I found out something interesting this week. Here in the EU, if you have a “big family” and are an EU resident you get discounts on museums and other attractions. I think this is so nice; so what is the EU’s definition of a “big family”? It is three or more children! The French lady who owns the house we are staying in here on the outskirts of Paris, asked me (when I told her I had nine children), is that normal in the USA? Well it is normal for us and definitely has its ups and downs, but many more ups. I truly love my big family.

We have had an entire week outside of Paris, France. This week was much needed. We are starting to feel moving around every few days to be a bit too much for all of us. Having a whole week here was wonderful. The first day we slept in and had a day of homework catch up. Well everyone did except for Zeke, who somehow got kicked out of his canvas on-line school account and his computer was telling him to notify the Davis Connect Personnel, who were off for Thanksgiving break. So Zeke had a ‘get a bit more behind day’ of school.

The following day we went to the Palace of Versailles. Because we are in off season, we could purchase our tickets the day before. Anyone under 18 was free, which meant we only paid for 3 adults. We decided to do the audio tour, (which we thought was well worth the money). We all enjoyed listening to our audio tour guides which took us through the rooms of King Louis the XV and King Louis the XVl. I learned so much. The night before we went to Versailles, we watched a 10 min video on you tube so our children had an idea of the history of Versailles. The Palace of Versailles started as a hunting lodge and gradually was added on by kings, until the French Revolution, which is the time period the Palace is set to demonstrate, the 1780’s. I enjoyed learning about the many children born in the Queen’s room in front of a crowd of palace personal, and the secret door in the Queen’s Quarters that Marie Antoinette escaped through when French revolters storm the palace. A few days later we found a movie online about Marie Antoinette, and a few of us learned even more about her fascinating life and tragic ending.

We played a game of Infection Tag in the side gardens of Versailles. Check out the video below to watch the game.

These are a few of my favorite Palace of Versailles pictures.

One thing we did not take into account in Paris was the traffic. We would gps how long it would take to arrive certain places by car during the evenings, however the next morning there was 45 extra minutes of traffic added to our drive. We did decide, with the recommendation from our rental home owner, that we should take the train into Paris. This ended up to be a disaster. We parked at a nearby station and because no live person was working the station, we did our best to use the outdoor ticket dispenser. We chose the Paris area tickets, waited for the train and rode it into Paris. All was fine until we went to leave the the platform and exit through the turnstiles. There, a French man, who’s job must be to stand in front of these machines and prey upon the foreigners. We really were trying our best to buy tickets without the aid of an actual person (the ticket building was locked where we bought our tickets from the outdoor dispenser). This man proceeded to take our purchased tickets and tell us that we were getting fined for not buying the right ones and if we didn’t pay he would call the police, who would then fine us even more. He was irrational and rude. He even preceded to call over his fellow employee, who pretended to call the police. Crazy! So we paid our “fine” and then he gave us back our old tickets which a nicer lady exchanged for us. What a miserable job that man has. Justin later did a little google research, and found this type of thing with French Train employees “fining” foreigners to be quite common!

From the train station we took the subway to the Louvre. My little girls loved seeing the places around the Louvre and Eiffel Tower where one of their favorite shows (Lady Bug) takes place, I was amazed at how much they knew of Paris from this show. We bought our tickets when we arrived, again because we are in the off season.

We were able to visit the Louvre and see the Mona Lisa. I have included a video of the line and then the actual painting. It was a bit smaller than I imagined it to be, but still very awe inspiring to see such a famous work of art. We also saw many more famous statues and paintings. Justin had previously looked up a walking tour on his phone showing some of the most famous works of art, which we followed and walked around the enormous Louvre.

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRCkGVax/

We ate crepes, which were so delicious. I think Luke and I liked them the most. We, as do Europeans, (based on the large displays in grocery stores) love Nutella, so we had a Nutella and Banana crepe, from a road side cart. I definitely will make these when I return home. To date, this my favorite food I have eaten.

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRCUH7Uh/

We visited a book store that Eliza was very interested in seeing. It was called Shakespeare and Company. This bookstore is across the street from Notre Dame and has quite a reputation for itself. The line took about 30 mins to be let into the bookstore and then photos weren’t permitted inside. Eliza said it was so wonderful. They had an upstairs reading room and it was the picture perfect small, lovely bookstore.

We ended the day taking the subway to the Eiffel Tower in the evening to see it lit up. It was spectacular. I thought it was even bigger in person than I imagined. It was incredible. Every hour after dark it twinkles on the hour for five minutes. We then took the subway, and then the train back to our car, near our rental house. This was a crazy experience. There were so many people all squished together. We had to keep a tight grip and eye on everyone especially the little ones. If we did this day again, we would just drive our car in and pay to park it. It would have been more affordable than paying for subway, train and our “fine” from the subway guard and much less aggravating! Check out this TikTok of the cram packed subway.

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRCaoNLS/

My last pictures are from a walk we took around the French farm house and village we are staying at. The area is called Limondin. We enjoyed seeing the beautiful houses, the bagel vending machine, a super small car and a little outdoor library. We also enjoyed a French meal of pork chops, at a local restaurant in town, which served the ‘plate of the day’ to all its customers.

I hope you enjoyed my Paris blog, and I hope you’ll read next weeks blog as well. If you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to send me a message.