In October Emily and I went on a very special trip together to celebrate her adolescence. I wanted to do something to mark this time with her and originally we planned to go to New York but seeing as how the US is a bit terrifying at the moment we decided to pivot. Truthfully I think this was a massive upgrade because we decided to go to London since it's the other big spot for musical theatre and while we were there Emily asked if we could go to Paris and seeing as how the Chunnel gets you right there- why not? We took 10 days and had a little adventure.
We arrived in London and took the underground to our little hotel called the Judd hotel. It was an adorable place with black and white checkerboard floors and friendly staff. We were up on the 3rd floor so it was like staying in Mary Poppins attic. Breakfast was in the basement so we always had a good meal to start our days. Em was certainly in love with the European appreciation of Nutella.
The first night I got sick and was so worried I was going to scare Em in a new country where her mom was sick but she took it in stride and went down to breakfast by herself. I rallied by noon and was able to take in a show so we went to Hercules and really enjoyed that show at one of the most beautiful theatres I've ever been in. We had a muffin on Drury Lane and explored the theatre district.
The following day we started our love affair with a hop on/hop off bus and was able to see loads of the London sights. We had grilled cheese at Borough market (Em says her dad's are better) and went over Tower and London bridge. We had enough time to take in the Alice in Wonderland tea party. I'm not sure who can get through that amount of food in an afternoon but we had several takeout boxes.
The only thing we had planned was our tickets to Les Miserables. I think I cried from start to finish. Initially Em was enjoying it but it was similar to when she saw Hamilton - the first act was the set up and she didn't totally see the fuss. Then in the second act she cried through the whole thing too. They did a magnificent job.
Our hotel was close to Kings Cross so we were able to walk to Pancreas station for the train to Paris. It was lots of fun to travel by train. You don't even realize you are under the English Channel.
We got to Paris and made our way to the 15e arrondissement. We had this sweet little room with a balcony off our bedroom and another little one in the bathroom - it felt very Parisian. Of course after dropping off our luggage our first stop was dinner and the Eiffel Tower. Paris is magic. I thought I would like it but I didn't realize how much I would love it. The lazy dinners and the outdoor cafes - it's so beautiful. We had dinner at Le Piquet and then headed to the Champs du Mars to see the Eiffel Tower. We got there as the sun was setting so it was beautiful to see it in the sun and then to see it sparkle! What a beautiful place. We went back the following day for a picnic. I think we saw the Eiffel Tower most days that we were there.
The next day we went to the Luxembourg Gardens and Em wanted to bring our watercolour pens so we were able to sit and enjoy the gardens. We got our picnic from le Grand Epicurie and then headed to the Champs du Mars. We also enjoyed a hop on/hop off bus in Paris so that we could get around to see all the sites including the Notre Dame cathedral, the Louvre and the Champs d'Elessay. We walked A LOT. In fact we realized that Em can do almost anything for gelato.
We definitely knew that we wanted to go to DISNEYLAND PARIS and that was an amazing day. We were getting good at navigating the Paris Metro (really the trick is confidence - we talk a lot now about boldly moving forward "PARISIAN CONFIDENCE") but that day we also had to navigate a regional train which we also managed to do and that got us right to the gates. It's a beautiful park. Very relaxed and easy to navigate but it's a bit surreal to wear coats at a theme park. Our knowledge of French kicked in about halfway through the line for Hyperspace mountain and we realized we were going upside down on this roller coaster in the dark but we were already almost at the ride soooo... Parisian confidence! We had a lot of fun and actually it was our last ride of the night too. We had crepes at the park with Nutella (because we could) and tried to make sure we hit the rides only available in DISNEYLAND PARIS. We saw Mickey while in line for Haunted Mansion, we saw a big parade that was beautiful, we did the tea cups and Crush's coaster with spinning turtle shells. As this trips straddles childhood and adolescence it was a magical day to include. I think we will always love a good Disney day.
Our last day in Paris we enjoyed the Louvre before it was broken into. The museum is overwhelming but we saw a few of the key pieces. We walked in the Toulieres and explored and finished our whole trip off with a night cruise down the Seine river with the sparkling Eiffel Tower in the background.
Em navigated our adventure with ease and my hope is that these 10 days showed her that the world is big but also small and full of a lot of beautiful people (like the ones in Pigalle who helped us when she had a nosebleed near Moulin Rouge). The world is navigatable and beautiful and you are just at the start of all your adventures kiddo. I'm so glad I got to go on this one with you.
