We awoke to another beautiful day in Paris, sunny skies and temperatures in the 70s and low 80’s. After a morning run for John and a quick breakfast in the apartment, we headed out for more sight-seeing.
Steve took Elanor to the Orangereis, which is an impressionist museum where she enjoyed seeing Monet’s paintings of water lillies.
In keeping with our theme of education in the morning, the remaining 6 of us, Megan, Lucas, and the 4 Hoyles went to the Musee du Louvre. The Louvre is enormous, so we picked some specific things to see. The kids were interested in the Egyptian relics, as were the majority of tourists in Paris on this particular day. We saw mummies, tools and writings, and a variety of whatever is plural for sphinx – “sphinxes”, perhaps?
We spent some time in the exhibit of Megan’s area of expertise, Mesopotamia – which was just as interesting, but less crowded.
Megan and Lucas headed out to meet up with Steve and Elanor and the Hoyles went to see the tourist attractions of the Louvre, including the Mona Lisa, the Winged Victory of Samothrace, and the Venus de Milo. After a quick adult anatomy lesson from the sculptures of pre-classical Greece, we left to meet up with the Moores for lunch.
On our way, we walked through Jardin des Tuileries (Tuileries Gardens), which were beautiful, and the sight of the large Ferris wheel in Paris. John offered/threatened to take Caroline on it, but, after her experience and the Eiffel Tower, we decided …maybe not.
After a quick trip on the Metro, we met up with the Moores at a small café outside the Pompidou National Center of Art and Culture where the kids had possibly the world’s greatest omlettes. Following our restoration, we headed out for the afternoon adventure.
In keeping with our theme of entertainment in the afternoon, we made our way to the Musee du Magic where we were treated to a wonderful magic show. The kids stared bug eyed at a variety of rope, ring and card tricks performed by a magician in a tuxedo speaking french at 100 kilometers/hour. We needed little translation to appreciate the illusions, and Steve was able to fill us in on the jokes. The museum had a variety of exhibits about the history of magic, optical illusions, as well as plenty of pop-out-at-you scary stuff that the kids loved. We headed back to the apartment, a tired bunch.
The kids played in the apartment while we awaited the arrival of their babysitter for the evening. We were all excited (especially the parents) to meet Marie, a Canadian college student studying in Paris whose services Megan had found on Craig’s list. After some half-hearted warnings to the kids about bad behavior and being sold into slavery, Steve, Megan, John, and I left our 4 kids in Marie’s capable hands and headed out for dinner in Paris.
Our destination was Ambassade d’ Auvergne. Steve told us about how he had often passed by this restaurant while living in Paris during a semester abroad in college, hoping he’d be able to afford to dine there, someday. It was fabulous – after the champagne apertiff, we opened a bottle of wine and started on the first course. Megan and I had a cucumber and eggplant dish with plenty of soft cheese. John had a melon soup served with a slice of bacon on top. My main course was grilled fish with an olive chutney and John had sausage with wonderful mashed potatoes (aligot). We finished off with chocolate mousse. All delicious!
After a great meal, we walked around newly restored Notre Dame, which is beautiful at night. We walked through the Latin Quarter of Paris on our way to catch the metro home to the sleeping kids.
Wonderful Day!
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