Trip 11: Paris insights and highlights

The Louvre, originally uploaded by josh77anderson.

Bonjour,
Here are a few additional highlights from our trip.

• Crepes = awesome. We sampled whipped cream, Nutella, ham and cheese, and jam; all good.
• We only were turned away from one restaurant because we have kids and spoke English. They said it was because they couldn't seat 6 of us, but the restaurant was empty.  To be honest, most Parisians were very nice and accommodating - especially if you made any attempt at speaking French.
• In Le Louvre, an Asian man stopped Mara and wanted to touch her hair and take her picture.  We let him.
• On Jeryn's sixth birthday, she opened presents on the top of the Eiffel Tower; on my sixth birthday, I got a bike that I couldn't ride because I had the chicken pox.
• Vin chaud = hot wine.  It kinda grows on you. It is like spiced cider with alcohol.
• Do not attempt to have dinner before 7pm.  Repeat: don't even try.  This also goes for attempting to have breakfast before 9:30am.  One night, we had a dinner reservation for 7pm, and were the first ones in the restaurant at 7:10pm when they opened the doors, and they were surprised with us for being early.
• A three day visit to Paris = about 10 miles walking, depending how strategic you are about riding the Metro (note for next visit).
• McDonalds sells beer.  We did not confirm if you can get your Happy Meal with a Heineken (another item to explore next time).
• Two people wished us Happy Thanksgiving.  One was our family.  The other was a great hotel staffer.  Well done.

Here's an additional exhange that Christina had:
Christina:
"Parlez-vous anglais?" (Do you speak English?)
Server:
"No. I don't speak English." (In perfect English).
Christina:
"Oh, Ok.  Um, can I have this?"
Server:
"Ok"