Day 92. Leanne & Kyle joint blog.

Another Big Sauce day. For those just joining us, a Big Sauce day lasts from morning to evening is planned by our eldest John with careful research and consideration of everyone’s preferences.  Not an easy task but John handles it splendidly. We are up early and Frederic drives us to the RER station in shifts. By now, you are probably wanting Frederic to be your friend but no go, he’s ours. 

The day entails many metro stops and much walking, but we start with emerging from the metro stop in front of the Arc de Triumph which was a monument built for Napoleon Bonaparte to commemorate his army which was considered invincible at the time.  From our travels, we have seen throughout history and continents that just about when a people start to think their invincible is when another people really set out to prove them wrong. From the Arc De Triomphe, we walk along Champs Elysees which is the high-end fashion and shopping district.  We stay disciplined and stick strictly to window shopping and take in the beautiful views.  

From there we hop the metro to Sacre Coeur which means Sacred Heart in English.  It is an immense cathedral that sits atop a steep hill and provides the second highest views of Paris behind the Eiffel Tower from the top. As we are walking up the steep hill, Leanne and Kyle stop to admire the views of the city and snap a selfie while the kids walk ahead.  Unbeknownst to us, they are walking right into a tourist scam.  

A group of “sacred scammers” as I’ve dubbed them for lack of an official name line up across the walkway thus completely blocking forward progress so the kids have no choice but to stop.  From there, each one of them grabs the kids’ wrist, attempts to wrap a knitted bracelet around it, knot the bracelet and demand payment.  John breaks free and pushes past them.  They take one look at John and decide the remaining kids would be easier targets than chasing a 6’4 guy.  A group of them have Ashley and Ashlynn cornered when we round the bend and Leanne realizes what’s going on.  She charges forward, grabs the girls, rips the bracelets off and starts screaming at them to get the hell off the girls with her full “Jersey” on display. The sacred scammers are all non-plussed and start chanting in unison “Be happy, momma!  Be happy momma!”  

We re-assemble and I do the usual count of…6.  Oh crap, Justin is missing.  In all the chaos, we hadn’t seen Justin but now spot him still in the grip of the scared scammers. We run down to rescue him but he has already negotiated his way down to ~USD 30 cents in exchange for his freedom.  All things considered, I think the score is global teens 1, the sacred scammers 0.

We climb the 300+ stairs of Sacre Couer to the top and are rewarded with expansive views of Paris in all directions.  The inside is equally impressive as we say our prayers and light candles for our prayer requests.  We wonder over to the neighborhood next door Montmartre which is an artist community.  There are lots of outdoor cafes and artists step-up outside displaying their paintings and working on new ones while street musicians play their music.  It is a wonderfully quaint setting tucked in the middle of bustling Paris. 

Next we head to the Musee de l’Orangerie  which houses two 360 degree rooms with Monet’s famous Water Lilies paintings. Monet is one of Kyle’s favorite artists so it’s worth the stop. Finally, we arrive at the Pantheon.  Kyle had warned us that he would be disappointed if we again missed the Pantheon given his budding interest in all things Roman these days. So we stay on time and make it before it’s last entry time. 

The Pantheon is a hybrid Mausoleum and Cathedral reflecting its history of being controlled alternatively by the Catholics and the monarch. The basement of the Pantheon contains a crypt of its greatest and most distinguished citizens including Louis Braille, Voltaire, Marie Curie, Victor Hugo and dozens of other prominent Frenchmen. We were established thrilled with Victor Hugo, the author of Les Miserable because 4 of the kids were in a high school production of Les Miserable, The electronic displays give great biographies of each person’s life stories. And we enjoy a special interactive exhibit on early activists who fought for French laws to be altered for persons with disabilities.  

On days like this, I truly feel we have handed our teens the potential of enormous history lessons in the most tangible way possible.  Here our kids are walking in a building erected hundreds of years ago whose own history intersects the French kings, revolutionaries, clergy, top scientists, thinkers and authors.  We walk in the same cobblestone streets these people who changed the world did hundreds of years ago. So when Kyle takes the kids to Disneyland Paris tomorrow, I won’t feel guilty in the least.  

The evening ended in the home of our friend Anne.  We arrive and the kids are excited to see Anne has a pet guinea pig which she brings out. Justin settle on the couch with the guinea pig and stats petting her.  After Justin has had his fill of the guinea pig, he passes her to an excited Ashlynn.  Ashlynn’s excitement is short lived though as after only about a minute a dark stain starts spreading out on Ashlynn’s sweatshirt as she realizes that guinea pigs are not housed trained the way a cat or dog might. The prioritization of laundry just moved up several slots on the priority list. 

Also at dinner is another French teen that lived with us in California one summer past. François is now a 22-year old bio-pharm major studying in Paris. We reminisce on the great times we had that summer tracking all over LA eight summers ago when he was just 14. He returned the favor when John stayed for one month two summers ago, showing him all that Paris had to offer. The interchange was life changing for John and sparked his interest in world  affairs and cultures. We thank Anne for dinner and her hospitality.