Ground Control to Major Mom

24 July 22: Fire on the route. We are sitting in the town of Offenbach. They’re working on a new route.

“So long as they don’t run out of beer on the train…” ~Dave Vollmer

24 July 22: More chaos as we learned that the original train on the 2nd leg of our trip, from Karlsruhe to Berlin, was canceled and combined with another train.

We basically got ourselves on that other train and figured we’d just sit anywhere in First Class — we have First Class tickets — and be okay. We are at least heading in the right direction…towards Berlin…

Phew! What a chaotic morning!

23 July 22: One week into the trip. Some random thoughts…

23 July 22: Boys’ choice for dinner Saturday evening. They chose an Italian restaurant called Casa di Mario and it was amazing!

Then we enjoyed a pretty sunset right behind the Eiffel Tower while drinking the rest of the red wine we bought a couple days prior.

23 July 22: So…what does “Free Day in Paris” look like? It started with a trip to Le Bon Marche department store…one of the oldest in the world…except much of the store was closed, I think due to HVAC issues. So we were restricted to the food and alcohol sections only. I was able to pick up some souvenirs and we met a gentleman who used to do wine classes in the States, and helped us pick some good inexpensive wines.

22 July 22: Here are some photos of the work being done on Notre Dame cathedral. If you recall, it suffered a massive fire in 2019.

We didn’t get a chance to visit the cathedral itself, it’s likely to remain closed until Spring 2024, France and the church hope it can open up in time for the 2024 Olympics, to be held in Paris.

22 July 22: We took a Bateaux Parisiens one hour guided Seine River cruise tonight, right at sunset. It was raining when the cruise started but it ended about 5 minutes into the trip. As it was a Friday night, the river was full of dinner cruises and party cruises…so much so that the kids started asking “Why didn’t WE book a dinner cruise?” Frankly, I didn’t think they’d enjoy such a thing. I guess I was wrong. We would have had to bring some dressier clothes.

22 July 22: Here are some of the many photos I took at the Louvre today. I think I was more in awe of the sheer size of the buildings and galleries and the stunning architecture than the art. Also, as is probably the case with many American visitors, I am having to process how OLD much of this is. I don’t mean the antiquities on exhibit…I mean the fact that the museum opened (as an art museum) in 1793.

Pro tip: Get the 9:00am — opening time — tickets to the Louvre. Any other time and getting close to the Mona Lisa will take a LONG TIME. It wasn’t bad at all if you get to the gallery with a sense of purpose upon entering the museum.

There was a bit more of a line if you wanted a family photo with it but we didn’t do that. So we were maybe about 15′ away. You can’t get closer than about 8′.