Teenage Travel Success

At last Russ and I stumbled upon the secret to traveling with a teenager — taking a Segway tour! All the walking around and looking at boring art and architecture does not make a teen happy, but put her on a Segway with a cool Brit tour guide and suddenly all the history, the folk lore, the buildings become much more interesting. Even the suggestion of taking a Segway tour elicited voluntary early rising from said teen.

The second winning strategy was letting her plan and execute her own afternoon of touring. She did this with skill, visiting the Louvre for free since she is under 18. Thank goodness I did not have to spend one Euro to traipse through the endless sea of Madonna and Child Renaissance oils which all begin to run together for me. I hate to ruin my Musse d’Orsay art high with the Louvre.

Carter visited parks and bridges taking photos all along the way. She ended up walking almost everywhere without complaint because her parents were not with her to complain to. Although I had given her three metro tickets so she could roam and return easily she only ended up taking one train because she discovered walking was easier. Huh, I wonder if I can remind her of that later?

I have no idea if she spent any of the money I gave her and can’t ask now that she is napping before dinner and a night visit to the eiffel tower. She has not volunteered to give me my 50 euros back, but since we still have another day I’m sure she is thinking she might need them so no reason to return money to a mother.

Russ and I walked and shopped and drank in cafés like people who don’t work for a living do. My reward to him is that I am not complaining about his spending one hour on a conference call before we go to dinner. How can I complain when I know that it is thanks to his working that Carter and I get to go on fun trips and drive Segways, eat French food and sit in cafés.