Author: linfordfisher

June 20, 2017. Tuesday. Paris. Hot. The heat-stroke inducing weather continues here, slowing us all down. We lug around tons of extra water (no public water fountains anywhere) and still end up buying more. But: onward! Just a little more slowly. Today we started by heading to the Place de la Bastille, the site of the famous prison that was stormed during the French Revolution. There is no “there” there, per se — just a memorial column and a few plaques.

From there it was a short walk to see the Place des Vosges, a lovely little square park with fountains, shade, and cool breezes. On the southwest corner of the Place des Vosges is the home of Victor Hugo (of Les Miserables fame), so we toured (for free!) his astonishing collection of art and marveled at the wide array of furniture and Asian-themed items.

The next stop was something a few of us had been looking forward to mightily: Picpus Cemetery, where the one and only Marquis de Lafayette is buried. We arrived well before the opening hours, but the kind docents allowed us full range of the property for a few extra Euros. Ahem. We had a picnic in the park section of the grounds and were sobered by the slaughter of 1,300 innocent people by Robespierre in the 1790s — and then dumped into an unmarked grave on that site. Lafayette’s wife, Marie Adrienne Francoise, was among those killed, so he was buried there, too, when he died many years later. Still, we may or may not have played parts of Hamilton and even rapped along with Guns and Ships at his grave, in his honor.

A long-ish metro ride got us to the Tuileries Garden, which ended up being almost too hot to enjoy. We crossed the Seine to check out the Musee d’Orsay, but, alas, we realized too late we should have come there first thing in the morning (we were thinking more about timing the museum at the peak heat of the day, but apparently so was everyone else). Unwilling to wait for an hour+ in the sun to get in, we instead headed to our happy spot, the Luxembourg Gardens. But, alas, the sailboat guy was not there — too hot and too few customers. So we headed to Hertz to pick up our car, and, alas again, they did not have the car I specifically ordered (even though I called yesterday to check on the reservation). Our only options were a smaller 7 seater that would not hold our luggage properly or a much larger 8 seater van that would make us stick out like the Americans that we are. In the end, we chose the larger vehicle. 17 days is a long time to be squished! #American

On the way home, the kids were really moved by the Syrian refugees asking for money in the metro stations. We’ve seen them a lot, and have given more money than we usually do, but tonight one boy asked Elliot for his sunglasses. He didn’t quite get it at first, but later lamented not giving them. After dinner, Harrison spent close to an hour putting together a little care bag for the Syrian refugee kids in case we see them again. It is one thing to read about the refugee crisis; it is another thing to see just a sliver of it up close. It definitely brings it closer to home.

Tomorrow we start the driving portion of this trip, heading to Versailles and Normandy.

Peace to all.

(Note: you can click on the pictures for larger versions.)

June 19, 2017. Monday. Paris. It’s been great to re-visit so many sites with kids. Somehow they just see things differently. Like today when, at the top of the Eiffel Tower, while the rest of us were taking in the view of the city, Elliot heard the cry of a peregrine falcon, and soon we were all watching and thinking differently of the Eiffel Tower as a bird nesting space. Or the way that the miles of cute cobblestone streets–which are fun to walk on–are totally a nightmare for the kids on their scooters. Or the way the kids wanted to lounge around on the fake grass and have a smoothie and a pretzel on the 1st level of the Eiffel Tower — something Jo and I did not do in 1999!

Today was a climbing day, in addition to a lot of walking: the equivalent of 71 floors worth of stairs and and 9.4 miles of walking. The kids are troopers (although thank goodness for the scooters we brought over!). The Eiffel Tower gave us most of our stairs: 700 up and 700 down (just to the second level). But the Arc de Triomphe added an additional ~280 or so up and another 280 down. All good, although we may feel it tomorrow!

It was fun to be back at the Eiffel Tower, touristy as it is. We of course opted for the staircase up to the second level and then took the elevator to the very top. It was a perfect blue sky day again, so picking out our favorite landmarks was no problem.

Back on the ground, it was time for some perspective picture attempts — alway trying to nail the perfect shot (but mostly failing). A quick lunch to go from a cafe and it was off to Les Invalides, where Napoleon is buried. We admired the huge open courtyard and the golden dome, but decided not to go in.

A short metro ride later, and we were greeted with the towering Arc de Triomphe at the northwest end of the Champs-Élysées — the famous wide and tree lined shopping street. I (Lin) had never been up the Arc, so I took the kids (Jo had to stay with the scooters anyway — they are very strict about where exactly they can go here). It was hot, hot, hot on top, but the views were neat.

Although we didn’t know it at the time, half an hour before we arrived at the Arc de Triomphe there was an attack further down the Champs-Élysées, in which someone rammed his car into a police car with the intent to blow it up. There was an explosion and fire, but only the driver died. They closed down the tube station there, so we had to find an alternate route home on the metro. A little freaky, especially on the heels of the attack in Finsbury Park in London just last night (not too far from our flat there), and the attack several weeks ago in London in the same space Jo and the kids had been the day before. Still, you have to live your life. We’ll be at a lot of high-volume tourist places all around Europe this summer, but there’s really nothing you can do if you want to see these places. Fear cannot win.

Much love to you all.

(Note: you can click on the pictures for larger versions.)

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June 18, 2017. Sunday. It’s 11 pm here in Paris and I can still see the soft glow of the sunset outside our 6th floor window. The sun goes down so late here! Today was warm — mid ’80s or so, but not humid, and the nice breeze made it really pleasant in the shade. We walked 9 miles today (according to my phone health app), in addition to taking the metro and RER twice. Since it was a weekend, we decided to avoid museums and places with long lines. So…we headed to Moulin Rouge for a quick photos and a jaunt through the otherwise lovely red district (was on the way from our flat to Montmartre…). That led us to Montmartre to take in the view of the city from up high, step inside Sacré Coeur to hear some moving organ playing and singing during the mass, watch the street artists at Place du Tertre, and eat some fresh baguette sandwiches in a nearby park. We negotiated a reasonable rate to have a street artists draw the four kids together, since Jo has one of herself when she was in college, and she also has one of her parents — all from Paris.

From Montmartre we walked downhill to the east to a place none of us had been before — Cemitiére du Montmartre. Eden was keen on visiting the grave of a composer that her friend loves, and we were pleasantly surprised at the beauty of the grounds and the unique and lavish mausoleums (plus we got to see Degas’s grave as well).

After a metro ride, we were off to see the Notre Dame cathedral (although first we had a super strange encounter with the metro “police” who demanded to see our tickets, found Helena’s invalid and Harrison’s non-existent, and promptly charged us 70 Euros, even though I had replacement tickets to offer her for both kids! It was positively insane and left a really bad taste in our mouths for a bit. I’ve never been treated more rudely in a foreign city.) Notre Dame was a busy and beautiful as ever in the front, but Jo and I actually prefer to view it from the south side and slightly from the rear, along the river. When we were there in 1999, we took a pic from that vantage point that shows the flying buttresses nicely; this time we found a tree had grown up so much that most of them were obscured. Still, we recreated a picture from 1999 with the kids.

The Pantheon was the next stop, but only Eden, Helena, and I went inside to view some of the mausoleums of famous people in the crypt — Victor Hugo, Jean Jacques Rosseau, and Voltaire, among others. It is as impressive as I remember it from before. From the Pantheon it was just a short walk through the Sorbonne, the famous Parisian university that has roots back to the thirteenth century, to the Luxembourg Gardens, with its circular pond and fountain in front of the Senate House. The kids loved the little sailboats you can rent and suddenly were revived enough to run around the pond endless times to meet their little pirate sailboat on the other side.

We grabbed a nice Father’s Day sit down meal near our flat. All in all, a lovely day! We couldn’t keep enough water in our bottles, however — we may need a separate fund just for that. And Nutella crepes. And baguette sandwiches.

(Note: you can click on the pictures to enlarge them.)

June 17, 2017. Saturday. We are zipping across the French countryside at 200 miles per hour. After 20 minutes in the Chunnel, the vast expanse and beauty of northern France with its rolling fields, small towns, and cathedrals in the distance was breathtaking. We are taking a little hiatus from the archives and parks of London to see the sights and sounds of continental Europe. Jo and I have been here several times over the years, but this is the first time for the kids. Elliot is so excited he is…glued to his phone. Jo, on the other hand, is in her happy space (and is the only fluent French speaker in our family).

Our plan is to rent a car in Paris and work our way counter-clockwise through Spain, the south of France, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, and then back to Paris (see map below). In classic Fisher road trip style, we’ll be only staying a night or two in most places in order to cover a lot of ground. We’ll also get to see some friends and family members along the way as an added bonus.

In usual nerdy Linford style, I created a travel book for the kids (as I had done last year for our cross country trip): 200 pages of maps, info on each country, kid-friendly facts of each stop, basic conversational phrases for each French, Spanish, Italian, and German, and other fun little tidbits. Something to make their little backs stronger as they lug it around in their backpacks, if nothing else.

As always, we’ll be posting more pics than you’ll care to see. We are also maintaining the @thosecrazyfishers Instagram account for those who prefer that.

Thanks for reading, and more soon!

June 11, 2017. Sunday. Somehow two week have slipped by since we first arrived. It’s been a really nice two weeks of finding routines, exploring the local neighborhood, visiting some familiar sites in Central London, and taking a day trip to the countryside. I’m sitting here this evening sorting through pictures and listening to London Grammar, a UK band that is a mix of Florence and the Machine and Adele, if that is possible. Our weeks have fallen into a pretty good routine. Jo has to put in her hours (remotely) with the Population Studies and Training Center at Brown, which is mostly done in 2-3 evenings to coincide with the Center’s hours in the US (given the time difference). I spend four days each week in the archives and split kid duties on Monday with Jo.

That means Jo and the kids get to explore various sites in and around London most week days, if they want, while I luxuriate in the archives. So far they’ve been to The Globe to see Romeo and Juliet, the British Museum, the Charles Dickens House, Kensington Gardens, the Science Museum, local skateparks and and other parks, and the local library, in addition to some other fun outings, like to see a friend from high school and her kids in Islington.

Our first full weekend here we headed downtown to revisit some of the more familiar spots that we were at in 2012 (five years ago, and only for a week, but the kids still remember much of it): Westminster Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Bridge, a stroll along the south side of the Thames (past the London Eye, which we will go on later, eye-sore that it is!), and Trafalgar Square. On Sunday of that weekend, we went to a London Fair — which disappointingly felt like any other carnival in the US. Still, fun in its own way.

The second weekend was fun but full. On Saturday, four of us (Harrison, Helena, Eden, and Lin) ran the Enormous Elephant Run (5k) in lovely Clapham Common. Harrison is dearly in love with elephants (he even sponsors one in Kenya!), and so it was super fun to don elephant outfits to run in (and keep afterwards–although, what to do?). On Sunday we packed in a full day trip in the English countryside, taking the train out to Salisbury and visiting Stonehenge, Old Sarum (ruins of William the Conqueror’s castle from the 12th century), and Salisbury Cathedral (also from the 13. c., the highest spire in the UK, and host to one of four original copies of the Magna Carta, from 1215 CE). All in all, a good history day! And the kids had fun, too.

Lin also had fun hanging out at The Lexington pub with a few historian friends on election night, June 8, into the wee hours of the morning as the election returns came in.

The kids seem to be making the transition well. Elliot misses RI the most, perhaps, or at least is the most vocal. We lucked out on our street, however: Harrison and Helena have made friends with 4-5 kids, and every night they come knocking at our door, wanting to play. All of them are international — Romania, etc. That kind of built-in playmates for the youngers goes a long way. Harrison said the other day that he sometimes forgets that we are in London. That cracked us up, since basically everything about our lives is different from the usual summer routine in RI! Adaptable kid, that one.

This week, in addition to our usual routines of archives and work, we look forward to hosting Jo’s sister Heidi and Lin’s sister Mart, who are here separately on visits. And on Saturday we head to continental Europe for a spell! More on that anon.

Thanks for reading! We miss you all.

(Note: click on pics for larger versions.)

Monday, May 29, 2017. London. I’m currently sitting here in the absolute stillness of a holiday morning in north London, sipping my take-away Americano and eyeing up the toasted baguette I brought back for the kids. It’s almost 10 am, and everyone else in our little flat (and neighborhood, it would seem!) is zonked out, trying to get over jet lag and a painfully short sleep the night before.

As many of you know, we have packed up (and rented) our house and moved to the UK for the summer for my (Lin’s) research. We flew out late Saturday evening (well, early Sunday morning after the cancellation and additional delay!) and arrived bleary-eyed around noon on Sunday, May 28th. I had pre-ordered a private 8 passenger van to take us from the airport to our flat because the thought of hauling 12 suitcases (6 large, 6 carry-on) and two violins/violas plus backpacks on the tube with four kids while half asleep seemed like an especially unpleasant start to our time here. Money well spent, to be sure.

We arrived mid-afternoon at our little 3-bedroom 2nd floor (1st floor by English definition) flat in north London — south Tottenham neighborhood, on the Seven Sisters tube stop of the Victoria line. The flat is on a dead end street in a cute little neighborhood — ever so slightly less well kept than other wealthier parts of London, but in a nicely international/immigrant area of the city (which begs the question if there are any non-immigrant/international parts of London, but this is even more so, I’m told). Little bodegas, cafes, shops, and other mom and pop places line one of the main streets at the end of our block. That street leads to the town center, which is 5-7 minutes away on foot and has many more shops and a large grocery store. As with most of London, parks of varying sizes are close by. Seems like it will be a good place to hang out for three months.

I’ll spend most of my time at the National Archives in Kew, which is an hour away on the overground rail. The British Library is much closer — 20 minutes.

We won’t be blogging daily (much to your relief, I’m sure), but we will post pictures from our various travels. You can also follow @thosecrazyfishers on Instagram for more frequent pics, etc.

Thanks for reading! Peace.

Gearing up for our trip this summer, but wanting to test out the blog..