Back in Paris. We felt among the civilized.
We were staying in a hotel closer to the Musee D'Orsay, and we knew the area. We knew the subway. We knew the layout of the city. It was a relief to not have to organize that part of your brain, and just get fresh bread and make fun of each other instead.
We dumped our stuff into a hotel that had the smallest elevator, like a dwarf with a backpack would feel cramped in there.
The greatest part about all our hotels is no matter how loud it was on the streets, especially in Venice, there was not a sound in any of our hotel rooms. So thank you Europe for the buffer.
We had to immediately go to the Paris Brandy Melville store because Emma was on a full out obsession with going to every one of those stores on planet Earth. We mapped ourselves there (ok she mapped she maps everything) and we spent some time talking to a guy in a metro booth about our subway passes for the 24 hours we were going to be there. We walked to Brandy, though, and Nathan and I sat in a flowery cafe that had the best flowery bathroom I've ever seen in my life. I want to do my whole house that way, just garlands of fake flowers vined around everything. It was so hopeful.
spot the nathan
I could not eat another steak so the kids ordered their normal steak and fries and I had a soda from a cheap store and baguette (baguetttttte) from our shredded food bag we carried everywhere. Emma was very happy with the Hawaii sweatshirt she got. Sometimes traveling is about finding a treasure.
We walked to the Palais de Luxembourg nearby and found Marie de Medicis' castle home. I liked tossing a frisbee where she obviously also did with her son Louis the 13th. Was really beautiful, those grounds, in the glowing late afternoon light. Emma was dying for a crepe so we wandered back toward the Eiffel tower and found a crepe place, and Nathan had to find Patrick a Paris license plate with his name on it.
We frisbeed by the greener less ghetto side of the tower, and felt bad that we hadn't shown this side to Bess. We watched the sunset and hung out on the grass, cause how many days do you hang out with your kids watching the sunset in Paris. We went back to the place Bess found bracelets for her friends in some farmer's market tents by the other side of the Eiffel Tower, next to the Seine, and we found Patrick his license plate. Yay. The guy who sold the bracelets was still there, the guy from Virginia, who didn't miss the US at all.
We went back and watched Wipeout in French, and Wipeout is bad in English.
The next morning we ate downstairs and I took as many little jars of jam as I could cram into my hoodie. We stowed all our luggage with the blob behind the front desk (which was actually a desk, like he was in a study of some kind, even though he was in the lobby), and we headed out with our frisbee for our last day in Paris. We had to catch a train in a few hours, so we decided to go to the Jardin de Tuileries and hang out in the Louvre gardens.
There was a carnival there (just like Louis would have enjoyed in his backyard), so we rode the Paris Wheel ha even though it was like 5000 euros. Nathan also got a falafel his obsession and crepe of course. At least we saw Paris from above, and could recognize so many of the things we had seen. 
We yelled for Carol out this window.
We rested on the grass by the Louvre, frisbeed, gymnasticked, and then headed back to get our junk and go to the Gare du Nord to catch our underwater train to London.
It was an easy 24 hours in Paris. No stress, just hot. Lots of outdoors.
