A week in Paris..pt 2

OK, so here we go with the rest of the trip....now where were we?   Oh, we were on Saturday at Notre Dame Cathedral.  It was beautiful.  One thing we were introduced to while we were in line for the tower was vin chaud (hot wine).  YUM!  From that time on we would try all the vendors of vin chaud that we came across.  All were good but some were spectacular.  I must figure out how to make that at home.  As we were walking around Notre Dame, we walked around the Latin Quarter. Now that was really fun for me...lots of street vendors and then we hit the restaurants....greek food, french food and...wait for it...wait for it....FONDUE! The fun part was all of the restaurant "owners" were in front of their restaurant trying to woo you into their restaurant. I love that! It is so fun to see what they will come up with. Now I love fondue. I mean it is one of my all time favorite foods.So we decided that we would head back there for dinner one of the next nights.  Anyways, we headed toward the Eiffel Tower to see it at night and to go up to the top since it was a relatively clear night.  So we got there and we got to see it twinkle.  See every hour on the hour they have twinkling lights on it and for 5 minutes it twinkles...very cool effect.  So we stood in line (only about 30 min) and we headed up.  Remember how I said you can't explain how big it is unless you are there...well we got to the first level where you can get off and see the view and it was REALLY HIGH!  Now I am not scared of heights but I am not a huge fan of them either and I was a little nervous.  I really didn't want to go up to the top at that point but I knew that if I didn't I would regret it for the rest of my life so I went up with Tiana and Wil.  Tabitha had had enough at that level and I don't blame her.  So we went up to the top and guess what...we got stuck in a cloud.  Darn it....but we did it...we went to the top.  Since it was winter time...none of the lines we had to go in were too long.  The weather was like fall.  Not very cold but not too hot.  It really was lovely.

Now I need to interject something I forgot about.  Let's just talk pastries.  The first day we were there the girls and I stopped at a local bakery and picked up some beignets and some chocolate bread and some other yummy chocolate breads.  Well let me just say...all were fantabulous but I fell in love with the chocolate beignets...specifically the mini beignets which are bite size.  I could have one and not feel guilty or over stuffed.  Needless to say we stopped at that bakery almost every day for something, including the morning that we stopped and got Tiana a fresh baguette because one thing she had to do in Paris was eat a fresh baguette.

Sunday we decided to go do some shopping, not realizing that most shops are closed on Sunday in Paris.  Well, we walked around, saw some more of the city and then we decided to head back to the apartment and go for dinner. So we all got dressed up and headed back to the Latin Quarter and see who offered us the best deal on a fondue dinner. We settled on one place (they offered us a free round of drinks for all of us). We had a wonderful dinner (Wil bought us all roses), probably the best cheese fondue I have ever had...a yummy meat fondue, oh wait! We had frog legs and escargot for appetizers....c'mon we were in Paris...we had to try them. So, great appetizers, wonderful dinner..now for dessert. The girls ordered some ice cream desserts, I ordered creme brulee and Wil had chocolate mousse. All very good. At that point, we headed back to the apartment and called it a night.

Monday we headed to the Champs Elysees.  I knew we wouldn't be able to shop really but we could say we were there.  The girls went in enough shops that they realized how expensive stuff was.  We went in the Disney store and found a few presents.  Then they had an area with little wood snow shacks set up that had vendors in them with food are other interesting stuff.  It was fun to see everything...we had more vin chaud....and bought some neat things.  Then we headed back to the apartment.  We stopped and got the girls some pizza (each with an egg on them...a french thing) and Wil and I headed out to find somewhere for dinner.  We found a place, after a bit of walking, and went in and had dinner to celebrate our anniversary since he will be at sea for our anniversary.  (We had a bit of a struggle finding a place that was open because in France you eat dinner around 8 or 9 so nowhere was open at 7 when we were looking, but we found one.)  We had a nice dinner and then went back to the apartment and gathered the family and headed to the Eiffel Tower for one last look.  So we got on the metro and headed to the Eiffel Tower the way that we had gone before and then at one of the transfer stations, Tiana noticed a picture of the Eiffel Tower and an arrow.  We were confused but it was 10 minutes to "Twinkle Time" and we wanted to get there so that we wouldn't have to wait an hour to see it...so we took a chance and we followed the sign.  Well we ended up at the most gorgeous look out spot with a whole different view that was fabulous.  We took a couple final pictures and headed back to the apartment for one last night together.

We all headed home the next day.  We said good bye to Wil at the apartment as we were flying out of two different airports...and that was that.  It was a wonderful trip on so many different levels that I just can't describe it accurately.  I will remember it forever as will the rest of the family I am sure.