Paris Days 11-12

After the craziness that was Les Halles disaster I decided we would keep the day simple.  We would shop at our local street market (thanks for finding it Mike) on Rue Poncelet, for our dinner fixings, have lunch at the apartment with the kiddies, and then head to the little park that was 20 minute walk for an afternoon play.

We hit the Rue Poncelet market early and my eyes were bigger than my stomach – the food was so fresh, looked amazing and the atmosphere of walking around was honestly just the best. The kids enjoyed themselves looking at all the food. Brodie wanted the strawberries, and the cherry tomatoes. Now I’m not sure what it is about Europe and tomatoes, but they taste soooooo much better on European soil!  We made our way back to the apartment with everything we needed for dinner (and then some), and made lunch.

The weather was mixed, so after lunch we packed up the stroller (rain cover and all), and made our way to pick up a treat of Pierre Hermes Chocolate Macaroons, and make our way to the kids park. The macaroons didn’t make it as far as the park!

There always seems to be some type of apartment or road construction with every turn you take in Paris. I decided to take a detour to the park which had Brodie quite concerned that we wouldn’t find our way.  I love walking the side streets in Paris…. all the buildings are so AMAZING, with crazy beautiful detail, with gorgeous huge windows with shutters – I love it!

We finally turned the corner to the park where Brodie made fast friends with a boy about his age, with Syd tagging along in stride for stride.  When we first thought of doing this big trip, I pictured myself sitting at the park enjoying my time with the kiddies, meeting new people, and trying to have a conversation with the little french I know. Well, sadly, this was not the case. Each park bench had one woman sitting on it watching the kids play. No adults wanted to talk with each other. This is so different from what I am used to in Vancouver, where I pretty much chit chat with the moms/dads that are at the park  with their kids. I love watching kids hang together and play……. even with a language barrier, they find a way, and its awesome to see.

The kiddies had an amazing couple of hours of tag, spiderman climbing, and tons of sliding, with their new ‘friends’. The rain clouds rolled in, so the kids hopped in the stroller, the rain cover was engaged, and we made the trek back to our apartment.

Friday was our last ‘full day’ in Paris……. (nooooooooo!) So another trip to Jardine d’Acclimatation for the day was planned, and then we were going to go and meet Mike at the SAP office, and head out for dinner.

The weather didn’t look as great as the previous trip, so we decided to pack our jackets and go ‘stroller-less’ for the day, since we didn’t want a repeat of a rush hour train ride with a stroller. We hopped on the metro, but once again, we got turned around at street level.  I don’t think the trains are the hard part of the Metro….. its figuring out where you`re going to pop up once you hit street level and knowing your way from there. That definitely seems to be the hard part.

We did find our way with Brodie asking “Mom do you know where you’re going?”  “maybe we should go this way”, “maybe its over there”.  We took the little train into the park, and immediately hopped on the Enchanted River Ride. Syd was not so impressed, since I think she was a bit scared of the mist, but she got over it once the ride was over and she was looking in all the distortion mirrors. Now, the best ride of all was the horse racing ride. We only got to go on it once since the rain started to fall when we were in line for our second ride, but it was a super cool ride – the kids loved it, and Syd loved that she was chasing Brodie.

The rain in Paris is different than in Vancouver. Since there are no mountains for the clouds to get stuck on and socked in, it generally passes pretty quickly. So when it started to rain, the three of us parked under a tree to let it pass and stay dry. After about 5 minutes the sun was peaking out between the clouds and we were on the hunt for peacocks, rainbows, and our next ride. Brodie wanted to hit the trampolines, so away we went to that part of the park. An interesting thing I am noticing about Paris (and maybe France), is that there are TRAMPOLINES in almost every park we have been in, with kids bouncing away.  There was a lineup, so Brodie decided his last ride would be the horse race ride, if it was back up and running since the rain, or the river ride. With the black clouds building, we ended up back on the river ride, which in turn made us miss the little train out of the park and back to the metro. Now we were running late getting to Mikes office, and the start to our last evening in Paris.

Getting off the Metro at our regular stop, the rain started. Big, huge, massive rain drops that started slowly. We made our way to a tree which had about 6 people under it to stay dry and wait out the rain, before continuing on our way.  After about a minute the rain really started to come down. Rain like I haven’t seen in ALONG time! The skies opened and it was dumping buckets of rain. We waited another couple of minutes but by this time Syd was shivering, and we were all starting to get really wet. There was RIVERS of water flowing down the street, and it was raining even harder. I could barely hear Brodie talking over the sound the rain was making. We decided to make a run for it to the apartment. We were gonna get soaked but it was better than shivering under a tree that was no longer keeping us dry. The kiddies seemed scared at first till we started running and laughing through the rain, racing from building to building. We were soaked and people were looking at us like we were crazy….. it was awesome!  We got to the apartment, every inch of us drenched, the kids hopped in a warm shower and we awaited Mike to come home.

Our last night in Paris was not what it should have been. Syd should of had a nap (mistake #1) and we ended up at a restaurant out of our neighborhood (mistake #2).

Syd had a meltdown of EPIC proportions, so we ended up back at the apartment after a rushed meal that wasn’t great. Uuuuggghhhh! I felt bad for Brodie since it was his last night in Paris too, so I sent Mike and Brodie out, while I hung with the crabby little Miss. Brodie ended up taking Mike on his own little tour of the Arc de Triomphe. That was sweet.

It wasn’t really how our last night in Paris was suppose to be, but it looks like we may have a ‘do over’ since we have to return the rental car to our old ‘hood.  This time Syd is gonna have an EPIC nap before we go!

Enjoy your Daily Dose

Xox

B.

Our market on  Rue Poncelet

Our new Favorite!

M1 Metro line – La Defense

Little train to the park

Enchanted River

the covered mist

funny mirrors

One of the many peacocks walking around the park

 

Awesome horse race ride

 

Giddy up!

Crazy Paris rain storm

Hiding under a tree near our metro stop

The Family in the window

Our fabulous apartment

Our front step