Arriving in Paris

The overnight train to Paris went okay. We ate late night McDonalds in Florence and the kids were punch drunk, but it was okay. We slept better than last time and that was good.
We came into the Paris train station and waited almost an hour for a taxi. then we had a hellish exchange with the concierge of the apartment we were meant to stay in. She refused to give us the keys and slammed the door literally in my face. with no back up plan in place, we had the cab driver take us to the hotel where my parent's were planning to stay. They were able to give us two rooms (at an enormous price), but were not able to find us space for our last day. We also haven't had access to laundry since we left France and had planned to do our wash at the apartment, so now we are stuck with absolutely no clean clothes. We took the rooms, and after trying seven more hotels who were all booked, we finally found another hotel who will take us for our last night. We also discovered a laundromat across the street and I plan to be there first thing tomorrow.
we were very disheartened at this point, but I rallied us and we all headed out for lunch around two. Then we walked towards the Eiffel tower to make the boy's dreams come true. We were all gazing up to catch a glimpse of the tower when Sam walked straight into a metal post and gave himself a huge, purple goose egg on his head. the noise he made thunking into it drew spectators who all shouted advice in French. we ran to the nearest ice cream shop and got him ice for his head and ice cream for his belly. then we made our way back towards the Eiffel tower. The kids loved it. They were so excited. After we walked under and around it, we jumped on a river boat cruise down the Seine. we walked home throughout the park and came home exhausted. the kids rested and then we went out for dinner. I had found this great, inexpensive basque restaurant with great reviews two minutes from our hotel, but when we arrived it was booked solid. we Ate Thai food instead.
At this point we were all a bit down and tired. We walked back to the hotel in a bit of a funk when my mom called and announced they had just gotten to the hotel. we grabbed a bottle of wine we had bought in Italy at the olive oil mill and took it up to their room to share it. We we so happy to see them. The kids were existing on pure fumes at that point and were crazy, but we had a great time catching up.
we finally got the kids in bed by nine, though they didn't go to sleep till ten. they say they want to stay up to watch the Eiffel tower light up when it gets dark. you can see the top bit of the tower if you lean out our window so we have promised to bring them in our room in the middle of the night to see it.
so tomorrow hopefully will be better. We have to enjoy it right? we're in the city of lights!