Disney and Paris amusement parks, oui? Wheeee!!

Le Magic Kingdom!  We took the girls to Disneyland Paris and had a great time comparing similarities and differences between US and French versions.  The overall summary was Paris is smaller and easier to navigate, but not as many rides.  Some of the rides are also very different.  Space Mountain in Paris is HyperSpace Mountain and a Star Wars themed ride with three upside down loops, unlike the California version which is generic space theme with zero upside downs.  We all agreed that the Paris version was better!  All in all it was a very long day - we were walking home from the metro at 11pm, but did get to finally see the Eiffel Tower and Louvre lit up at night!  The sun doesn't set here until 10pm so we haven't seen any city lights til now.

Autotopia - same fun ride, same bad drivers.

Aladdin themed area and crepe and espresso afternoon snack.

"Barbe a papa" ie. Papa's beard, which is French for cotton candy.

From the Finding Nemo movie, the terrifyingly terrific Crush's Coaster, complete with Sydney Harbor signage!

The kids' classic favorite, the spinning tea cups.  Note:  you will not find a parent willing to ride this with them anymore!  High risk of losing one's recently eaten crepe and espresso all over tea cup.

Girls only felt slightly guilty eating their Baby Yoda ice creams.

Two excited girls getting ready for Star Tours, also the same as California version. 

Tired but happy crossing the Seine with Paris lit up behind them.

Can you tell it's waaaayyyy past someone's bedtime??

The rest of the week was fairly mellow, we visited the Musee de l'Orangerie and enjoyed Monet's series of water lilly paintings.  We strolled food streets in different neighborhoods and looked at some modern art at Centre Pompidou.  The week finished with "Georgia Day" where Georgia got to pick the day's activities.  We (naturally) ended up at a local amusement park, Jardin d'Acclimatation which had smaller rides than Disney but no lines, so the girls got to ride, run out the exit back to the entrance and ride again, ad infinitum.  We managed to ride with the girls for a while, then respectfully exited to a nearby bench to sit and relax while listening to the non-stop screeching-with-joy of our children.  It's hard to believe, but we only have one week left in Paris!

The fruit in Paris has been phenomenal, strawberries here were particularly delicious, and nectarines and peaches have also been big winners.

Inside the modern art museum, Centre Pompidou.

The girls' favorite part of the modern art?  Riding the six floors of escalators, of course!

Afternoon stop to try a pastis (Tiffany did not like!) and the bartender mixed up a drink just for the girls.  I think it was non-alcoholic but it's hard to tell with them anyway.

Delicious, branded nectarines.

The ultimate French dessert, gelato shaped into a flower, with a macaron on top.

At the local amusement park, Jardin d'Acclimatation, on a very charming, 96-year old boat ride.  The park was inaugurated in 1860 and originally intended to introduce and "acclimatize" various animals for agricultural, leisure and commercial purposes.

The park still features many animals, including these goats on a trampoline.  They refused to jump for us, some sort of French union restriction.

A museum and cultural event center sponsored by the Louis Vuitton Foundation is also in the park.

Roller coasters with no lines?  yes please!

Flying through the air, Georgia always trying to put her hands up.

The hazards of putting your hands up on a ride without secure seatbelts is demonstrated here by Georgia almost falling out of her seat.

Not that it stopped her or Sydney.

Motorcycle ride with poor Sydney stuck in the sidecar.

A great day at Jardin d'Acclimatation!

And we celebrated Father's Day with a food tour of the Marais district of Paris and this very mixed emotions card...

 

Tourist Trapped!

Week 2 was all about hitting the major tourist attractions: Versailles, the Louvre, Eiffel Tower and a boat ride down the Seine. We capped it off with an amazing chocolate and sweets tour of our St. Germain neighborhood, and of course, more parks!

Tiff and the girls in Versailles' famed Hall of Mirrors, where the Treaty of Versailles was signed to end World War I.

We did a bike tour of Versailles, which was the BEST way to see Versailles!  We biked through town, picked up picnic lunches and rode all around the vast Versailles gardens and canal.

S&G in front of the "hamlet" created by Marie Antoinette in Versailles and stocked with actors pretending to be villagers so Marie and her children could pretend to be poor...

In front of the Mona Lisa, or "La Joconde", as she is known to the French (her last name). We learned that she was much less well known until she was stolen in 1913. The global press around the robbery, and eventual return, created a "must-see" excitement around the painting that has lived on til today!

Safely back on the ground after climbing the Eiffel Tower.

A perfect day for a boat ride along the Seine!

A cute street in our neighborhood, St. Germain. Georgia tires of my photo taking.  But she will soon be rewarded...

Our amazing chocolate and sweets tour of St. Germain began with Debauve & Gallais. Debauve began as Marie Antoinette's doctor and used chocolate to get her to take her medicine. A spoonful of sugar, indeed!

At La Duree, the famous macaron house.  Beautiful and delicious!

Ice cream stop, to cleanse the palate.

This was a very cute alley along our tour.  In all, we sampled two chocolate shops, macarons, caramels, cream puffs called "Popelini", ice cream and a meringue treat called "Merveilleaux".  You can trust that Georgia is about 10 minutes from a massive sugar crash.  As were we all!

A very cute bird and flower market.

G&S completed their first solo mission to find and purchase various pastries for breakfast.

A suspension bridge in the lovely Parc des Buttes-Chaumont. It was full of joggers, which is a notable difference from our previous memory of Paris. Exercise seems to have become a much more popular activity. I guess they figured out they needed something to offset all the wine, cigarettes and pastries!

The Dragon Slide in the Parc de La Villette. We have found no end of wonderful parks everywhere we go in Paris. Every neighborhood park seems to include some kind of play structure for kids. Even the St. Germain church by our apartment has a play area!

Bonjour Mes Amis!

 Well.  It's been 12 years since we last posted to our Shanghai Surprise blog, which makes sense, since we haven't lived in Shanghai for 14 years.  Maybe we should've come up with a more general blog name?  I guess we never thought we'd post, post-Shanghai.  But it seems handy once again, more than a decade later, as we find ourselves out in the world again, and now with two, new travel companions.  

Yes, as you can see from the photo above, we had kids!  Like, a while ago.  But blogging about your own kids seems excruciatingly boring (sorry kids), not to mention it's the last thing on our sleep-deprived minds.  But, now that Sydney is 10 and Georgia 7, we thought it time to introduce them to passport-required travel and maybe even fun to memorialize it through our trusty blog.

As the title implies, we are in France.  Specifically we'll be in Paris for the month of June, then chunnelling (is that one "l" or two?)  to London for a week.  While both of us have been to France before, we are finding the experience to be very different this time around.  Specifically, we've been here less than a week and already visited three different park playgrounds and a circus (photo above), none of which either of us had ever seen before.  Plus we've tried 18 different pastries and eaten ice cream and/or crepes every day.  Ok, that part is the same as before.  But truly, visiting Paris with kids has been a wonderful, new experience.  It's seeing some of the same, amazing sights, like Sacre-Couer, but having a race up the 300 stairs to the top, which may or may not turn out to be more exciting than the church itself.  Or spending less time admiring classic paintings, and more time cooing over the very well-behaved French dogs.  And of course, mastering our ability to always find a nearby bathroom! (and no, it does not matter if they just went 20 minutes ago...)

We are looking forward to seeing much more of this version of France, and hope to share it here!

Sydney looks taller than the Louvre.  It might be close.

We love all the Adirondacks in public parks!  I think we've averaged 5-6 miles walking per day, so periodic rest stops are a must.

The incredible Bois de Vincennes, site of 8-10 different playgrounds that the girls spent all day running around.

No humans were trampled in the making of this circus.

Post-circus visit with the animals.  The llama wasn't part of the circus today, perhaps due to mandatory French vacation laws?

At the bottom of Sacre-Couer.

At the top of Sacre-Couer.

Steps have never before been so exciting.

Lovely view from the Bon Marche department store.

Lovely view from our apartment in St. Germain.