Thanksgiving in Paris

We spent the Thanksgiving holidays in Paris, leaving Wednesday evening on an Easyjet flight. That's a major bonus of living in Geneva - cheap, convenient flights to all the major cities of Europe on Easyjet. We arrived around 10:30 PM, only to find nobody waiting for us at the apartment I'd rented at VRBO.com.  It wasn't too worrying, though, because we'd arrived about 20 minutes before schedule, and the guy with the keys came pretty quickly. The apartment (here's the link on VRBO.com) was quite central, and had a very spacious living room with very high ceilings and floor to ceiling windows, plus a MONSTER beam all the way across the ceiling. So, lots of character, and the beds were comfortable. Overall it was pretty reasonable. It was all very last minute - I actually only made the final arrangements on Wednesday, the day we were flying. I would have been a little more concerned had it been the high season, but in November it's not that busy, there were many options.

Peter in front of the Louvre

The first day we spent the whole day at the Louvre. I thought the kids would hate it - they definitely didn't enjoy the Prado in Madrid at all. But the Louvre is a lot friendlier, has more than just paintings, plus it has tons of benches everywhere. I don't think the Prado had any. At the Louvre, as well as benches they had lots of little window alcoves where you could hang out, very cozy and private. We took lots of breaks, and also plenty of candy. The kids really enjoyed our candy contests, which consisted of everyone taking a gummy bear, and then competing to see who could make it last the longest.

On Thanksgiving Day we were having dinner at a little cafe, and started talking to an American woman spending the week with her 10 year old daughter in London/Paris. She asked if we did anything special for Thanksgiving, and that was the first I'd thought of it during the trip! It's amazing how things can slip your mind if you're not constantly reminded by advertising in stores and things. Anyway, Thanksgiving dinner for us was an omelette for Kenny, hamburger for Peter, daily special for me (some meat with a sauce) and a big salad for Eric.

Some other things we did in Paris were the tower at Notre Dame, one of the vendettes (tourist boats that go along the Seine - foggy windows so we didn't see anything!), the Champs-Élysées, and the Eiffel Tower on Sunday, which was beautiful and sunny but freezing cold. When Eric and I went to Paris many years ago, before kids, we did things that were a lot more unique (a fashion show, a huge cemetary, flea market). This time we just did the main tourist attractions, but that seemed to work best for the kids.