Last night we took the kids from our apartment uphill to the Arc de Triomphe, then through the tunnel under the circle to get to the base, and then climbed the stairs to the top. They never stopped running, jumping or talking the entire way there or back. So much energy! And this was after a full day out during which we went to the bird market, then Chez Flo for lunch, then the Musée des Arts et Métiers. Then the Gabbys took the kids home on Uber while Chris and Melissa had an adventure around the Eiffel Tower.

Whenever we travel, especially to other countries, there are always a few things we struggle to figure out. In Paris there are far fewer of these events because of everyone in this travel group, 3 of the adults used to live here. One curiosity is that the dryer doesn’t actually dry anything – it makes lots of noise and spins and beeps but it doesn’t actually remove any water from the clothing. Upon closer examination it’s clear why: there is no air flow into or out of it. The inputs to the washer/dryer are water and power, while the only output is waste water. Centrifugal force doesn’t dry anything. On a related subject, all of the appliances in our apartment like to make the same beeping sound for reasons that are usually unknown because we don’t speak beep. Each of them have controls with very detailed icons and no text, so we spend a lot of time trying to figure out which appliance is beeping and what it wants. We imagined that this might be a funny new Muppet that only communicates by beep, acknowledging that this might be funny for a couple minutes but is less so when it goes on around the clock.

We have heard from many Europeans that American public spaces are over air-conditioned (we agree). However, there must be some compromise between the chilled public spaces in the US and the similar places in Europe where the only climate control is heat, and there is never any moving air (apparently it’s deadly).