Not Brave Enough For Bikes.....yet

A Chanel model mom, a famous Belgian singer, a former covergirl model, these are the women I encounter on the school run. Correction, I rarely encounter them personally, but usually see their children with the foreign nanny getting dropped off or picked up, but when these women do appear they cannot be missed. With other moms either driving Jaguars to school, getting dropped off while their drivers wait for them, or arriving on the most amazing display of bikes ranging from full chariots to triple seaters, I feel quite humble as I get off the No. 80 bus. You can see why I get a little bit of satisfaction driving the car to school once in a while, just to prove I’m not a complete peasant.
Back to bikes - I do have great admiration for these women, driving their children around on these grand apparatuses in the dangerous streets, something you wouldn’t catch me doing, more for my lack of balance in coordinating such units. The looks my girlfriend receives as she bikes down Rue Cler with her amazing chariot are priceless, everything from wonderment to disgust to laughter. It truly does resemble a modern chariot with a 3 wheeled wagon compartment complete with pink detail. She can fit up to three children in there and pedal them around like a modern Mary Poppins, across the Champ de Mars, back to her beautiful ground floor flat (with garden!) virtually underneath the Eiffel Tower.
The French, however, generally don’t like ground floor flats. More for personal taste and status rather than security (they are obviously the easiest ones to break into), they see it as the higher up you live, the higher class you are. And obviously if you’re at the highest level you can have a rooftop garden (can you see a theme running here of child unfriendly places in this city???)
As we drive past the Eiffel Tower every day on the way to school, the view never gets tired. The children are always excited to see it whether half visible in the morning fog or in all its glittering glory at night, it is always impressive, magnificently tall and proud with hordes of people underneath at any time of day. Not something to ever take for granted, it is one of the finest landmarks in the world, and best of all, when we see it looming up, we know we’re close to home. The park in Champ de Mars has become our after school hangout, where they usually have a ride on the carrousel with the crazy Frenchman who insists I ride one of the tiny chevals, not a chance monsieur!