Will The Real Donkey Step Forward?

In planning our trip to Paris with our nieces, I asked them what they most wanted to see. The Eiffel Tower?  Notre Dame?  Versailles?

Oh.  Yeah. Those would be great.  But wait.  Did you mention that Versailles had a little farm?  With animals?

Well, yes, but...

OMG!!! How fast can we get there??!!!

Really? We are travelling to a city that has some of the most priceless and famous works of art and architecture in the world and your top priority is....a donkey?????

So off to Versailles we went where we explored the sumptuous palace, magnificent gardens...and trekked four thousand miles to the furthest  part of the estate (As a matter of  fact, I'm not sure we were actually still in France.  I think I may have heard Russian spoken, and not by a tourist.) to see livestock.

If I had known how far it was, I would have packed a toothbrush...and PJs.  Through the gardens, past the Petite Trianon, waaay past the Grand Trianon, ask someone who doesn't speak a word of English to give you directions and take a wrong turn or six,  ask someone who does speak English to give you directions and take another wrong turn or seven,  go to the  second star on the right and straight on till morning.   I knew we were in trouble when I saw the sun-bleached remains of the last group of tourists to attempt the trek.

Finally, though, we reached Mecca, er the farm.  And they say Disneyland is the happiest place on earth.

"Oooo.  Look.  Bunnies. Can I have your camera?"

Yeah.  Sure.  You can never have too many pictures of bunnies. You know, most people come to Paris and take pictures of , oh, I don't know, the Mona Lisa.  Idiots.  Don't they know they could be snapping photos of bunnies instead? 

"Look at the geese and ducks.  Aren't they cute?  I wish we could take them home with us.

Um, okay.  You are aware that you are talking about birds, right?  I mean, I appreciate a good fowl as well as the next person, but maybe you could work up the same enthusiasm for  the Eiffel Tower?

On and on it went: goats, fish, pigs, you name it, we have a photo of it.  After about fourteen hours of cooing and clucking over French dinner menu items, uh I mean totally unique, super-cute farm animals that you can't possibly see in the good old U. S. of A, there they were...the piece de resistance, the coup de grace, the gooey chocolate truffle on top of the yummy, decadent eclair: the donkeys.

There were big ones, small ones, bold ones, shy ones, but they all had that same magnificent allure, that irresistible quality sure to draw the attention and win the hearts of tourists from all over the globe: eau de poo poo.

Yes, nothing says, "I've been to Paris" like the subtle odor of fresh manure, dirt and donkey sweat. 

Chanel? Dior? Yves Saint Laurent?  Hah!!!  Frou, frou potions meant for those sissies who think a trip to Paris is all about Monet and Renoir.  This was the real Paris, unchanged from the good ole days of Marie Antoinette (in fact, judging from the odor, some of them may have been the same actual donkeys who played milkmaid with Marie). 

"Take my picture with this one!  Now this one!" they squealed with delight.  "Can we email them to my mom and dad?"

Yes, as long as you take one of me with them too and label it,"Which one is the real jackass?  The one getting petted, or the one who traveled several time zones to stand in a field, batting at flies and wishing she were someplace less smelly, like, oh, say a sewage treatment plant?"

Finally, after more photo ops than Brangelina at a red carpet event after a six month absence and an entire packet of anti-bacterial wipes, they were ready to go.

"Okay, tomorrow we go to the Louvre," I promised them, "where you'll see all kinds of unbelievable and amazing paintings and sculptures and..."

"Yes, but will we see donkeys?" they wanted to know.

Only if you look in my direction.

Vive la Difference

Question:  What's the difference between twelve and seventeen?

Answer: Enough to drive you to drink!

Recently, Tim and I took our two nieces, twelve and seventeen, to Paris for a few days.  While he worked, I got to show the girls around one of my favorite cities...and lose my mind in the process.

Our second night there, we took them for an after dinner walk up the Champs Elysees to see the Arch de Triumph.  Big mistake.

Oh, we saw the Arch, all right.  We also saw lots of lights, people, noise, and, as a special surprise, a riot.  Yea.

First, we thought it was a parade.  "Hey, look at those people with lights, coming up the street, singing.  Cool."

Oh. Wait.  Those aren't lights, they're torches, and they aren't singing, they are chanting (probably "Death to the Ugly Americans" and "Look! There they are!  Let's Get them!!!")  Except for the fact that there was no hunky Hugh Jackman, bald Anne Hathaway, or annoying little kid with a British accent leading them, it was just like being in Les Miserables.  Well, except that we didn't have any barricades to hide behind, only Tim.

Fortunately?, Unfortunately?,  right behind them came the riot police, all dressed in black, marching with a precision that would make Inspector Javert sit down and weep with pride (except all I could think of was the witch's army from The Wizard of OZ --Oh we oh, yo oh! Oh we oh, yo oh!--and my mother wondered why I had a hard time sleeping as a child!)

Now at my age, the inclination is to move away from the impending disaster, and try to avoid unpleasant situations like, oh, I don't know...jail?  In a foreign country. Where you only speak enough of the language to get a table at a restaurant and buy a really cool pair of shoes.  At seventeen, the inclination is apparently to run toward the men in black with sticks and guns chasing desperate people wielding fire. With a camera. In a foreign country.  Where you don't speak the language.

Fortunately, we must have looked enough like (sing along with me, those of you who are Sesame Street  fans) "One of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn't belong..." because we were spared having to explain to my brother-in-law why his children had a prison record.

From that moment on, however, the seventeen-year-old was fascinated by the Champs Elysees. "Can we go there again? Have lunch there? Dinner? Walk? Shop? Try for another riot?"

The twelve-year-old could have cared less.  Champs Elysees??? Yawn.  Hey, but let's go back to the hotel and swim!!! Or how about having a bubble bath???  Oh, oh,  let's watch a movie!!!

Um, okay, cause these are all things we can't do at home, right?

No, no, really.  I can stream the movie Marie Antoinette from You Tube onto my ipod and we can huddle around the 4-inch screen and watch all 4,952 parts they've broken it into in just under 56 hours!  It'll be great!!!

And we can gorge ourselves on chocolate and macaroons, because it's only 11pm, so we'll only be up till around 5am with the sugar and caffeine buzz, but we weren't planning anything for tomorrow, right?  Except maybe a bubble bath and oh, I know, a swim!

Yeah.  Vive la difference.