Family Sports Day

Sunday we went to the Champs de Mars to check out famillathlon.  All sorts of organizations set up to introduce kids to all sorts of different sports.  It was enormous and it was really cool.  Our girls took a free skating lesson.

Pierre is great at finding out about these events.

Neither Lil or Sylv had skated before, but all of the ice skating in Ottawa must have helped because they did get the hang of it.

Skating is very popular here. Friday night, there is even a time when the streets are closed and hundreds of people skate through Paris.
http://www.pari-roller.com/index.php?p=101

 The set up was great.  They had skates, pads, helmets, instructors, etc.

Archer Lillian

Ping pong is also big here.  Most public parks have permanent ping pong tables and they are often in use.

 

Sylvia went to the circus with her class last year and took a circus workshop.  She still wanted more and tried the tightrope.

The girls participated in a game of wheelchair basketball.  I was impressed that they were able to maneuver.

I took these photos trying to show how big an area it was.  In this direction you can see L'école Militaire and in the other direction is the Eiffel Tower.

I was very impressed by this event; it was a fun day and it got the girls interested in trying some new things. 

We finished off our day by going to the American Library, which is nearby, and stocking up for the week.

Musée de la Marine

We decided this suit did not look too comfortable.

Right up the street at Palais de Chaillot is Musée National de la Marine.

Here is one of Napoleon's vessels.  This is just the frame.  You will have to imagine all of the rowers and oars.

 



There were lots of model ships and lots of paintings of ships.  Once upon a time, there was a lot of navel warfare.  Check out those cannons!

We also went to the special exhibit on lighthouses.  My favorite part was all of the old lighthouse lights at the entrance of the exhibit.  Augustin-Jean Fresnel invented this kind of lens, which made the light from the lighthouse visible from a lot further away.  

 

Our original plan had been to eat lasagna at our house.  After making the lasagnas, our fridge died and so did the unrefrigerated lasagna.
Plan B was a trip to the Italian restaurant in our neighbourhood.  Notice that the big kids are sharing a dessert.  Sylvia is enjoying a mousse au chocolat and Lillian is having some lemon gelato.  Yum!  Thanks for hanging out with us, big kids.



Friday on a Velib' and Saturday at the Market

 

Now that the girls are spending a couple of full days at school, I have more freedom to explore.  "La cantine" is far from a hit, but it is the only option.  The girls are still coming home for lunch two days and all day on Wednesday.

 

My friend, Lori, is a brave bicyclist and I am attempting to follow her lead.  Paris was one of the first cities to adopt the massive bike rental systems that now seem to be the rage in many cities.  I have a yearly pass and it is a deal.  It is also possible to use the bikes as a tourist, so pack your bike helmet.

http://en.velib.paris.fr/

 

Lori and I headed to Le Marais because it is one of my favorite parts of town and I needed to pick up some overpriced canned pumpkin at the American store there.  The store is appropriately called Thanksgiving.  We started out at Musée Carnavalet the city museum that covers the history of Paris.  I have visited several times because it is huge and it is free.

I took this photo for Lillian who is Harry Potter crazy. 

 

We wandered through the museum and I did not take a lot of photos.  One of my favorite areas in the museum covers the Revolution.  Of course, this part of the museum was closed for the day.  The area with the dugout canoes was closed until 1:30.  This is very French.  Things are closed all of the time with no explanation and no one seems very worried about it.  I often make my way across town to go somewhere and there will be a sign taped to the door that says something like, "I should be back in about two hours."

We were sad about these areas being closed until we went and ate some falafel and drank some beer.

 

On the way back to our bikes, we saw this lovely window.  Those colorful squares above are different flavors of marshmallows.



 

We jumped on our bikes and headed to the Hotel de Ville  for the exhibit  Paris, Vu Par Hollywood

This regal guy and his friend guarded one of the doors.

 

The exhibit was not great.  If you have actually seen all of the old movies, or are huge movie buff you would probably enjoy it.  I was glad to get inside city hall and gawk.  We had a rainy ride home and I had to use some colorful language with a motorcyclist who got a little too close.

 



Saturday: to market to market to buy 3 pains au chocolat for 2 Euros!  Thanks, Sylvia!

 

 Crepes for lunch!  A great option anytime...especially when your fridge is out of commission.

 Look who bought me some flowers, Sweet Sylvia.

Orchids are the rage here and there are two different stores in our neighborhood that sell nothing but orchids.



Every time I walk into the kitchen and see the door of the fridge open, an alarm goes off in my head.  Friday, our fridge stopped working.  I noticed that the kitchen began smelling of bananas, Yes, all of the frozen bananas waiting to become banana bread were no longer frozen.  The motor of our six month old fridge is dead.  We are very happy that it is under guaranty  We are not so happy that the new motor will not arrive until Wednesday.  If you have any great dinner ideas, please send them my way.

Pagoda Atelier at Musée Cernuschi

Most of the museums in Paris give workshops (ateliers) to kids on some Wednesdays and Saturdays.  We have not yet managed to enroll in any at the big museums because it is a competitive sport.  If you thought lining up a little early at the Lindenlea Community Centre to get your spot in Preschool Art was hard, this is a whole 'nother level.  However, there are lots of museums, so we thought we would see what some of the others have to offer.  Pierre found a Wednesday pagoda building workshop at Musée Cernuschi  for ages 6-8.  Perfect.

Pagoda Girls

The girls and I took the bus across town and found the museum.  It is within the gates of Parc Monceau, so I figured it the museum and workshop were a flop we had a good plan B.

 

According to pamphlet I picked up at the museum, Henri Cernuschi was an economist and banker.  "Born in Milan in 1821, Italian patriot; Enrico Cernuschi was forced to take refuge in France in 1850, after the Italian Revolution of 1848."  He fled to France where as an economist and a banker he amassed a fortune by the end of the Second Empire (1852).  Once again he became involved in politics and had to flee France after the Paris Commune.  He fled to England, the U.S., and then took a steamer to Asia.  He was accompanied by his friend Théodore Duret, who was an art critic and a supporter of the Impressionist movement.  His year and a half trip around the world, ended with buying close to 5000 works of art in Japan and China.

 

His collection was exhibited when he returned and contributed to the emergence of Japonism.  At the same time, he commissioned an architect to build him a mansion to house his collection.  The house was built as a museum and has many skylights and some rooms that were built specifically for some works of art.  He donated the mansion and the art to the City of Paris.

Lillian and Sylvia were the only kids at the atelier!  The teacher was excellent and spent over an hour with them looking at a few pieces of art and making the pagodas.  The started with this perfume burner.  I learned that a dragon has the characteristics of 4 animals: snake, fish, stag, and tiger.  I am not sure if this a Japanese of French idea.  Most of the art in the museum is Chinese, but there are a few Japanese pieces.  The other Japanese pieces are sometimes shown in temporary exhibits.

The workshop was held in a room that was built especially for an enormous Japanese Buddha.  The top of the room is encircled by tiles with the names of major Asian cities.  The room has huge windows that look out onto Parc Monceau.

The Buddha was taken apart, shipped to France, and reassembled.  He is immense.  I really liked how he was perched in the middle of the room looking out the windows into the park.

 

Death masks from a group originally from Siberia 



My audio guide said this cat was, "the Mona Lisa of Asian art."  There is a baby clinging to the tiger.  It looks like maybe the tiger is protecting him, but it is hard to be sure.  The tiger was used to hold a fermented drink used in ancestor worship.

Lady Musicians on Horseback.  They would have been put in a tomb to provide company and music for the deceased.

 

I look forward to exploring more of these small City of Paris museums.  They are manageable with the girls and the houses and the history of their inhabitants are always fascinating.

 

My friend Lori accompanied me to the museum.  Our husbands are both economists like Cernuschi.   I am pretty sure that Pierre has already commissioned an architect to begin working on our mansion.

 

Lori and her daughter, one of the girls' favorite people, took the bus home with us.  Sylvia likes to take the bus and she likes Katherine even more.  Great end to a great outing.

Journées du Patrimoine--National Archives

This weekend was Journées du Patrimoine, a kind of Heritage Weekend open house.  Buildings that are usually closed to the public are opened up for tours.  Many of the sights also have special activities for kids.  Pierre researched and decided we should start at the National Archives because it was one of the places with kids' activities.

 

 

You can see the tables for the kids' activities tucked into the gallery.

 

Don't forget that these are the French National Archives and playing or walking on the grass is forbidden.

 

 

The activities were excellent.  They had put the archives' experts to work at the kids' tables.  Lillian is practicing her script so that she can write a secret Latin message.  This message was, of course, sealed.

 Lillian has some nice new glasses.  After our trip to Wisconsin, her old glasses were in bad shape.  They had fallen into the lake at least once and had spent some time in Bo the dog's mouth. 

 Sylvia made a plaster seal with the archives' seal restorer.

 

 The girls played a French history game.  They were the game pieces and walked through the game while rolling an enormous foam die.  Lillian won her round and I learned a thing or two.

 For winning the history game, Lillian won a poster of  the Declaration des droits de l'homme

It is now hanging on the wall in her room.

We signed up for the tour of the archives.  Before we even entered the building it became apparent that it was not a family activity and children were not welcome.  Pierre shoved the tickets into my hands and ran back to the game area with the girls.

Pictures are forbidden.

The man who gave the tour was obviously an expert on the history of the archive buildings.  He knew lots of dates.  He did not talk a lot about what is actually in the archives building.  Besides the state records, there are some pretty amazing historical artifacts under glass.

For instance, the tour guide did not have much to say about this.

This is Marie Antoinette's last letter.  She was told she would be executed and began writing a letter to her sister-in-law asking her to take her children.  I was surprised that the French was very modern and the writing was easy to read.  It is a heartbreaking letter.  She did not finish it and it fell into the hands of Robespierre.

 

By the time the tour was over we were all starving.
We ordered some crepes to go and the girls waited in front of these pretty blue doors.

We sat near the Centre Pompidou and had a picnic. 

Lillian kept saying, "We should have more days like this!"

 

 In other news, this tricky one and her older sister managed to avoid fish Friday in the lunchroom by staying on the playground for two hours.  Clever.  Their mother was not pleased.  It was fish Monday today.  If you check out the following link, you can see why they may be having a hard time September lunch menu and dinner suggestions  The menu has helpful dinner suggestions, too.  It makes me laugh.