Hummel Sabbatical 2019: Day 11: No worry, this is not vodka…..it’s water!

The whole family welcomed a morning to ‘sleep in’. On this vacation, that means up before 9am, but hey, we’ll take it!

First stop today was lunch. We found another out-of-the way place that was (once again), delicious! Could it be that you can’t find bad food in France? Nah, that can’t be it. One note if you’re planning a trip here – TripAdvisor is used a whole lot more than Yelp is over here. Anyway, back to lunch – the waiter started out by serving us vodka in a water bottle. Or was it water in a vodka bottle? I should probably remember. And, I should probably do a better job watching the girls if I can’t remember…. No one got too drunk, so it was likely water in the vodka bottle. Ah, yes, the waiter even said, ‘no worry, this is not vodka! It is water!’ For grins I Googled the drinking age in Paris, and it’s 16. 16! Anyway, back to the restaurant – they make their own ketchup here and although we stuck with some American fare – burgers and fish & chips – it was really very good. We haven’t done a good job trying some of the local food that we've never had before, but we’re also traveling with three teenagers and have some very long days. The last thing we want is to try some escargot, get someone sick or leave them hungry, and be out of commission for our rigorous schedule! Hey, maybe that’s why someone ordered the escargot….. ?

Lunch beer. Of course. No food pics today - we forgot!

Wait, is that really vodka??

After lunch, we headed to Saint Chappelle. This chapel was consecrated in 1248. 1248!!! I'm using a lot of exclamation marks in this post because.... well...1248! That’s almost 800 years ago! It was built to house Louis IX’s collection of relics. Can you imagine? “People, people....I have far too much stuff…..please build me a chapel to house my priceless relics!” The collection that Louis had was quite impressive, too. It actually cost him more than the chapel. Christ’s Crown of Thorns was part of the collection and used to be in this chapel, but was eventually moved to Notre Dame (and it survived the fire!). The chapel also has one of the most extensive collection of 13^th century stained glass in the world. When you first enter the chapel, it’s pretty underwhelming. But Sherri told us to hold off on our opinions for just a little bit. Turns out, it’s truly a stunning place….as can be audibly witnessed when one turns the corner of the stairs and enters the chapel. It’s breathtaking! We were fortunate to have a sunny day where the light was pouring in through the stained glass. It was a beautiful, serene moment that we were very fortunate to experience.

After taking in the beauty (no, this is not a story about when I got married), we took a short walk over to see Notre Dame. We knew we wouldn’t be able to get very close, but we wanted to see it anyway. Although we could not go inside, you can tell from the outside just how spectacular the inside must be. Looks like we will have to make another trip back here!

For our next stop, we have to thank our amazing trip planner (Sherri, of course…), as she found an awesome bookstore called Shakespeare and Company right across the Seine from Notre Dame. Funny, when you cross the river, the water makes absolutely no noise. I guess it is because it is Seine and not heard. (Poor daughters have to deal with the Dad jokes this whole sabbatical). Anyway, back to the bookstore….Haley and I are massive bookstore aficionados. We could’ve spent all day in this place. It was opened in 1951 (on the 400^th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birthday!) as a tribute to Sylvia Beach, who established the original Shakespeare and Company bookstore at a different location, where writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway used to hang out! It’s a really neat place.

Sometimes our Travel Planner™ hits the mark, and sometimes she doesn’t. Our next stop was an ‘eh’. Galeries Lafayette, which has 6 floors of very upscale shopping – Cartier, Louis Vuitton, Prada, etc, etc…). It was full of a ton of people shopping, which was pretty surprising because one of the scarves that Sherri saw that she liked was $300. $300! (uh, no, we didn’t get it). So, why was this an ‘eh’? Now, I like shopping as much as the next guy who doesn't like shopping, but our daughters....well, they are not shoppers. They had virtually no interest in being there, and Ashley (who calculates things in ‘drones’ – as in, “hey, that costs 4 drones!” – it’s like her own currency) even said, “even if this stuff was free I wouldn’t want it.” Ha! My wallet (and my engineering side) was pretty happy, but Sherri was hoping to get them a nice dress for our next stop – the ballet. She has fond memories of coming to Europe with her parents and getting something special that she has kept for so many years. But, with shopping a bust (and my bank account intact, thankfully!), we headed to the super-posh bathrooms, pulled out our nice clothes that we packed in our backpacks and changed for the ballet.

The ballet we saw was by Mats Ek, and it was at Palais Garnier. Yet again, another amazing building! Mosaic floors everywhere, mosaic ceilings, beautiful grand chandeliers, an amazing staircase, and a completely off-the-wall carte blanche art commission of two golden tires (tyres, here in Paris) to make you go “wha???” Aside from the tires (tyres), it truly is beautiful and grand and over-the-top. There were three parts to the ballet and all of them were quite different. We really enjoyed the performance…such amazingly talented dancers and musicians.