Tuilleries

I love Araceli's one and only journal entry from the trip.  She wrote several drafts of it.  The theme is, Paris isn't big mansions and rich ladies with pink and blue poodles like you think it's going to be.  It's tiny apartments on narrow streets and more poor people than you've ever seen in your life.  Ari was strongly affected by the beggars.  There were very few of them compared to what I remember.  We didn't see a single Gypsy child, and I hope that's a good sign.  But every time we passed an old woman with a dog on her lap, Ari gave her some change.  Adults get so jaded, myself included, that's it's good to see through the eyes of a child the simple truth:  "But he's hungry."

Each morning, I was the first one up.  Every day seemed to be garbage day, so it was impossible to sleep, especially when glass was being collected.  I got up and roamed, got a pastry or sat in a cafe as the world was waking up.  Sometimes I even had time to go back and get the girls for a hot chocolate before Coco and Bill were ready to set out.  I appreciated that solo time as well as the hot chocolates with the girls.

 On Wednesday after two outings to the cafe, we all set out for the Arc de Triomphe.  (The last time I went there, in 9th grade, I literally saw a man jump to his death.  Awful.)  We got there by Metro, walked around in the wind, then strolled down the Champs-Elysses.  We went in the Swatch store where I bought a Swatch for old times' sake and the girls picked out one for Scott. 

We walked all the way from the Arc to Place de la Concorde, Coco with a broken toe and Bill with his ailing ankle.  My parents are superhuman.

From Concorde, we headed to the Tuilleries.

There were all kinds of art installations in the park and some - most - were totally bizarre.  Dad stopped by this wrapper surrounded by leaves and mud and started expounding on the artistic merits of the "installation."  We thought the weeds sprouting up through the mud symbolized the life force, while the wrapper represented the destruction the human race causes to our planet.  We were pretty funny.  :)  Seriously, the mud puddle was on par with some of the art.

 I have always loved the little sailboats that kids can rent at the Tuilleries.  I wish I were a kid so I could have a stick and sail my own boat.  Ari asked the boat guy and he said it was only two Euros to rent a boat for an hour.  It was such a balmy, sunny day that we all relaxed and watched Ari and the other kids pushing their boats around the lake.  It looked very therapeutic to sail those boats!  And it was so picturesque.  Ari was thrilled that she had worn "sailing clothes."  I guess the stripes on her shirt seemed nautical to her.  Curiously enough, the sailboats were one of my favorite moments of the trip.  It just seemed like one last and final whimsy of childhood for Araceli as she stands on the brink of growing up.  Briefly, she was just a little girl without a care.

This was the last time we sat down for about the next six hours because the Louvre was next.