Lindenlea comes to Paris

We've got a friend in town from our neighbourhood in Ottawa and we are pretty happy about it.  Our friend's dad has to work, but she gets to play with us.  In fact, the girls skipped school (and cantine) today and didn't mind a bit.

They handled the metro like pros 

 

Strong Girls

The Tuileries are having some major maintenance done.  The flowers are gone, the sculptures are gone, and puddles and temporary fences reign.  I guess not so many tourists in November. 

We Present...Le Louvre

Angels!

These girls thought Mona Lisa was pretty small and that you had to stand pretty far away from her.  I agree.  We found another Leonardo De Vinci in the hall, that was at least as good, without the crowd.  Lillian and Sylvia went to an exhibit at the Cité des Sciences last weekend with Pierre; they taught me some new things about Leonardo.

I decided we should check out the Louvre's new department of Islamic art  I tried to let the girls set the pace and choose where to go and what to see.

 

We were amazed by all the mosaics and wondered how they dug them up, moved them, and put them back in place.  How many people does it take?  What exactly are their specialties?

 We walked towards the spiral staircase to exit and Maya spotted the elevator.  The elevator goes up in the middle of the spiral staircase and is an open cylinder; it is cool.  She asked if we could go on the elevator.  I told her I thought it was just for people in wheelchairs, but that she could ask.  Maya smiled at the guard and asked if we could go on the elevator.  "Why?" he asked.  "It looks like fun!" smiled Maya.  She stood and continued smiling at him until he kindly shooed us all onto the elevator.

Up to the exit.  At the top, a little drawbridge slides out so that you can walk from the elevator to the exit.

Snackage

Just outside the Louvre and right before we walked into the metro, there was a man making enormous bubbles. I think the girls enjoyed this more than anything they saw in the Louvre.  We stayed and chased bubbles for about twenty minutes.

Wow!

We took line 1 part of the way home and the girls got to ride in the front of the train and watch the tracks.

We arrived back at Trocadero and ate some crepes for lunch.  The girls noticed that someone had put clown noses on all of the statues.

Would Benjamin Franklin be amused?