Paris (I)

ben and i have never been in paris before, so we decided to spend the weekend in the middle of our (work-)trip to france there.
it's pretty amazing how distances are made short just by having some reliable, efficient means of public transportation. the train ride to paris took just over 3 hours, whereas google map says that it would have been a 6+ h drive. wish we had something like that connecting Chicago with Ann Arbor! it would have been awesome.
but back to our trip.

the baby seems to really like train rides - i didn't like it as much, because of the 1. pressure changes every time we went in/out a tunnel, which hurt my ears, and 2. the obnoxious french family sitting across from us, who wouldn't shut up the entire ride, and didn't bother using their "indoors voice".

when we finally got to paris at midnight, excited to reunite with Assaf at the hotel, tired and still letlagged, going down the escalator to the metra, i suddenly remembered that we forgot something on the train. totally forgetting that i'm on an escalator and not normal stairs, i turned around and started running up... bad idea! i lost my balance and fell up the stairs, catching myself with my hands and knee, which at first seemed to be nothing. we kept going down the stairs, and ben returned to the train and got our missing bag. after a minute or so, i noticed that my jeans was torn, which i dismissed, and after another minute i realized that i'm also bleeding.
it turned out, that even though not painful, my knee-bump was unfortunately aimed at the sharp end of a stair, and the jagged cut obviously needed some medical attention.

so i got a trip to the hospital for my birthday.
fun!

the hospital, or maybe it was just an all-night emergency room, was, um, weird -- but it seemed like the people there knew what they were doing. they didn't know much english (!!). the doctor and i had only one language in common - spanish - and mine is kinda broken, so i managed to communicate the important things to him (i'm 6 months pregnant, yes, it's our first baby, and it's a girl... we had quite a chat). he guessed right away that it was a subway-escalator-related injury (hehe, i'm not the only one!). they dug up a nurse who spoke english, who made sure that i didn't tumble down the stairs and don't have any abdominal pain.
a couple of stitches and an x-ray later, we were released and took a taxi back to the hotel.

my parents were supposed to meet us in paris, but they had to cancel their trip at the last minute :(
fortunately they could give their ticket and hotel room to Assaf. we were both very happy to see him again! it's been so long :)

the next morning my knee was a bit swollen and stiff, so we decided to take it slow but still see as much of paris as possible in a day and a half.

Assaf was our wonderful tour guide (i knew he was going to be - he was my wonderful tour guide a few months ago in Italy!). it was a gorgeous day (although the wimpy israelies would probably say that it was cold), the sun was shining, and Champs-Élysées was vibrant and beautiful.
we walked up the street to the l'Arc de Triomphe with it's impossible roundabout. cars were generally driving counter-clockwise, but were cutting each other, entering and exiting the roundabout without any noticeable warning, that all i had to say was "i'm glad we're not renting a car" :)


from there we took the merto to the Eiffel Tower. the first sight of it is very impressive. we took the obligatory (all family!) photo, and went over towards the elevator to go up - but the lines that snaked under the tower seemed to be much much longer than we were willing to stand in.
so i suggested to the boys, that i will sit on a bench and take a break, while they go up the stairs. that seemed to be a good idea - ben and assaf are both in good enough shape - but the line to go up the stairs was just as long! shocked but not too disappointed, we decided to skip this tourist must and headed towards our next stop, the Louvre.

no, no, wait. we had lunch first. mmmmmmmmmmm!
Foie gras appetizer, big salad for me, and juicy burger and steak for ben and assaf, accompanied by baked potatoes, and some chocolaty dessert. NOW we can go to the Louvre.