Tales of a Shoebox Princess

Thursday morning, Jim and Hayley took off for Liverpool, something about some popular music group from the 60s. Fine, go worship at the feet of songs written so very many years ago... Christian and Jackson took off for Portsmouth to look at seafaring vessels. So Katie and I had charge of the girlies. Since we were right across the street from Kensington Gardens, Princess Diana memorial playground, we thought it would be nice to let the girls spend some time playing rather than sightseeing.  The Princess Diana playground does not disappoint!!! Adults are only allowed in with kids, and kids are only allowed in with a supervising adult. This is a great policy because there aren't any unsupervised teenagers making trouble and hogging equipment. The playground is very large! And it's sectioned off so that the large space isn't overwhelming.  Emma and Caroline with their new stationery purchased that very morning on our way to search for a particular snack that Katie was told she...

After the catacombs and lunch we had a few hours to spare before hopping on the Eurostar back to London. We had to check out of our hotel so we had all our bags with us, I don't recall that it was too awful to drag them around. We had packed light anyway since it was just an overnight trip.  We headed back over to the Eiffel tower so the kids could be artists while in view of some French art inspiration. It was nice to sit and relax and contemplate what it means to be in a foreign country. We saw a military group (complete with rifles) march through the park while looking menacing. I wondered what the purpose was. It's not something I ever see in the US. I hear about gun-owning people asserting their rights to own guns, but aside from Memorial day parades, I am not in situations where firepower is on display. I did not take pictures of the group walking through the area. I couldn't help taking more pictures of the Eiffel Tower.  And the river Siene We decided to check out N...

First thing in the morning on October 5, we headed out to our scheduled tour of the catacombs. We got to the office, and it was in an unassuming little building on a street corner. Seriously, I never would have noticed it. We were in the first tour of the day and the first ones to arrive. They hadn't unlocked the building yet so we stood outside, first in line! The employees came out a little bit afterward and set up a sign that said all tours were full so I was REALLY glad Katie and Jim got up at 2:30 AM the week before and signed up for the tour. Some other American showed up and asked one of the employees if the tours were actually all sold out and the employee confirmed it. Always book in advance if you can! The unfortunate part was that no strollers were allowed and there was nowhere to store them. Christian, who wasn't really keen on seeing the catacombs, volunteered to stay up top with Abbie, who was not having a fun time anyway. I love the logo! We had to walk a long wa...

There are some tourist places that are so widely known, so heavily visited, so photographed that they are almost cliche. And when we were planning our trip, I was not all that excited about visiting the Eiffel Tower because I thought, well, it's over-hyped. Same with the Mona Lisa (which we didn't attempt to see, although Hayley did). But Jackson had mentioned wanting to paint the Eiffel Tower while looking at it, so I knew we'd end up going to see it. It's better than I imagined! It's taller than I thought it would be and very impressive. I loved it, especially at night. What I didn't like are the photographer vendors every 10 feet trying to sell photo ops on a super busy street and the souvenir vendors every 6 feet, all selling the SAME cheap trinkets. I don't know how any of them make any money.  I don't care that there is a light pole and a traffic light in the background--this was our first chance to take a selfie with the famous structure. We ate o...