Nature Capitale

This weekend the Champs Elysées was turned into a garden. They imported thousands of trees, and plants, tons of mulch, and 1.9 million people. It was called Nature Capitale. We, of course, had to join the crowds to check it out. It was fun for the kids to walk down the middle of the street. They had lined the street with red mulch (Matt called it a red path), and it made the whole street smell like the Christmas tree lot at Home Depot. It's not everyday you see a palm tree in the middle of the Champs Elysées.



I tried to get a picture of the boys, but I couldn't back up far enough to get a good picture. (there were too many people in my way).
Eventually we stopped and had a snack. Check out the individual servings of apple sauce that don't even require a spoon. Definitely a lunch box necessity. They barricaded off the streets and you could enter the street only at specific places. On Saturday we ventured out to check out the process of how they were transforming the street into a garden. Well, they hadn't started by the time we were out and about, so we just found a park off the street and played for a little while.


On the Champs Elysées there are a few car concept stores. Toyota, Peugeot, Renault, to name a few. There are sports cars, old fashioned cars, cars climbing the wall, toy replicas, and car video games which we found in the Toyota store. The boys were quite happy.

I think that these car stores are Thomas' favorite places in Paris. All he cares about is all the different kinds of cars he sees. He get more excited seeing Minis, the random Honda, and even more random Hummer than he does seeing the sites of Paris.
This was the highlight of the weekend:
Thomas got to see his beloved Ford Mustang in Paris. He was in heaven. And it was the second convertible Mustang we saw that day. We certainly don't see those everyday.

Un voyage en Istanbul (qui n'est plus Constantinople)

Every time I hear the name 'Istanbul', that darn song runs through my head. ("Istanbul was Constantinople. Now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople. Been a long time gone..." Anyway, this post is brought to you by my hubby who was recently in Istanbul...not Constantinople.

"Here's a little breakdown of some pictures from my recent trip to Istanbul. I didn't have that much time for tourist stuff, but I managed to squeeze in a little bit of sightseeing. My first impression of the city was that I have never in my life seen so many mosques! Every couple of blocks or so there was another domed central building with a minaret or two. Here is the shot from my hotel room. (All the thin little towers are minarets.)

One of the days I was there was a national holiday, so there were flags out everywhere including at this palace:

Two of the more famous sites in Istanbul are the Hagia Sofia and the Blue Mosque, and I visited both in one morning (it helps to get up early and beat the crowds). The Hagia Sofia was built in the 560's (no I didn't drop a digit) and was the largest cathedral in the world for about a thousand years or so. The Ottomans turned it into a mosque in the 15^th century and then Ataturk turned it into a museum in the 1930s. It is enormous, and the pictures below don't really do the space justice.

Here is the dome and a couple of mosaics (fairly recent additions-from the 9^th century).

I thought that this doorstep captured the feel of the age of the building. That was only one of the doors, and yet the marble has been worn down by countless feet over the centuries.

Some random Viking (!) graffiti that also dates from the 9^th century. Darn Norsemen. If they weren't rampaging and pillaging, they were carving their names in runes in churches.

Here is the Blue Mosque seen from the Hagia Sofia (they are very close together).

The Blue Mosque is a working mosque (so we had to remove shoes and the women had to cover their heads) from 1609 which means about the same time Jamestown was being founded.

These are some shots of the interior of the aptly-named Blue Mosque.

Here is some of the detail of one of the ceilings in the same neighborhood, I really think the tile work is amazing.

I also managed to get down to visit a Roman cistern (underground water tank). I thought it was pretty cool, especially since it really reminded me of the Mines of Moria (from the Lord of the Rings). I could practically hear Howard Shore's movie score in the background...

And finally, here are a couple of shots of the Bosporus Look, Asia!

Here is something cool you may not know about the Bosporus On the surface there is a standard current flowing from the Black Sea into the Mediterranean. However, there is a dramatic switch as you descend and there is another current flowing the opposite direction, back into the Black Sea. In ancient times (prior to the invention of the outboard motor) sailors would tie a rope to a basket, weigh it down with stones so that it dropped below the surface current, and then let the undercurrent pull their boat to the Black Sea!

We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog..."

Attention!

Attention! Watch out!

I'm going to share some tidbits of wisdom so that you don't have to hear these words if you ever visit Paris.

First bit of advice: wait for the little green guy light to tell you it's safe to cross the street. Apparently it is not a law that the car yields to the pedestrian in a crosswalk. In fact the car can come within a meter of the person and still be within his rights. Even if you see the green guy, look both ways before you cross. I know this is something you learned in Kindergarten, but it will help in Paris. If you choose to cross against the light, the oncoming traffic will NOT stop. They will only lay on their horn with the hopes to make you walk faster and get out of the way.

Also, keep your purses, backpack, and all belongings closed when in a crowded area or on the Metro. Doug has seen girls at work on the Metro trying to steal your stuff. (We even saw them on Sunday as well on the Metro) Be aware of people that are walking up and down the Metro. If there is a group of people (generally younger people) walking up and down the Metro, guard your stuff. They will walk past you and brush up against you. Or they will all crowd around like it's crowded and be up against you. Or, Doug saw this one...they will engage you in conversation and their buddy will get into your bag while you're engaged in conversation. If a random person starts talking to you on the Metro, guard your stuff. People here don't really talk to strangers unless they're asking for directions. And that's on the street, not the Metro. This also applies to very crowded tourist places. Someone will come and start talking to you and then the accomplice will score.

Anyway, just a thought I had today when I saw someone nearly get plowed over this morning. Thought I'd let you know!

On s'amuse

Without a TV,we are finding all sorts of things to do around here. Doug is going through "sports games and relaxing time with video games" withdrawal, but the other three seem to doing ok. I have to admit that I would like to be able to relax with a remote from time to time, but I just spend a lot of time reading or getting caught up on blogs and facebook. Now you're probably saying, "Uh, you're in Paris. Of course you have a lot of things to do!" That may be true, but would you like to explore Paris with a stroller in the non-stroller-friendly Metro system with 3 active boys while it's raining? No. I didn't think so. So, needless to say we found creative ways to keep ourselves busy. Again, let me apologize for the lack of sound. You probably don't want to hear some things anyway.
We keep getting hacky-sack balls in the cereal boxes. I have to keep reminding them that we do not throw balls in a house. They came up with another way to use them. Introducing:

Hacky-sack floor hockey with styrofoam lightsabers.

Anyway, things quieted down around here once Spring Break was over. Thomas and Timmy find all sorts of things to do together. They play with remote control dinosaurs. These dinos roar and had bright red glowing eyes. The boys play with them in the dark and it makes it extra scary. You can see the brown dinoasaur writhing in pain after Timmy knocks him down. It doesn't even phase him when the green one is coming in for the attack. Timmy-zilla wins again.



I got out the remote control cars a couple weeks ago. It was so funny when Timmy was controlling the car and it kept going around him. He kept turning around and around like a dog chasing his tail. Unfortunately I didn't get that video. But in this one Timmy keeps crashing into himself and then pushing the car away as if he's mad at it for crashing into him.



Of course, someone needed to drive the Jeep. I wonder if Obi-Wan prefers Jeeps to flying.
We play lots of games. Thomas decided to have the Star Wars people join in a game of Candy Land.We have a lot of boxes around here. A few of them are quite big. What better way to use a giant box than to turn it into a castle/fort? Doug made this and he had fun doing it.Thomas made a flag for the fort. He did this flag all by himself.

All four of my boys in their castle.

I also made a theater out of one of the big boxes. I try to encourage them to use their imagination and make stories, but my efforts are in vain because the only thing these puppets do is fight each other. Timmy throws them in and out again. He won't sit still for a "show" and the other boys get mad at him for "coming backstage". Oh well. Here is some footage of the latest show. You're not missing much without the sound. I did manage to get the actors to give a bow at the end.

Urgences!

Today I got to go to the ER. I was rearranging stuff in a closet on various shelves. As I was taking a big bag of clothes off of the shelf, the bag and shelf came crashing down on my foot. There is a big cut on the top of my foot when the end of the shelf hit it. It instantly started to swell.
At this time, Timmy was taking a nap and Thomas was in the bathtub. I told Thomas to stay in the tub and I crawled down to the kitchen to get some frozen vegetables, and called Doug. Doug came home and I also called a neighbor from church to come over and help. My friend accompanied me to the ER via taxi. Doug stayed home so he would be able to pick up Matt from the bus stop.

When we got to the ER there was no one there so we thought it would be a quick visit. How wrong I was. We did some paperwork, someone cleaned my wound, then I got wheeled up to X-ray, then back down to a waiting room, then they said it wasn't broken, then I got new bandages and a tetnas shot. My friend had to leave by a certain time before I was done, so I paid my bill (285 Euros) and then got another taxi to go home. (nearly four hours later) I noticed that the taxi's gas tank was on empty with a red light and I hoped that we wouldn't run out of gas on the way home. When I got home, Doug was already making dinner and Matt was working on homework. I guess I'm not walking down to the big marché tomorrow and maybe our tourist plans for the weekend are ruined. We'll see. I guess I really will learn how to order groceries on-line! I told Thomas that I'm going to use his remote control cars to be my big helpers and carry things back and forth. He thinks it's a great idea!

At least I got a souvenir of my x-rays. Here they are.

Notre Dame

Today we visited Notre Dame. It was a nice day out and it was nice to be a tourist. We did not go up all 230 stairs to ring the bell in the bell tower. Perhaps we'll do that another day. We looked at all the statues on the outside and went inside for a while. All three boys were very reverent. I was amazed at how quiet it was in there despite all the people.







We pointed out the gargoyles to the boys. Earlier today Matt and I were talking about what they are. The boys got binoculars in their Happy Meals a few weeks ago, so we could see the gargoyles a little better.

Here is some video footage I took inside. Hopefully it doesn't make you nauseous. I tried to move slowly.


Notre Dame is on an island. (for those of you who don't know.) We had to cross a bridge to get over there. The boys were very excited to see boats go under them. When it gets a little warmer we'll take a tour on the Seine on a boat. After going walking around the Notre Dame (where there is a playground and sandbox by the way), we got pains au chocolate (chocolate croissants) and and ate them on the bridge. We asked the boys what their favorite part of the day was and Matt said, "seeing the boats go under us" and Thomas said, "We got to ride the carousel". (There was a big double decker carousel in front of Hotel de Ville with cars on it) Hopefully some day they will appreciate the history of Paris.