Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Our last night!

We leave tomorrow! WAH! I'm NOT ready to go! I really like it here. I like the people, the sights, the smells, the food, - everything!

Our flight leaves Schipol airport at 2pm. It takes about 3 hours to Iceland and then we have about a 2 hour layover there. Then on to BWI -another 7 hours or so. We arrive at 5:45. So basically we will have done a TON of traveling (and we'll be exhausted!) and only 3 hours and 45 minutes will have passed with the time difference - can you say JET LAG?! BTW - we're 7 hours earlier than the EST now because we had to change the clocks the night before Easter Sunday. I have no idea when you all change them!

We went for a long walk today all around Waterlooplein and the University of Amsterdam. Then Jeff took Justice and Journey for sushi and Jagger and I did some last minute souvenir shopping. Jagger was in no mood to sit in a restaurant!

Don't worry - this won't be my last post! I still have a lot of pictures that I want to share so I'll be posting more when we get home. We're getting ready to go on an evening walk and see the sights at night!

Monday, March 28, 2005

Another houseguest

This time our houseguest doesn't have beady little eyes, a long tail, and hang out behind the garbage can ;) Jeff's friend and co-worker Joel came to stay with us for a few days. He has never been to Amsterdam and Jeff has been wanting him to come over and visit, so he arrived on Saturday.

Yesterday Jeff and Joel spent the morning walking around town enjoying the atmosphere and beautiful architecture. The kids and I did some errands and then met them at the Holland Experience 3D movie theater. We arrived early so the guys spend some time running around in the Waterlooplein square. The square normally holds a very large outdoor street market. There is usually a wide range of products there, but I have noticed that most items tend to have more of a hippyish feel - lots of patchwork bags, guatemalean fabric wraps and scarves, hand-made hemp jewelry, incense sticks, buddha statues, neat wooden carvings, and natural undyed fibers and clothing. It was a really interesting market, very different from the Albert Cuyup marketplace which seemed to have more trendy brand name clothing, leather jackets and coats, furs, and animal hair rugs.

Since the marketplace was not open yesterday the kids had a nice big area to run and play (and feed the pigeons,, of course!) Journey sat and studied the tree in the courtyard. It is a typical tree amongst a group of trees planted in squares amidst the plaza. But this tree has a number of brightly colored stuffed animals hanging from it. They are typical children's animals - mainly teddy bears but there were a few stuffed dogs and one cartoon character. They are hung from strings from the tree branches. Journey was very distraught. He collects teddy bears and was really upset that someone would do that to these bears. When we were visiting before and saw this tree I was thinking that maybe this was where Theodore Van Gogh was killed. I don't know if any of you followed the story, but Theodore Van Gogh was a prominent film maker. (yes, he is a descendant of Vincent Van Gogh). He made a number of controversial films and documentaries and his most recent one detailed the violence within the Muslim religion. His film partner is a woman who is in exile from Turkey because she spoke up about Muslim voilence. Theo was shot to death in the middle of the day a few blocks away from the town hall. His alleged killer was a devout Muslim. Theo's death caused a lot of racial tension within Amsterdam and the Netherlands in general. Anyway, I'm thinking that the teddy bear tree is probably a memorial to Theo (Teddy?) Van Gogh. I've been meaning to ask someone on one of the discussion boards, but I keep forgetting to.

So the show we saw was a 30-minute show that showed various places all over Holland. It was in 3D so we got to wear those *super cool* glasses! The theater was also on a moving platform that bumped and twisted in conjunction with the images on the screen. And when the movie took us through the Holland tulip fields we even smelled flowers! Okay, I'll admit that it was pretty hokey (and it was my idea to go too, darn it!) but the kids thought it was cool. I thought it was neat that the entire movie had no words - only music to go along with the scenery. Pretty clever idea since this is such a multi-cultural area with so many different languages spoken!

Today we went on a canal cruise. It took us through various canals throughout Amsterdam telling us about the history of the canals and the houses and buildings along it. Jeff, Joel and Justice then went to the Anne Frank House. We have been there before as a family, but I thought it would be good for Justice to go again. When we were there before Jagger and Journey were a little impatient (they just were not old enough to be interested) and we had to move through the house quickly. I could tell that Justice wanted a little more time to read things and visit the rooms, so I was happy when Joel suggested that they go for a visit. Jeff mentioned that when you go a second time you see things that you didn't see before. I'm thinking maybe I should stop by again myself before we leave.

I bought myself a cool speedy little stroller while we were here! It is a Quinny Zapp - a cute little stroller that folds even smaller than an umbrella stroller! It comes with it's own carry bag and folds down small enough to fit on the back of a bike or in the footwell of a car! I bought the steel blue color. Jagger likes it because it matches his eyes ;)
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The only complaint I have about it so far is the lack of storage space. The one-handed steering and maneuverability helps make up for it though! For anyone who is interested in purchasing one - I highly recommend babycare.nl Erwin was a pleasure to work with and was very prompt in answering my questions. I ordered from him because I heard so many things about his good service. It was all true! And since I'm in Europe I only had to pay 6.95 shipping instead of the outrageous shipping costs to the US!

I've given up on my knitting projects until we get home. I have made a couple scarves while we were here. I also did a lot of practice with different stiches, needle sizes, and yarn weights. I'm still learning it all from a book :) I've put it aside until we get home because the yarn prices here are so high. I just can't justify paying so much for yarns when I can get them so much cheaper at home. The little yarn shop here is great but there is no competition and I miss the chain store selection and prices!

Since my stroller shopping is done, I've put my knitting aside, and we have 3 computer addicts but only 2 computers, I've started reading The Da Vinci Code. It was here on the bookshelf in the apartment and since we visited Paris I thought it would be neat to read it. I'm enjoying it so far - can't put it down at night until my eyes are droopy!

Sunday, March 27, 2005

Scheepvaartmuseum

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Journey, Jagger and I ventured to the Scheepvaartmuseum the other day. This is the Maritime Museum of the Netherlands. The main building holds all sort of ship models, ship replicas, maritime paintings, navigational instruments, and maps.


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Since Journey dreams of being a pirate and sailing the seas to steal gold we thought this would be a great experience for him. (Jeff and Justice were supposed to go to a different museum but ended up going out for Sushi and then coming home to be computer junkies all day).

We spent about an hour in the museum before Journey spotted the ship outside. It is a full size replica of the Dutch East India Company's Amsterdam ship. The original ship sailed in 1749.

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Journey and Jagger are sitting on the bottom step of the stairs to the ship.


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Journey and Jagger climbing the stairs - they look so small compared to the ship!


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The original ship had 230 sailors on board. After the ship set sail 50 men soon died from disease and 40 more became ill. Then the ship came face-to-face with a terrible storm.


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The Captain decided to seek shelter in the Bay of Hastings, in Southern England. The crew and 300,000 guilders worth of silver were brought to shore. The ship and the rest of the cargo sank into the mud. The wreckage can still be seen at low tide.


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Journey was upset because they wouldn't let him go up into the crow's nest! Yeah, right kid!


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The ship's galley.


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Jagger enjoyed himself, but kept wanting the boat to start sailing.


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The ship captains were hard at work charting a course for their journey (pun intended).


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Journey had his sea legs in no time!


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The dining area, where everything was glued to the table!


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Firing the cannon!


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Jagger tried to pick up a cannonball - "It's heeeeaaaavvvy!".


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The ship's helm.

There was even a ship captain on board. He was able to answer all of our questions and tell us stories about his sailing adventures.


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After our tour of the ship we went into the museum gift shop where Journey and Jagger each bought their own little pirate flag. They both had a great time and of course it was educational too!

Saturday, March 26, 2005

Vlaa

I was grocery shopping the other day and picked up a container of chocolate milk. I was totally surprised when I came home and tried to pour a cup of it and this thick, pasty stuff plopped out into the cup.

I checked the expiration date on the carton to see if the milk had spoiled and curdled and then I realized that the label said it was chocolate vlaa. The brand name was Campina, a company that also makes cartoned milk, so I hadn't realized that it was something else. so I smelled the cup of chocolate stuff and it smelled good! I tasted it and it was pudding! Vlaa is pudding! I was totally thrown off by the fact that this pudding was in a liter milk carton (for those of you who didn't go through that year in elementary school when the US decided to convert to the metric system, a liter is similar in size to a quart.)

When I really took a good taste of this stuff, I realized it was delicious! This is not the Bill Cosby J-E-L-L-O instant stuff (or the cooked stuff that always ends up with lumps) – this stuff is made with real cream and is yummy!

So I tried to hide the whole liter from the kids, but it was impossible. These darn European fridges are so small that you can barely fit things in it, let alone hide the good stuff! So the kids fell in love with the vlaa too. Since then we have tried the Ardeibel vlaa (strawberry pudding) and the Dubbel Vlaa (vanilla on one side of the carton and chocolate on the other).

I've seen the boxes of Kindersmak on the shelves in the store (kinder =children) near the few boxes of cereal on the shelves, but I didn't know what it was. I took a look at it today and after shaking the box I realized that they were a box of jimmies! You know – the sprinkle things that go on top of ice cream. They had them in all different flavors and colors and even in chocolate and white chocolate shavings. The pictures on the box show the kindersmak on top of vlaa. Pudding with jimmies on top! The box also showed the jimmies on top of a piece of bread...I though this was strange...the showed a jar of Nutella (the nut spread similar to peanut butter but made from hazlenuts), a piece of bread and the box of jimmies together. So I guess that is a common children's snack.

I have noticed that there are very few boxes of cereal in the stores. They do have a variety of granolas (called museli), but only a couple boxes of corn flake type cereals (unless you go to the US Foods Market on Reigulerderwarsstraat where they sell boxes of Lucky Charms and Captain Crunch for 6,50 Euros per box). They eat breads, cheese, and meat for breakfast and of course they have yoghurt.

These people love their yoghurt! Plain, vanilla and flavored yoghurts come in cardboard liter cartons (like the vlaa). You simply pour the yogurt into your bowl or cup. Yoghurt drinks are big too – I don't mean the little Dannon drinkable yogurts – here they have large cartons of drinkable yogurts in many different flavors. They also have Fristi – a mixture of yogurt and fruit juices that is really good! You can buy it in cartons or in small bottles or cans from vending machines and soda coolers. Frise is another brand name of mixed yogurt and juice and Dubble Frise has more than one fruit in it.

Active yogurt cultures and good bacterias are readily available here. They advertise Actimel for women – these are yogurts and yogurt drinks that are low fat and are loaded with extra bacterias that are good for your body. They also sell these tiny little bottles of live beneficial bacteria, called Yakult. They are in the dairy case near the yogurt and they come in a pack of 6. You can buy the regular version or the low fat ones. The kids love them! Jagger calls them “Skittle Juice”. The first time he tried one he said it tasted like Skittles candy. These good bacterias are supposed to be excellent for the digestive tract and they boost the immune system. It intrigues me that they sell so many products that combat candida (systemic yeast overgrowth), but so many American doctors deny that the illness even exsists.

Random Ramblings

The toilet in our apartment has two different buttons for flushing. We could not figure out why until we realized that the left button (which is a little bigger) is for a “big flush” and the right button (which is a little smaller) is for a “small flush”. Now the question is: how exactly does one determine whether their “deposit” requires a big flush or a little flush? I mean, there could be instances where one just cannot decide....

That brings me to public restrooms. First of all, when you need a restroom you must look for the sign that says “WC”, which stands for “water closet”. Sometimes they use the word “Toilets”, but I have found that “WC” is more common.

Public restrooms always have attendants. Department stores, malls, fast food restaurants, etc have a person who sits there all day and tends to the restrooms. They have a little bowl or plate on a little table that they sit behind and they collect anywhere between 20 and 50 Euro cents for each person that needs to go to the bathroom. Don't try to go past without paying or you will get an earful! There was no one at the desk so I just walked past – I'll never do that again!

We've been underwear shopping in the department stores lately. Jagger has decided that he only wants to wear regular big boy underwear, not the thicker cloth training pant underwear. I couldn't find ANY little boy's underwear in any of the department stores I was going in to. I couldn't figure out why until I finally asked a cashier (kassa). The underwear is all in the underwear section! Clothing is divided into departments: men's, young men's, womens, young womens, boys, girls, and infants. The underwear are all in one general underwear section. The men's boxers are on a rack beside the ladies white granny (hah! I was typing the word “granny” and the auto-complete on my word processing program thought I was writing granola! - that just suddenly struck me as funny!) undies. Boy's underwear is in the same section as the girl's underwear so that children can be even more embarrassed when they are underwear shopping with their mother and run into a classmate of the opposite sex. Unlike our trusty old Fruit of the Looms, European boy's underwear do not have the piss-hole (I asked Jeff and he said that was the technical term) that no one uses in the front. Instead, they look like girl's underwear but have a little seam on either side in the front to allow some extra space. And sizes? I have no clue. I'm familiar with European shoe size, but the clothes have me stumped. I ended up buying Jagger (age 3) size 140 underwear.

So now you may ask, if the underwear are all in one section, then where is the sock section? What about bras? The socks are with the shoes, of course! And bras seem to be only sold in lingerie shops. For some reason there are lots of those here. I'm not so sure a plus size woman would feel good walking into a lingerie store to get a size 48D bra when the window display has leather thong underwear and see-through bras.

Speaking of window displays, I saw a really funky one the other day. I know they say “pink is the new black” (I'll be really happy when that trend is over) and this window took that to heart (no future pun intended). The display mannequins were wearing clothing that was ALL pink and white – solids, stripes, dots, etc. It was a total pepto-bismol explosion. The floor of the display was red and scattered around on the floor were heart shaped pink squishy looking things and white marshmallows! Someone must have been hungry when they were making the display.

Speaking of marshmallows, Jagger and I were shopping the other day and he saw a neat little package of candy. They were little rectangles that were yellow and pink. They looked yummy so I bought a small pack. They tasted exactly like the marshmallows from Lucky Charms! Isn't that a child's dream? A box full of Charms without the Luckies!

Thursday, March 24, 2005

I ordered a pizza!

Yeah, that doesn't sound like much of an accomplishment until you realize that I ordered it online and the whole website was in Dutch! I'm really starting to understand this language! I'm picking up bits and pieces just from reading signs, shopping and talking with people and I'm to the point where I can read bit of newspaper stories and headlines! Sorry, no pictures of the pizza guy, but I can tell you that the pizza delivery guys drive mopeds. They have a rack on the back of the bike that is an insulated pizza warmer and they drive around town delivering pizza. It tasted pretty yummy - the company is called New York Pizza. Their slogan is "Damn Tasty!" Gotta love the blunt Dutch.

NEMO

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We took the kids for an educational (and fun!) trip to the NEMO science museum. We have a membership to the Baltimore Science Center so it was neat to compare the exhibits.


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This is the footbridge to the NEMO museum. It is also a drawbridge.


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Jeff, Justice, Journey and Jagger in front of the "garbage fountain". There was a ton of litter in the fountain - soda bottles, cigarrett butts, candy wrappers - you name it.


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The green boat shaped museum is built overtop of the IJ tunnel, part of the A-10 highway ring. The roof of the museum is a beach! There are large fences all around, along with a sand volleyball court, and a children's water sprinkler. I've heard that it gets pretty crowded there in the summer!


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I think the bubble exhibit was probably the kids' favorite.


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Journey in a bubble


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Jagger giggled the whole time we played with bubbles!



Jeff had some fun pulling bubble tubes up over the kids' heads too!


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Justice enjoyed a computerized card game sponsored by KPN, the telephone company. You used microphones to communicate with the other players and could even take pictures of yourself for the oter players to see.


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Journey enjoyed the hands-on exhibits while Justice preferred the computerized ones.


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Jeff enjoyed the water play. You can see him in the background in a white shirt. He and Journey spent about 1/2 hour building a bean bag dam in the water.

One of the most interesting exhibits was the embryonic exhibit. They had embryos from many different species in jars. They had common animals like a baby pig, monkey, rabbit, etc. But then they also had mutated animals such as siamese monkeys and a two-headed kitten.

The most moving was that of the human embryos.


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The smallest jar showed the embryo when it was barely visible. The jars continued up until the baby was 5.5 months of age. I wasn't able to fit the whole display in this shot, just the last few containers. Justice and Journey seemed quite fascinated by this and Journey asked a number of questions.

I think that one of things about this museum, and Amsterdam in general, is the fact that they don't try to cover things up for kids. One display in this museum was about physical beauty. They showed pictures of different people around the world with different items/features/looks/styles that are popular in their culture. There were pictures of tatoos, body piercings, extremely long fingernails, etc. But then there were also pictures of the tribe that hollows out a hole in their lip and adds a circular object, and a group of people who put large objects in their earlobes as earrings so that the holes left are enormous. There were many more examples of this. In many of the pictures from other countries the people were barely clothed or had no clothing. There was even a picture from some sort of tribe where the men wear this long animal horn attached to animal skin overtop of their groin area! It was quite....uh...interesting? Anyway, I doubt a display like this would be allowed in a museum in the US. Too many parents would complain that the material was not suitable for children, blah, blah, blah...then there would be the threat of lawsuits, etc.

Another exhibit in the museum tested your emotional reaction to images. You had to put two fingers in a small slot and then sit still and look at a random collection of images on a computer screen. After viewing all of the images it told you which image you reacted to the most and then gave a chart of your reactions to all of the images. For instance, the image that I reacted to the most was a barred jail cell with hands reaching out of it, some with cups in them, waiting for food (you couldn't see the people's faces). But then I also reacted strongly to a picture of a cute little white kitten sitting in a tree. I hardly reacted at all to a picture of farm animals. I reacted somewhat strongly to a little girl on a wooden swing hanging from a tree (the swing was in motion). When Justice did the same test one of his images included a picture of a woman that was almost naked. Jeff's test had a picture of a mother nursing her baby (her breast was visible). My point here...and I do have one...is that the people here do not see the naked human body as being wrong. People here do not get all upset and cover their children's eyes because of a picture of a naked person. There were even school groups at the museum while we were there!

Oosterdok

Oosterdok is a beautiful area in the northern part of Amsterdam. It is the docking area and has lots of boats, bridges, museums, and water! We took a long walk along the dock on Prins Henrikkade and Kattenburgergracht. It was a bright sunny day and the water was just beautiful.


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The large green ship-looking structure is the NEMO science center. I'll post pictures and information about it later. For now I'll just tell you that there is a BEACH on top of the building!


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The bridge on the right side of the photo is the walking bridge that takes you out to the Botel, Sea Palace and science center. The only other option is to go by boat.


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This is the famous Amsterdam Botel. Yep, it's a boat and a hotel. I guess it used to be in pretty bad shape and had a bad reputation to go with it. It was sold and the new owner has really put a lot of work into and the place looks pretty nice now. It would be great for a short stay.


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This is the Sea Palace, a floating Chinese/ Indonesian restaurant. We ate there the other night and it sure was delicious! It was neat to see the water and boats while eating!


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The kids (especially Journey) loved the restaurant decor - lots of gold statues, rich vases, candles, chandeliers, and even Chinese antiques (enclosed in glass). We ordered from the Din Sum menu - they brought tons of different dishes and appetizers for us to sample. It was a ton of food! The kids loved that the food was placed on a circle in the center of the table and we could spin it to reach the foods we wanted. Of course Journey had a bowl of tomato soup as his appetizer!

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Notre Dame Cathedral

While in Paris we also paid a visit to the Notre Dame Cathedral (pun intended). I apologize for the quality of the pictures, but flash photography was not allowed.


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It is quite a big tourist attraction, so there were lots of people in the courtyard in front of the cathedral. Some people were standing in groups talking, some were basking in the sun, children were running freely, and I saw more than one person who was sketching a picture of the cathedral.





After standing in line to get into the cathedral I was surprised to see how crowded it was! We were elbow-to-elbow with other tourists and there were lots of tour groups there too.



The crucifix was quite impressive - it was probably at least 8 feet tall and took up an entire wall.



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Of course there were many beautiful stained glass windows.


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The architecture was interesting and beautiful. It was a little hard to see everything though because the place was swarming with people.


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Journey lit a candle for Saint Therese.



This is an enormous candleabra - at least 6 feet tall because it was taller than Jeff.



One of the alters.

Overall the cathedral was beautiful and I was very happy that we went. However, we were disappointed at how commercial it was. As soon as we walked in the door they had phamphlets, audio tape tours, books and tour guides for sale.

There were votive candles in front of the statues of the saints and it cost 2 Euros to light a candle to honor the saint. They had certain areas roped off for private prayer. I thought this was nice until I saw people leaving the prayer area and depositing coins into the little boxes near the exit.

I was really shocked when I saw vending machines that distributed gold medals for 2 Euros each. You could choose which picture of the cathedral you would like on your medal, and each medal was supposedly "blessed".

And then there was the portable gift shop at the cathedral exit. It was like one of those vendor carts in the mall and they had a large selection of souvenirs- t shirts, hats, silver cross necklaces, replicas of the cathedral, even cathedral snow globes (the kind that has water in them and you turn them upside down and then right side up to make the little bits of "snow" fall).

Of course once we exited the church there were plenty of people there to hand us religious phamphlets and ask for money contributions. I think maybe I was spoiled by our trip to the Grote Kerk in Haarlem. That was such an unforgettable experience that it will be hard to find anything comparable.

Paris Scenery

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The Seine River is quite beautiful. There are cement walls enclosing the river, with stairs to walk down along the water. This creates a great area to sit and read a book - with a light breeze and the warm sun (or you can just check out the homeless people who live under the bridge:(


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A man made island created in the Seine River - quite crowded on a sunny day.


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This is a very interesting fountain across from the Eiffel Tower.