Bloom Family Adventures: Paris with Micah and Jonah

From London, we took a train to Paris. There was some stress around the strikes and which trains were cancelled on which days. This took up a lot of our brain power leading up to the travel. Luckily, our train was not cancelled and we got to Paris as expected. I even had some tomato soup for lunch on the train.

When we got to the Paris Metro, we had the same problem with the suitcases and the stairs. Micah was amazing and carried his AND mine up and down all of those stairs!

We were lucky not to be affected by the strikes in Paris. Yes, some neighborhoods had piles of trash that had not been collected, but everything else seemed to run smoothly.

We stayed at a huge Air BNB in the Marais. We were lucky to be the very first guests at that apartment. They even had to hang some curtains after we arrived! There was a master bedroom for Mark and me that included the shower and sink part of the bathroom. There was a separate toilet room at the front of the apartment. Micah got the room that used to be a closet; all that fit in that room near the front door was the bed, diagonally. Jonah got the sofa bed which was in the large living room/dining room area. The kitchen was also nice and well stocked with supplies but the only thing we used was the coffee maker with pods. And I guess the refrigerator a little bit.

There were so many wonderful things to eat and see in Paris. Mark especially loved getting a coffee eclair at every shop we passed. But his favorite were the coffee merveilleux which had meringue and cream and flakes of chocolate drizzled on top. I tried a variety of different things in the pastry shops. Macarons still come out on top for me but I didn't have anything that I didn't like!

On the first day we visited MAHJ - the Jewish Museum, followed by pastries and chocolates. the Arc de Triomphe, and the Eiffel Tower. We ended with the supposed best falafel and shwarma in the world at L'As du Fallafel. It was really good and really crowded and we went back a second time. But it's not better than what we can get in Israel every corner in Israel, IMHO.

On Thursday the 16th, we were excited to see some of the trash collected. But were warned that this did not mean the strike was over! We spent time with Eliza Kaufman today which was wonderful. We got pastries and walked to a park. She then joined us again Saturday morning for services. This was also our Louvre day. I could not get over how huge and overwhelming it was. SHE (the Mona Lisa of course) was beautiful and smiled at me as I walked away. We had some amazing kosher meat sandwiches at Alfi for dinner.

We had a big Disneyland Paris day in honor of Jonah. It was easy to take the train there and back. We enjoyed the Lion King show. Jonah stayed later than the rest of us so he could go to the other park. Back in Paris proper we had our second visit to La Glacerie where we enjoyed the most delicious hot butterscotch/caramel drink. The coffee and hot chocolate were good too. We also enjoyed an amazing Crepe dinner at Breizh Cafe as recommended by our friend Elizabeth Simms.

Cute crepe takeaway box!

On Shabbat, we attended a Bat Mitzvah at the Liberal Values Congregation. We ended up leaving early so we didn't get to connect with anyone. We enjoyed the Monet museum which was fabulous and much more manageable than the Louvre. this was also our fancy dinner day at a place called Bourguignon. Later, after dinner, Jonah met his friends from Piedmont, Seb and Claire. Sebastian lives in France and Claire was visiting from her studies in Scotland. They came to our Air BnB, and I was so excited that I called Gina McKuen to say hello to all of them. It was amazing.

We only scratched the surface of Paris. There were so many more things we wanted to see, places we wanted to eat, and pastries we wanted to try. Perhaps someday we will return.