Off to la belle France. Back April 10th, with pictures (I hope). Barring the odd Internet café, I’ll be technologically out of touch till then. Don’t have too much fun without me.

Squeaked back into Denver last night just before the big snowstorm. We had a wonderful time. The weather was very cooperative (the forecast had been for rain the entire week, and it held off till late Wednesday), the apartment was super and very centrally located, the kids were great. We used disposable cameras to take [...]

(Why am I up at 4:30 am? Must be jetlag.) Food fun in Paris: good eats all around. We mostly ate in cafés or at the apartment. For several days we bought two baguettes every morning from one of the three or four boulangeries on the island. The low cost of bread (0€60 for a [...]

Variations in gate-check policies I encountered on the trip; all flights were on Northwest/KLM. DEN-DTW – no problem; got a gate check tag at the gate, gate checked the chair, it was returned to me at the plane in Detroit. DTW-CDG – same. The arrival gate was a bus gate; the purser arranged a lift [...]

The kids and I dug into some guidebooks and made lists of what we wanted to see. They put down Notre Dame (easy, since we were staying only blocks away) and Sacré Cœur (the daughter is a big Amelie fan and wanted to see Montmartre). I added Sainte Chapelle. Notre Dame My theory of jet [...]

We had three museum goals: the Musée de Moyen Age (Cluny), the Louvre, and the Musée d’Orsay. We went to Cluny on Sunday, when the kids were still pretty jet-lagged, and admission is free, but it wasn’t too crowded. The building is 15th century, with satisfyingly crenellated walls and and interior courtyard. We strolled past [...]