Sunday, June 11, 2017

FB 14: The End

I am sitting in the hotel at the Brussels airport, as our trip is concluding.  We fly out on the 6:20 AM flight, have a stopover in Lisbon, and then continue on home.

Yesterday, I stopped at a local comic shop to try to get Pokemon cards with Dutch writing, but they only had English.



We continued on to a food truck and music "market" that was being advertised locally.  Miles picked up a pizza while I got couscous and vegetables.



We walked by the shops for the last time, including this one with a chocolate fountain.



At night, we went to a free harp concert, that included a traditional harp, a celtic harp, a steel drum harp variant and some others.  I didn't want to interrupt him with camera noise so quickly took one picture that didn't come out too great.



Today was just some light train travelling and checking in here.  We plan to relax and go to sleep early.

Farewell Bruges.



Trip roundup:  The highlight of the trip for me was Carcassonne.  I had thought that it would be less enjoyable for me, after seeing a few castles in Portugal and Spain.  It was most similar to Obidos.  A small, walled town.  Private in a way.  I thought Roussillon, Ghent, and Bruges would feel similarly small.  Roussillon came the closest of the three, but not quite there.  Ghent and Bruges have a small city center, but then branched out endlessly.  The people never really went away, even during weekdays.  They didn't have the feeling I was looking for, and that was disappointing.  Cinque Terre gave that small town feel.  Nighttime in Venice surprisingly did as well.  Crowds disappeared and you felt like you had the place to yourself.  Archaic and beautiful.

Dogs:  Dogs are allowed everywhere in both France and Belgium.  In the middle of indoor restaurants, on trains, on paddleboats.  They were everywhere, and in many places off leash.  If a dog is well behaved, there is absolutely no reason in my eyes that this shouldn't be standard everywhere.  As it is, dogs are not allowed on trains in the US.  They are pretty much never allowed off leash except for dog parks and beaches.  In Palm Beach County, FL, where dogs are brought in carriages to the mall, they are not even allowed to step foot into state parks.

Roundabouts:  Driving in southern France was all about roundabouts.  Only a handful of traffic lights were encountered during the 10+ hours of driving.  They worked smoothly and kept things moving.

Other driving notes for southern France:  The roads are windy.  Along the route we took, there was barely a straight road in sight.  Most did not have lines of any sort in the middle of the road and you had to slow down when cars came from the opposite direction.  Bring Dramamine.

Waiter speed:  Italy was slow and Portugal/Spain were slower still, but France took it to glacier level speed.  Halfway through France I pretty much gave up on dining out and only did it occasionally for Jeremy.  I preferred going to places that Jeremy referred to as "halal."  Restaurants were absolutely ridiculous.  Most waiters didn't have a great attitude either.  Belgium had more reasonably speedy service and much friendlier staff.

Weight:  There were much noticeably less overweight people in both countries, despite both having similarly sized portions as American ones.

Bikes:  Perhaps related to weights, the amount of biking in both countries were extraordinary.  Bikers were up in the Verdon Gorge with miles of no habitation in either direction, going up the steep hillsides.  People biked all over Paris.  Ghent and Bruges had exponentially more bikers than cars.

Trams and Ghent:  Ghent had tramway lines throughout the city, giving almost no room to actual roads.  I never thought to take a picture of them, but they were double the length of buses or more and completely dominated the streets.

English:  When we first arrived in Nice, the young Uber driver lamented the lack of English spoken by the French.  His English ended up being among the best we'd encountered.  Belgium, which has three national languages that aren't English, was filled by people that almost universally spoke English.  This is just an observation

Overall, the trip had a lot of variety, with new experiences, and everyone had a good time.  I leave at the end of the month for a trip through Vietnam, Taiwan, and Japan.  I am not quite sure what to expect.  As I have continually learned, it is very hard to gauge a place or an experience until you actually do it.  More often than not, I have misjudged a place from the impressions I have gotten from online research.  I also think that I am looking for different things in a vacation than most travelers.

Friday, June 9, 2017

FB13: Ghent, Bruges. Pollution, Magicians, Windmills, and Hot Chocolate

We woke up and went to a local restaurant for a waffle breakfast.  Miles was a bit unsure at first, but ended up loving it.  The scoop of ice cream on his waffle helped with that.

We took a 50 minute boat tour of Ghent.  The guide was a young man with excellent English.  He gave all of his tour in both Dutch and English.  As usual, I am quite skeptical about the information that supposed guides give out.  Assuming he knew what he was talking about, he pointed out a small building as the Tax Collector's office and a guild house for ships, which had the Santa Maria on top.


There were at least 3 tour groups overlapping the same set of canals.  They had at least two things to be embarrassed about, but neither were addressed on the tour.  

1.  While most of the water was clean, there were pockets with trash on the water.  One such pocket was near the area where he pointed out turtles to us.  The boat tours should alternate days cleaning the canal and show some pride in their town of business.  Alternatively, they could all put in equal money toward hiring a cleaning service or the town itself should levy a tax on them that would go towards keeping the canal clean


2.  Near the end of the tour, we passed a high wall with a banner that spoke out against noise pollution made by the boats and the microphones on them.  Personally, I didn't think the sound was that loud, by either the boat nor the guide, but I imagine that if I had to hear it nonstop daily while living there, I would feel otherwise.   Just two things to make me think about.


We took a taxi back to the train station and took the 19 minute ride to our final tourist stop, Bruge.  If you are Belgium, they call it Brugge.  Why two names?  Is Brugge really that hard for the English speakers?  Now that I think of it, Seville, Spain went by Sevilla by the natives.  It is confusing and pointless to change the names.

We took a taxi to the bed and breakfast that we are staying at.  It was highly rated and won an award from Tripadvisor.  Miles gets his own loft with a bed, which he was excited about.


It also has a beautiful view from the room, of the garden that you can go out to whenever you'd like.  I enjoyed reading there that night.


The space in the room is massive compared to a hotel, but a day later and I still have no found an air conditioning unit and my attempts at experimenting with the heat have been fruitless.  Luckily, the weather has been just right so far.  The woman who runs the bed and breakfast is very nice, but I feel awkward around her, because I know that she owns the place and lives here, in another portion of the house.  I felt similarly awkward around the owner of the previous bed and breakfast that I went to back in Sintra.  I will ask about temperature controls tomorrow I suppose.  

We walked around town, taking in the beautiful buildings of the market center.  


Then, I looked online for highly rated local restaurants and went there.  When I saw the restaurant name, I walked in.  Except, it wasn't the restaurant.  It was just a bar of the same name, like a bar only version of the restaurant.  They directed me a few doors down to the actual restaurant, which also had a very large bar...  In any case, the food was good.  With most children's menu items on this trip so far, it included a scoop of ice cream, however, it came in a unique casing, which we were allowed to bring home after.


A young couple that sat down near us sounded American, so I struck up a conversation with them.  They both just graduated college in Honolulu and were taking 35 days to travel around Europe.  Apparently, it took them 25 hours or so to arrive in Europe.  Hawaii is definitely far out there.  They went to Disney Paris as well, and for the guy, it was his first time to a Disney park.  I pointed out that he certainly traveled far to find his first Disney park.

We walked around town for a bit and then headed back to the room to rest.  We'd been exhausted from so much walking on the trip.




On our way back, when crossing the main square, a street performer, a young man, announced that he was doing his final trick.  Miles, loving magicians, was immediately intrigued.  After we joined the crowd of onlookers, he asked for Miles to join, as having a "cute kid" would improve his act and attract more viewers.  Miles was asked to write his name on a 20 euro bill, among other things.  It lasted about ten minutes.  At the end, explained that he was from Australia and had just come to Bruges two hours earlier, and asked for donations.  He did a good job and I enjoyed his performance, so I contributed a little.  Plus, he included my kid.  How could I not?

For the below video, skip to 3:00 for Miles' involvement.





This morning, we went down to participate in the "breakfast" part of bed and breakfast.  I am not a morning person, and so I dread having small talk with the owners/hosts.  I also have stomach problems and don't eat the meats and cheeses that most Europeans seem to eat for breakfast.  They always seem a bit taken aback when I insist on us drinking water rather than orange juice.   Acid on an empty stomach is not good for me in the slightest!  I waited til the last minute, as we were walking up, to let the owner know that I wasn't interested in housekeeping during our stay.  I never use housekeeping, even on cruise ships that claim that they "must" do it.  It is always met with astonishment and insisting.  Avignon ignored my request this trip.

We stayed in until noon and then we left for the bike rental shop.  The idea of renting a bike here had been exciting for Miles ever since I mentioned it to him before we left.  For 10 euros each, we were allowed the bikes for four hours.  First, we biked to the outskirts of the town, and then we followed bike paths.  In Belgium, Cars yield to bikes and bikes yield to pedestrians.  It is an odd system and there are bikes everywhere.  

There are some historical windmills in the circular park surrounded Bruges.  We stopped to take a look, as we headed towards a canal path that leads to a neighboring town, Damme.


The path to Damme was long, but flat.  Beautiful trees lined the path on both sides of the canal, along with farms and farm animals.  Another windmill greeted us as we approached Damme.


The town itself was very small, although it did have an old church or two.  It was not worthy of me posting pictures, but it was more about the journey than the destination.  We found an excellent restaurant for a late lunch.  It became very windy, but we biked back anyway, facing the wind.  Using google, I calculated the distance of the route.  We biked a little over 10.5 miles.  Quite an accomplishment for the little guy.

After dropping off the bikes, we saw a chocolate store across the street, The Old Chocolate House, that was boasting that they had the "best hot chocolate" for only two euros.  "We shall see about that!" I said.  It was given freshly made, but in rather tiny cups compared to American size standards.  Nonetheless, it was indeed very good.  Miles declared that it was indeed the best he had ever had.

We walked through the main square, on our way back, and saw some young tourists alternating taking pictures with each other in their group.  I offered to take a picture of all of them and they were very excited and then thanked me and even bowed.  They spoke Japanese and English.  It was a very pleasant and memorable exchange.

Just before we reached our b&b, we went into a store that had someone's name and then "Rothenburg ob der Tauber.  This is a stop that I intend to make when visiting Germany.  Inside were many very expensive wooden creations and huge areas dedicated to Christmas decorations/ornaments.  In the second room were lots and lots of cuckoo clocks.  The small one weren't too expensive, but the ones measuring a little bit over a foot in either direction were exorbitant.  500 euros were the minimum, going upwards of 1200 euros.  They were incredibly beautiful though.  Very very incredibly beautiful.

I have a few ideas for tomorrow, but canal cruising won't be one of them.  I decided that my two caveats from my Ghent boating were enough to dissuade me from doing any more Belgium boat rides.


Extra thoughts on Disney:
1.  After a while, I realized what was missing in Disney Paris.  There was no Splash Mountain, one of, if not my favorite, ride in the Orlando parks.  The weather in the Paris area is fairly cold most of the year, so I completely understand them not having it, but its absence was still missed.  Crappy Indiana Jones did not make up for its absence.

2.  When they hadn't opened up the outdoor rides and we were considering leaving, Miles was pretty bummed.  I took this time to reveal to him what Buzz Lightyear's original name was.  Butt Lightyear.  I explained that it wasn't received very well, so they changed it at the last minute.  As much as he tried, he could not contain his laughter.

Wednesday, June 7, 2017

FB12: Ghent and Gent

We slept late today and then went to Paris Nord train station.  We boarded a high speed Thalys train to Brussels.  This took just under an hour and a half and had a fully working high speed internet for free.  We transferred to a local train at Brussels and within thirty minutes, we had arrived in Ghent, also known as Gent.

Belgium has three languages. Dutch, spoken most everywhere, French in the Brussels area, and some pockets of German, according to the ticket booth attendant in Gravensteen Castle.  I asked how to say thank you in Dutch, and he said, "Dank yu"(phonetic).  

The Castle popped up seemingly right inthe middle of town, but was surrounded by water in the back, for about 2/3 of its sides.

 

It was a quick walk through the castle, with highlights of some suits of armor and weapons, along with a nice view from the top.



We spent most of the day resting, before going out for a walk at night.  In France, most restaurants closed during the day, and then reopened at 7:00.  Here, most places seemed to close down by 6:00.  The streets were mostly empty.  We walked down the main street and side canal and enjoyed the unique architecture and older structures.



Tomorrow, we will take a boat ride through the canals before heading to our stay in Bruges.





FB11: Disney Paris

Note:  This whole post will be about Disney Paris and Disney Orlando.  If Disney parks bore you, feel free to skip this post.  I mostly compare and contrast the parks and give our experiences in the Paris parks.

The next day, Jeremy flew out early.  I decided to bring my backup camera, since I knew that I was going to be banged around on rides, and didn't want to risk my new camera.  My backup is not as good in darkness.

Miles and I also woke up early, and walked ten minutes to Chatelet - Les Halles station, the central train hub in Paris.  We took the RER A line, with the last stop as Disney.  It took about forty minutes.  I had planned to get us there at least thirty minutes before the park opening, which was scheduled for 10:00.  I read online that you should rush to Crush's Rollercoaster in the smaller of the two Disney Paris parks, Disney Studios.  It does not have a fast pass, and it is new, so it was the one to go to.  We arrived in line just before 9:30.

I walked up to the attendant and asked where the bathrooms were when we got in, and he misunderstood my question and answered, "two minutes."  I asked the question again and he understood me that time.  Sure enough, two minutes later, they started allowing people into the park.  I was glad that I got us there early!

We went straight for Crush's coaster.  It still took fifteen to twenty minutes on the line.  I wanted to try to wear my glasses on the ride, since it was my first time on it, and I wanted to be able to see things clearly and I knew the ride was indoors.  This was a mistake.  The ride is a mild rollercoaster that spins the small car around.  I spent the whole time holding onto my glasses and being spun so much that everything was blurry.  I ended up a little dizzy.  Ignoring this stupidity of mine, the ride was cute and fun.  The first drop was the best and I had wished that there were more like it.



Next, we stopped nearby to pick up fastpasses for Ratatouille, another new ride.  The line said 30 minutes.  This would end up being a mistake.  We walked by the kiddie section, which is themed after Toy Story.  There was a ride Miles and I had interest in, but it only had one car and a long line.  It would have taken forever.  It was a U shaped track with a car that went up one side and then in reverse back down and up the other side and then back again a few times.

We went to the other side of the small park to try their Rock and Roll rollercoaster.  I had read that this was not nearly as good as Orlando's version.  They were right.  Even the new crappy Aerosmith video introduction is unceremoniously cut short with the door opening almost immediately.

The countdown in Florida, for the ride to begin, starts at 5.  The countdown here started at 3.  Maybe they just figured it wasn't worth the suspense of two more numbers.  The launch is just as good as the one in Orlando, but the straight starting track felt like it lasted longer after hitting maximum speed.  You start off with a similar loop, but it is all down hill from there.  Perhaps Steve Tyler was hinting to the audience at how crappy this version was when he talked about "going down..."  It had one weak flip, but the rest of the ride was just nothing and over.  It felt substantially shorter than Orlando's version.  The space to make the ride seemed much smaller, and not as well decorated.  They shouldn't have bothered if they didn't have the space.

I then made the mistake of going to Armageddon, a special effects show.  I thought Miles might like it.  It took forever to start and was embarrassingly short and just plain bad.  Next, we went to the Tower of Terror.  Miles went by himself and said that he enjoyed it and that the part before the drops was slightly different.  He said that you don't move through clocks like in the Orlando Tower.  We ate a ridiculously expensive lunch, that put Orlando's exorbitant prices to shame, and went back to Ratatouille, which would be our last ride of the park.  Unfortunately, we arrived to find that they had shut down the ride due to the typical Disney "technical difficulties."  Who knows what that means.  They told us that the fastpasses would be good until the end of the day.

It was now time to head to the main park, Disneyland Paris.  Before leaving Studios, I stopped to take a picture with Miles in front of a pretty cool statue.  This was a recurring theme with the Paris parks.  They have much better art setups around their parks.  It seems to be more than just rides here.



When entering Disneyland, we were reminded that the park was celebrating its 25 year anniversary.



Their castle, as google informed me, is Belle's castle, as opposed to Cinderella's in Orlando.  I preferred this one's look, even though it was smaller.



We went straight for Space Mountain, intending just to pick up a fastpass and move on, but the line claimed to be only ten minutes long, so we went for it, even after picking up our fastpasses.  I forgot to mention earlier, but the fastpass system in Disney Paris is the old fastpass system, from before magic bands became the norm in Orlando.  You scan your ticket, a fastpass prints out, and you come back at the time indicated.  Then, you can pick up another.  If you are at the parks all day, you can get many more fastpasses than with the magicband system.  Unfortunately, very few rides actually use it.  6 in the main park and 4 in the other, I believe.

This was reported to be a souped up Space Mountain, and rethemed for Star Wars.  It was more than just rethemed and souped up.  It is a completely different beast, in almost every way.  The only thing in common with Orlando's Space Mountain is the shape of the outer building.  Instead of the 3 singular cars attached, followed by another three, this is a full style rollercoaster, with over the head restraints.  It also had a semi movable rubber that goes over your chest, that allows it to mold to your body.



The Star Wars theme just didn't work for me here.  It felt tacked on.  When you start the ride, the music starts blaring and it just doesn't feel integrated.  There are big screens occasionally throughout the ride and you hear some shooting effects from the movies.  As for the ride itself, the best part is the beginning.  You load into the tube going up the side of Space Mountain.  You pause for a few moments, and then they launch you up the tube a la The Hulk in Universal Islands of Adventure.  Unfortunately, they slow you down to almost a complete stop at the top, as they ease you into the ride.

The ride had two loops and has you riding on the side of a track twice.  It is almost completely dark inside, and surprisingly, this works against it.  Unlike the original, this one is so fast, and it is so dark, that you don't really know what is happening half the time.  You are moving fast, but there is a disconnect from what is happening because you have no reference points.  When you are flipped, it is fun and you know what is happening, but then you go back to moving fast and not really feeling much.  By the end of the day, we had gone on the ride three times, and each time I was hoping that maybe I'd finally get it by the end.  My opinion remained the same.  Don't get me wrong.  The initial acceleration alone made it better than the original dinky carnival ride in the dark, but it could have been so much more.

Near Space Mountain is an underground submarine that you explore.  This is one of four such  activities in the park and we liked it a lot.  It adds a little exploration to the experience of just rides.



There was a neat Wall-E statue that we took the opportunity to take a picture with.



Then, we went to the other side of the park and stood in line at Thunder Mountain.  This Thunder Mountain takes place on an island, and so you start the ride by going into a dark tunnel that leads you to the island.  The ride itself felt slower and more constrained, maybe by the size of the island.  One improvement, however, was that in one of the slow ascents, there is a special effect of sparks going up the side of the wall and into dynamite, that is supposed to be blowing up the top of the tunnel, to collapse on you.  The end has you rushing down deep into a tunnel, and felt like a satisfying end to the ride.  We rode on this one more time by day's end.



Something that struck me about the area in Thunder Mountain, was that it is based on the American frontier.  I wondered if that really worked well for a European audience.

Next, we went to the corner of the park to try the Indiana Jones themed ride.  I had heard mixed things about this ahead of time.  It is a small outdoor coaster with a temple theme.  It said that there was a five minute wait.  After waiting ten, they announced that all outdoor rides in the park were being shut down due to thunderstorms in the area.  We got a fastpass for the ride for later as compensation.

Since outdoor rides were out of the question, the Haunted Mansion was next.  The line area was much better themed and much more orderly than the Orlando one.  Inside, the ride was nice.  Some of the same elements, but with more of an emphasis on a dead bride and a finishing area taking place in the wild west, which was different and well done.

Pirates was shut down for renovations.  We went to the second of the exploration areas, which was a telling of the Aladdin movie via small windows with figures along a passageway.  It was very cute and we both enjoyed it.  We went on the Buzz Lightyear ride, and it seemed a bit more varied than Orlando, but maybe that was just the newness speaking.  It was still fundamentally the same ride.



We asked someone at the park to called the Studios park to inquire about Ratatouille, and were told that it was open.  We walked back to the ride in the other park.



This was a 3d ride modeled after the likes of Spiderman and the Transformers, at Universal.  I generally dislike this kind of ride as they are a bit nauseating and are uninteresting after being on the ride once.  This was no different.

After walking back to the main Disneyland park, I had to take a break.  My legs were killing me.  We found a place to sit down and eat, and we didn't leave for over an hour.  During that time, it rained, was sunny, rained again, and then stopped.  The outdoor rides were still closed.  We headed towards fantasyland.

On our way, we went under the castle to see the dragon.  At times, it slept.  Other times, it moved its head around, with dragonlike breathing and grumbling.  Miles was enamored with it.



Then, Miles tried halfheartedly to pull out the sword in the stone.



We stood in line for Pinocchio.  This was a typical fantasyland ride like Snow White, Toad's Wild Ride, etc.  It was something I hadn't seen before, but reminded me of just how much I disliked the darkness and story of Pinocchio.  It was also super short.  One neat part, however, was that there was a Mona Lisa with a mustache drawn on it, in the trash in one of the rooms.

We went to the last walkthrough area, which was Alice in Wonderland's maze, but it had apparently closed earlier in the day.  How lame is that!?



We walked past It's a Small World, and the top of the building, with a clock on it, opened up and toy people walked out, like a cuckoo clock.  Then, the theme song started to play.  I thought that this was a nice touch.

We were exhausted and contemplated leaving, since the park attendants had no clue as to whether they would be reopening the outdoor rides.  We decided to return to the Haunted Mansion, where we could see Thunder Mountain from, which would indicate whether they reopened the ride.  By this time, it seems like many people had left due to the rains.  We walked right onto the ride twice.  We had the place almost to ourselves.  We were just about to give up when we saw Thunder Mountain start running.  After a quick Thunder Mountain, we headed back to Indiana Jones.



Indiana Jones was a disappointment, even with low expectations.  It was barely a ride, though it did have a small loop to it.  Miles was upset because his head bounced around between the overhead pull down bars.

I had wanted to go on two kiddie rides that were completely new, but they close early normally.  With the rain, they never reopened them.

We were able to get onto Peter Pan fairly quickly.  It was slightly different than in Orlando, with a bit more color.  I offered to go on It's a Small World if the line was short, as our last ride of the night.  Miles begrudgingly said sure.  We walked right onto the ride.  The song was sung in both French and English.  The song is just background noise and not nearly as annoying when it is sung in another language.  It was much better than the Orlando version, with areas dedicated to pretty much every major area, from Russia, to India, to the Mayans and Native Americans, and even a section for animals.  The end of the ride had farewell/goodbye written in many different languages, including Japanese.  I can now recognize and read their words, so this was kind of cool for me.



The bathrooms in the park were decent, but almost always sized too small.  One cool thing about them, however, is that they have buttons on the wall to give them feedback on cleanliness satisfaction.  A smiley face, a sad face, and one in between.  I even caught a similar panel when getting off of Space Mountain, asking if you were properly greeted by the ride operators(I think I am remembering the question correctly).

It was a very enjoyable experience seeing the new rides and the variations on the old ones.  My legs are still aching from all of the walking.


FB10: Paris Proper

It has been a few days since I have updated the blog.  This is my first real chance for a breather.  I am currently in Ghent, Belgium.  Or Gent, Belgium, if you spell it as the Belgians do.  So, how did I get here?

We woke up in Carcassonne, and drove an hour to the Toulouse train station and dropped off our car rental.  I did not plan the times well, as there was quite a lengthy wait before we were able to board our train.  I noticed that dogs were even allowed in train stations.  This makes sense in retrospect, as I was aware that dogs are allowed in trains in most civilized countries.  This was later confirmed when I saw a large dog being walked past us while in our seats.

Miles and I sat facing Jeremy and a girl, with foldout tables between us.  The girl spoke English fairly well, and based on my past European train rides, expected some conversation, which would give me a French perspective.  This proved to be incorrect.  She slept the entire five and a half hours of the train ride.  We took an Uber ride to our hotels, which were just around the corner from each other.  While Jeremy checked in, Miles played with the hotel cat.



It was Sunday, and we read that one of the only things open on Sunday was a museum that I had already wanted to see, as it was recommended for kids.  The place was called Pompidou Center, and it was apparently free that day.  The outside of the museum had an interesting look, with piping and escalators on the outside.



The inside had all different types of interesting and colorful more contemporary art.



Miles asked if this next one was Deadpool, the comic character.



From the higher levels, we had a decent view of the city.  I was able to spot Sacre Coeur, a high hilled church, that I only knew of from its placement in a computer game that I had played recently.

Just outside the Center was even more artwork, surrounded by local restaurants.



That night, we walked toward Notre Dame, which was conveniently located near our hotels.  The view was extraordinary.  We then realized that the bridge was heavily occupied by spiders.





In front of the Notre Dame, there was a group of street performers dancing and moving around while twirling fire.  Miles was enthralled, while I sat a few feet away on the ground, stretching.  They ended with a small firework display on the ground, which I partially saw.  The rest of the performance was not easily seen from my place on the ground.  Afterwards, Miles declared to me that this was his new favorite moment of the trip.  Jeremy confirmed to my that they were quite good.

The next day, we decided to start off with Miles' choice of where to go.  I had wanted to bring him to the Metiers museum, which featured science and inventions, but it was closed.  The Catacombs were likewise closed.  His pick was the Natural History Museum.  When we arrived, we told him that there was also a zoo, the Menagerie.  He decided, despite my prodding in the other direction, to go with the zoo.

The zoo was pretty small, and kind of sad looking.  A majority of the areas were incredibly small for the animals.  Miles thoroughly enjoyed it and we saw some interesting animals including a Red Panda, whom Jeremy had never quite managed to see, even after going to the Bronx Zoo on occasion.



We purchased day passes for the water ferries that went up and down the river.  We took a boat from the zoo to the area around the Louvre.  It was lunchtime, so we stopped locally to eat.  Prior to this day in Paris, Jeremy insisted that we were not to plan anything, but to simply "walk around," as a way of seeing Paris.  While eating, I suggested to him that I could purchase tickets to the Louvre on my phone, if he wanted to go in and have the ability to skip the line.  At the end of the meal, he had finally decided that he had always wanted to see the Louvre, and since we were right there already, we might as well.  He also insisted that the line looked short and that buying a ticket ahead of time would not have saved us much time.

We arrived at the line.  I pointed out that we would have saved at least twenty minutes by buying the tickets in advance.

When inside, I let Jeremy steer the way, as he had more of an interest than I.  He led us through the areas that featured Greek history, and as we walked, he taught Miles about the ancient Greek/Roman gods and other important figures.  They both were enjoying it.  I listened to Jeremy test Miles when he saw reoccurring characters.

We found ourselves near the Mona Lisa.  While Jeremy wasn't too interested, and I couldn't care less, he led us into the room.  We looked at it from afar, shrugged, and moved on.  We did, however, ask Miles first, if he had any interest himself.  He did not.  We then walked quickly through some of the ancient Egypt section before closing time.

I'm not a huge museum person.  Jeremy informed me that the Louvre was the biggest museum in the world.  This, and the interesting inside architecture, interested me more than what we found inside.  It was mostly sculptures, small artifacts, and walls of what I have begun to call "Jesus pictures," that I have found to be in art museums all throughout where I have been in Europe.  The rooms themselves were quite impressive though!

Next, we took the ferry to the next stop, the Eiffel Tower.  I had less than zero interest in this, but I really had no problem with Jeremy picking what interested him most.  We arrived, went through the scanners, and looked at the Tower from below.  Since heights are not my thing, and I had no interest whatsoever, Jeremy and Miles climbed up by themselves.  They walked up to the second platform, and then waited in line to go by elevator to the top.  It took them hours, but they enjoyed themselves.  Uber, yet again, brought us back to our hotels.

We went out to a fancy Thai restaurant that Jeremy had been interested in.  I was proud of Miles for trying some new foods.  We finished by going to a highly Google rated ice cream place for our final moments together.  We walked Jeremy back to his hotel and said our final goodbyes.  As we were walking away, Miles said to me, "I'm going to miss him."