Hack in Paris (HIP), at Disneyland Paris, ended up being a really fun, comfortable, family-friendly, interesting conference. We were only there for the 2 days of talks (preceded by 2 days of training), but we got to meet a ton of smart, fascinating, fun international folks. The first night was a little cocktail hour for all the speakers and staff (and since I was filming the talks, I was staff! fun!). At one point, I was having a conversation with someone from ...

Our last day à Paris. C'était un peu triste. :( Mais je sais que je vais revenir plusieurs fois dans ma vie. Winn and Natasha headed down to the Banque de France to deal with the money situation and we planned to all meet at the base of Sacré Coeur, at the funicular, at 12:30. Adam and I head out at noon, metro-ing up to Montmartre. Once W and N showed up, the "kids" walked up the hill of steps while Winn and I waited and took the funicular. Once at t...

Another grey and rainy day in Paris but we were determined to conquer la tour Eiffel today! And so we did. We didn't get as early a start as we had wanted but we did make it to the tower around 9:30. The line was worse than a Disney line (maybe not *worse* but comparable). 90 minutes or so later, we had our tickets and were finally in the ascenseur going up one of the legs of Eiffel Tower. This is my dad's favorite building in the world. He talks about it all ...

Our third day in Paris was gorgeous! Perfect weather for a day out about town. First stop: Père Lachaise cemetary where tons of famous French people, non-famous French people and Jim Morrison are all buried. The cemetary itself is beautiful in a creepy, historic way that inspires some kind of romance or mystery story. Next, we trekked up to my favorite park in the city: Butte Chaumont. It was commissioned by Napoleon III and was finished in 1867. It's famou...

We had a late night the night before, and left Winn to sleep while we went exploring. The plan was to meet at the Eiffel Tower at 2:30, and I wanted to show Adam and Natasha as much of Paris as I could for free in between leaving at 11 and meeting my dad. After trying to pay for metro tickets with a credit card (not allowed), and a 50 euro bill (the guy told me to get change from someone else), we had to try to find a place to get change for the 50 euros. Fina...