This year we had a hard time deciding what we should do for Thanksgiving. For the last two years we’ve gone to Germany to hang out with our friends from Misawa. We loved doing that! And this year, the Roth family was going to be the hosts of all Misawa friends who wanted to come. We were debating on what to do as we really wanted to see my cousin Olia and her family in Paris and the drive to the Roths was a bit longer than the one to Geilenkirchen our prior years.
When my mom’s UK visa got denied, so she couldn’t come visit us in England, it became a no-brainer. We wanted to see my mom! We decided that since she has an EU visa (entrance to all countries but the UK), she should come meet us in Paris. And so she flew in there a couple of days before Thanksgiving and we drove down to Paris on Thanksgiving Day.
This time we were staying at a rental apartment near Republique metro station, near Marais district. It fit six people-two bedrooms, living room, dining area and kitchen. The toilet and shower with sink were on the opposite side of the apartment in a true Parisian way. It took us almost an hour to go the distance that was meant to be fifteen minutes as we were arriving at the beginning of the rush hour. Traffic was crazy. And not just busy crazy, but really CRAZY driving, not like it is in England with proper lanes. Then came a problem of parking. We did find a parking spot really close to our apartment entrance, but couldn’t even pay for it as it was a machine that didn’t take regular coins, but special prepaid parking cards. Whatever the case was, we didn’t want to pay 10 euros for the card if we were just going to park once. So Robert and I traded back and forth unloading luggage while one of us had to stay by the car. After half an hour we were done…phew..it wasn’t as simple as just getting our bags and walking up the stairs-there were codes and elevators and keys to deal with.
Anyway, we dropped off our bags and headed down to Maisons-Alfort which is where my cousin lives. It is supposed to take 20 minutes to drive there, but it took us an hour. By the time we got there it was 6:30 pm and my cousin and my mom were already there. It was great to see all of them! It reminded me of our first time in Paris seven years ago for Olia’s wedding, when we first met Christophe. This time it was also fun for our kids to meet their second cousins-Maxim and Amelia.
Christophe was kind enough to help us celebrate Thanksgiving with turkey, so he ordered some excellent turkey-veggie-rollup-somethings and mashed potatoes (probably the best mashed potatoes ever). We had a great meal together, played for a little bit, and then went back to our apartment. We left our car parked at Olia’s house.
Here is my cousin, her kids and my mom.
And here are all the kids.
It was quite late by the time we got home, but the kids were pretty quick about getting to sleep.
The next morning, after filling up on croissants and pastries, we were out of the house by ten.
On the way to the metro station-beautiful flower shop.
We took the metro to Notre Dame area. The weather was turning out to be great.
We walked for a few minutes and, behold, there was Notre Dame in all her beauty.
Since we got there relatively early in the morning, we walked right in, no line. It was gorgeous inside!
Loved these stained glass windows.
Notre Dame is a big cathedral! And in my mind it seems to be extra special because it’s connected with the Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Did you know that you can go up to the top of Notre Dame? On the side of the building, you will find the entrance to the stairs, there is usually a line, sometimes a very long line. They said they let in thirty people every ten minutes, but we waited for about thirty minutes total before we got inside.
Taking pictures while waiting. These two were together all the time. I think my mom hired Katya to take a ton of pictures of her as they were walking around with our camera posing all over the city.
Mark was so cute going up the stairs counting them as we were walking and walking. Almost four hundred in total!
There were two platforms where we made stops. The first one was not super high, but at the level of the biggest gargoyles. Oh, they fascinate me…
We had a bit of a waiting period on this level so we took a lot of pictures in all different variations.
The family with the gargoyles.
And the whole Paris behind us…
Sheesh, my mom looks so young. The kids look like they could be her children and not grandchildren.
I like this picture because it has two hidden faces-showing two different expressions.
And look at those statues. Love them.
Robert brought our long-distance lens this time to experiment with shooting from the top. So this first picture was taken with a regular lens, but the other two were done with a crazy zoom.
Amazing.
Sacre-Coeur.
Let me tell you, it was something else to be able to stand on this level of the cathedral right next to the bells when the bells were ringing out twelve o’clock. It was so loud and special.
Mark kept asking where the hunchback is and if it’s he who is ringing the bells.
Some crazy gargoyle creatures…trapped between heaven and earth.
After the “bells level”, we got to go up even further to the very top. A few pictures from there.
It was pretty quiet up there, not as windy as I thought it would be. The view of Paris was fantastic.
Walking down was much faster, of course, but since the spiral kept going and going, some of us almost got motion sick.
Mission accomplished—we climbed up Notre Dame. Definitely recommend this experience if the line is not horribly long.
Au revoir,
Lyana.
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