Weekend in Ithaca

Yikes, it has been a loooong time since we have posted here. The Europe posts are a lot more time intensive than I thought (maybe that is because there are a bazillion pictures to go through). Anyway in the meantime, here are some non-Europe posts. I promise to get back to those... but for now, let's catch up on our last few months!

Back in June was Men's Weekend - Tim went to that along with all of the other menfolk. Mom, Cameron, Leah and I decided to have a fun weekend away from home. We went down to Ithaca for the day and started out at the Sciencenter. We had been there back in March and the kids loved it, so we decided to go back.

As soon as we walked in, Cameron knew straight where he wanted to go. His memory always amazes me - I guess he is old enough now to remember stuff, but he gets the details right down even though he had only been here once a few months before. We went to the water table, and Cam knew exactly what he wanted to do: catch all the ducks in a "cage"!

Leah liked splashing and trying to steal ducks from Cameron

Yum, chlorinated stainless steel is delicious!

Leah suce

Next we headed outside. This part was closed when we were here last, so we were very excited to check it out. There was a really cool waterfall that lead into a little river area. You could make dams with bricks, send ducks down the waterfall, and of course, splash around.

Cam made another cage for the ducks. Are we sensing a theme here?

Once again, Leah liked to take the ducks from Cam's caged area.

There was also a music area with tons of different drums, xylophones, etc. Both kids really liked it.

Even Leah could reach so she was having lots of fun.

Cameron the Spider Man, climbing the web

Back inside we went to check out lots of other exhibits.

A little bit of air in the face!

Leah liked putting the beach ball on the air jet.

Cameron holding a hermit crab. He also held a starfish.

Our St. Louis Arch

Another of Cam's favorite exhibits - a giant coin spiral, where the pennies are already included (Mama's wallet likes this one!). He could have stayed at this, sending pennies down the spiral, for hours.

In this exhibit, you turn the wheel and the gears turn. Each of the gears represents one of the place values - ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, etc. Every one million turns, the gear in the millionths place has a bar that knocks over a wine glass. The glass had just been knocked over a few weeks before we were there, so although the kids did lots of turns, we didn't get anywhere near one million.

Cameron riding the triceratops. By this point, Leah was tired out and had no interest in riding with Cameron.

Once we were done at the Sciencenter, we drove up the west side of Cayuga Lake and stopped at Taughannock Falls. I had never been there before and it was so pretty! The hike up to the falls was about a half mile, but it was an easy walk (we could take the stroller). On the way up there were tons of little falls. Also lots of people swimming and playing in the river and small falls.

Kiddos with mini falls

Very pretty falls

Cameron, Mama and Leah with Taughannock Falls in the background

Cameron and Nana

Mama and kiddos again

On the walk back, the sky got dark and then we heard thunder. We quickened our pace and got to the car and put the kids in just as the sky opened up. It was very good timing! After the falls, we headed north along Cayuga Lake. Both Cam and Leah immediately fell asleep, which I was very glad about. On the way up, we stopped at a few wineries. Mom and I took turns going in and tasting (and buying!) some wine while the kids napped.

We stayed a hotel in Auburn that had an indoor pool. Everyone had stayed there back in March and we went to swim, so we knew it was nice. We had dinner at the Irish pub and then went in the pool. The water was so warm and the kids had a great time swimming.

The next day we were headed home on the Thruway when we came to a complete stop. After being passed (with much difficulty) by police cars, fire trucks and an ambulance, we knew it was going to be a long wait. Everyone turned off their cars and started getting out. Kids were playing on the hills on the side of the Thruway and people were hanging out and walking up the road trying to figure out what was going on.

Leah explores the road cones

She found a rock!

Nana with Cam and Leah in the middle of the Thruway

Cameron had lots of fun playing on the side of the road
Nana and Leah killing time (an hour) until traffic started moving again

After an hour or two at a standstill, we started moving again. We got home with no other problems.

The whole weekend was so much fun. We had lots of fun with Nana and the kids were really well behaved. We don't need Men's Weekend to have fun!!

Paris - Day 1

Bonnie and I left Syracuse around 3pm on Thursday, May 12th. Our flight out of Syracuse ended up being delayed so we would miss our connection to Paris - in the end we were rerouted through Boston. The flight was pretty easy. Each seat had its own TV and there was a good selection of movies to watch. I was able to sleep for around four hours so that helped too.

We arrived in Paris at 8am on Friday, May 13th. The date of Friday the 13th should have been a hint to us... Bonnie and I got off the plane and meandered along, stopping at the bathroom, looking at stuff, etc. When we got down to baggage claim, only a few bags were going around. We figured it was because they had just started coming out, but sadly we were mistaken - those were the only bags left from our flight, and not a single one was ours! We spent the next half hour or so filling out paperwork and figuring out what we would do to get the suitcases back.

Elizabeth had also arrived around on the same time, but on a different flight into a different terminal. We got in touch with her and headed over to her terminal. Bonnie and I were glad that we ended up on a different flight because this way, Elizabeth didn't lose her bag too and we could borrow stuff from her until we got our bags back. Unfortunately, we were wrong again! Despite being on a direct flight from Philly to Paris, Elizabeth also lost her suitcase! She got all of her information taken down and we were on our way out of the airport.

We took the RoissyBus into Paris, which took us directly to Montparnasse. From there, we were able to walk to the apartment that we rented. We decided to rent an apartment in Paris rather than staying in a hotel. It turned out to be an awesome decision and really made it feel a little bit like we lived there.

Our apartment - Boulevard Pasteur 4. It is the windows two up from the cafe. The location was great - besides the cafe downstairs, we were right across from the Sevres-Lecourbe Metro stop, and there was a grocery store and bakery right around the corner.

Elizabeth and I at the door to our apartment.

Inside the apartment - this was our living room.

The bedroom that Bonnie and I stayed in

The stairs (really closer to a ladder) leading up to the loft where Elizabeth slept. At the top of the stairs, it was pretty much just a twin bed and not much else.

The tiny kitchen - worked well enough for our purposes but I can't imagine trying to cook dinner in here.

The bathroom. The toilet was in a separate room around the corner from this room.

After we got settled, meaning we set down our carry on bags and lamented about not being able to change clothes or have any toiletries to use, we headed out for the day. It was still early at this point, just a bit before lunch time. We knew we wanted to get out and explore, get some food, and just generally find ways to keep ourselves awake to combat jet lag!

Our apartment was within walking distance of both Les Invalides and the Eiffel Tower. It was really neat to see both of them off in the distance and truly feel like we were finally in Paris! There was a long tree-lined park that went all the way down to Les Invalides. There were tons of people hanging out, kids playing, families having picnics, etc. It was very neat.

We stopped for lunch in a random cafe then kept going on our walk. We walked towards the Eiffel Tower and ended up in front of the Ecole Militaire, a military training complex nearby to the Eiffel Tower. It was pretty cool looking.

We looked at it a bit, but really we were trying to get to the Eiffel Tower behind it! We walked around to the other side and ended up in the Parc du Champ de Mars. It is a large park that leads up to the Eiffel Tower.

Yay, we are in Paris! Bonnie, Elizabeth and Kristin

My attempt at taking an artsy-fartsy shot of the Eiffel Tower

We walked up to the tower and under it. There was a ton of water dripping down from the middle of the underside of the tower. At least, we were telling ourselves that it was water, especially after it dripped on us! We decided not to go up in the tower today and continued on our walk. We walked to the Seine River and walked along the side of it.

We crossed to the other side at Pont Neuf and ended up walking towards the Champs-Elysees. We were headed towards the Arc de Triomphe, but on the way we stopped to window shop a bit. There are a lot of high end stores in the area but for most of them we decided not to enter, considering that we were wearing the same clothes for more than the last 24 hours. We did go into the Louis Vuitton store because it seemed more touristy than the rest. The prices certainly were not for the average tourist though!

We walked along Champs-Elysees and ended up at the Arc. It is so neat, surrounded by a giant traffic circle with seemingly no right-of-way rules. Amazingly, despite the apparent chaos, the French drivers knew what to do and got around with no issues.

One of the best decisions we made in Paris was to buy the Paris Museum Pass. For a four-day pass, it was 50 Euro and got us into 60+ museums in the city. It also allowed us to cut in line in most of those museums, which made it worth it no matter what!

The underside of the Arc

In order to get to the top of the Arc, there was an endless spiral staircase. It was our first taste of the beloved European spiral staircase, and it was exhausting. We were going on four or less hours of sleep, had just traipsed miles across Paris, and now we had to go up and up and up this spiral staircase. I thought I was going to pass out but just kept on walking up, if for no other reason but to avoid the dirty looks of the people behind us!

Of course, once we got to the top, the view was worth it. It was a great way to survey the city and get a good idea of the layout. There was also a nice breeze up there, which was great after all of that exercise up the stairs!

Champs-Elysees, viewed from above

Eiffel Tower

Sacre Coeur and Montmatre

La Defense

Elizabeth and I enjoying the view.

After we took in the view, we walked back down all of those spiral stairs and back to Champs-Elysees. It was around 4 in the afternoon and we decided it was time for a snack. We stopped at a cafe and had our first crepes. They were good, but not as amazing as I remembered. The waiter also convinced us to try the special drink of the day, a strawberry-raspberry champagne. We ended up just ordering one to share between us and it was a good thing because it cost 15 Euro (around $22)!!!!

Elizabeth and Bonnie ready to eat some crepes!

Me enjoying the last sip of the $20+ dollar drink. I felt like it was perfectly acceptable to pretty much lick the glass, considering how much we paid for it!

After our snack, we were headed on a very important mission. We realized that there was no way our suitcases would arrive that day, so we needed to buy some clothes. Since we were in Paris, we figured everywhere would be super expensive. That is, until we saw someone walking around with an H&M bag. We have that store at home, and we all knew it had cheap clothes that would work for our purposes. The bag had the address on the Champs-Elysees, so we were off to get some clothes. We bought shirts, underwear and socks (the important stuff!) and even got our picture taken afterwards.

After shopping, we headed back towards our apartment. We went grocery shopping to get toiletries and then we went to dinner. We ate at the cafe below our apartment and had a really good, basic meal and a glass of wine. By 8:30 we were ready to drop (it was 2:30am our time!) so we went up to the apartment and went to bed!