's crying"

Mary recognized this da Vinci painting from her studies at home

Lily wanted a picture of her with the Mona Lisa but it was too late.
I didn't have the heart to tell her.

Lily was the one to find this sticker scavenger hunt item!

Melissa during the "evacuation"

Upon exiting the Louvre, we were once again mobbed by the group of people selling trinkets and tiny Eiffel Towers. We knew Joey wanted to buy a slightly bigger size tower, so we acted interested but mostly disinterested until the man, hoping beyond hope for a sale, gave us a good deal. Joey is happy and I'm sure the man made a little bit of money off us. I really wanted to go inside the Cathedral of Notre Dame and Quasimodo it up, so that's where we decided to go next. We took a slight detour to the monumental Fontaine Saint-Michel -- Melissa is like way into St Michael. We went and got a couple more crepes from our favorite place, Le Quasimodo (haha) while Melis and the kids were using the public street toilet. It washes itself after every use, but I wrote it that way because it's way more funny.

We headed inside to the interior of Notre Dame. I was surprised how dark it was, but the thing about real stained glass is that it doesn't allow sunlight to penetrate, it just lights up the colors (as far as I remember). It was very beautiful inside, much more than our pictures will show, but it's easy to understand how people would be able to feel and worship God in such a building. We were considering climbing to the top of the church, but they were closing down admittance when we got outside and up to the gate, so we went around behind the church where one can see all the buttressing, as well as relax in the small park-like square.

We decided just a bit more walking, and we thought the kids would like the Stravinsky Fountain. We took the kids to a few shops where they bought a few small trinkets for themselves as well as friends. Near the shops, we saw this guy feeding the pigeons. After taking the train back to Jules Joffrin Station, we stopped at the grocery for some dinner supplies, bakery for a baguette and croissants, and headed back to our AirBnB around the corner.

Lily's blowing a kiss to you all

We packed up for our checkout and tomorrow's travel day out to Mont St Michel. And with kids asleep and a responsible adult finally here to satisfy your eager eyes with this blogpost, I'm burning the midnight oil. Hopefully I don't feel my jetlag at all tomorrow morning.