82° or 28°

 

 The girls have a two hour lunch.  We joined some friends at the park for a picnic.  I was then going to go home and cook and clean to prepare for our guests.

Instead, I biked to the Tuileries and ate some gelato with a friend.  I hope the Halifax cousins will understand.

 

Sisters walking to school

Jardin du Luxembourg

It is springtime in Paris and no school Wednesday.  We headed across town to Jardin du Luxembourg.  Look at the leaves on those trees!  See the Pantheon in the background?

 We packed a picnic and joined the rest of Paris.

 On the way from the metro to the park, we passed these lovely books.

 Look at that lovely grass.  Don't think about walking on it.

 Jardin du Luxembourg is the second largest garden in Paris.  It is the gardens of the French Senate, which is held in the Palais du Luxembourg. 

In 1611, Marie de Medicis, the widow of Henry IV and the regent for the King Louis XIII decided to build a palace in imitation of the Pitti Palace in her native Florence

 These girls wanted to push the boats around the fountain and I couldn't say no.  It was not windy enough to be really exciting, but there was enough of a breeze to keep everyone from whining.

 Sylvia wanted Canada, but Canada was not available today.  Lillian went with Germany.

 

 

We continued on to the enormous play area where the girls played for another hour or so.  I am hoping that the weather forecast for next week, which calls for lots of rain, is wrong.  I hope we can bring the Halifax cousins to Jardin du Luxembourg.

We are not accustomed to so much sun.  The girls were so wiped out that they were not sure they could make it to the metro.   A little rest, some shade, and

a stop for a popsicle and a juice, and we were able to make it home.



Sylvia is 7!

Wow!  We are pleased and proud to announce that Sylvia is 7!  She has grown up a lot in this past year and we are very proud of her.

 She began her day by opening some very special gifts from friends and family.  Our friends the McLemans send some very special gifts from one of Canada's first Target stores.  Notice the "Birthday Girl" pin.

 Sylvia invited all of the girls in her class, one sister of a friend, her own sister, and her best friend from Girl Scouts.  Plenty of girls for a little freeze dance.  It was very cute to hear all of the Frenchies singing along to Wavin' Flag and Waka Waka.  Apparently, Rock and Roll is international.

 The girls were then broken up into groups and given a bag full of costumes and props.  After some time to concoct their stories, they all put on a little "spectacle."  Some of them even made sense.

 It was fun to hear our girls and our other anglophone guests speak French with their friends and do their skits in French.

This is not a sponsored post, but I do want to thank Hema, a Dutch discount store in Paris that took care of all my birthday party needs.

Several of our French guests found my cupcakes and frosting too sugary.  All of the guest with any American connection ate them right up.  

It was a beautiful day and we escaped to the park.  There the girls played a tag game where the person who is "it" closes their eyes.  All players must stay inside the elastique.  It is very dangerous and requires lots of screaming.

If you catch someone, you then have to guess who they are without opening your eyes.

Here is the birthday girl with most of her guests on the way to the party.

Happy Birthday, Sylvia! 

7!!!!!!!

We love you.



 

Flat Ida

Next week, real cousins from Halifax are coming to Paris!  This week we hosted Flat Ida, all the way from Portland, Oregon.  Flat Ida had to be back to school by May 1st, so I took her on a quick bike ride and snapped some photos.  It was a windy day, which made my solo photo taking very tricky. 

Here we are at Palais du Chaillot.  There are two big museums on either side of this enormous plaza and it is a great spot to take a photo of the Eiffel Tower.

We rode the bike along the Seine into the middle of town.  I was headed to a show at the Hotel de Ville (City Hall) on the Resistance in France during WWII.  In front of the Hotel there is a big plaza with a Merry-go-round and Flat Ida took a ride.

Flat Ida was impressed by the city's coat of arms above the door.

 Once we were back in our neighborhood, we stopped by the bakery to pick up some Friday pastries.

 I hope Flat Ida can convince her un-flat family to come and visit us sometime. 

Ida turned 6 two days ago!!  There is a crazy string of cousins' birthdays in April.  Why is that?  Cousins, come and visit and we will take you to this bakery. 

le quartier

 

The other day while I was buying a baguette, I stopped in while the flour was being delivered.  When we first arrived, I didn't care where I bought our bread.  I now have a couple of favorite bakeries in the neighborhood.  People are very particular about which baguette they buy; not just any baguette will do.  They will often tell the person behind the counter how brown they want their baguette and then point to a specific loaf.

Last weekend we walked down to watch a bit of the Paris Marathon.  It was packed and hard to see, but we did manage to see many runners and do a bit of cheering.  Sylvia made an excellent sign that I failed to take a photo of.  If said "Allez!"

From the marathon we went to our neighborhood park.  Here are the signs I mentioned in an earlier blog.  Sometimes they are just stickers, here they are real plaques. 

Here are the "spooky steps" that we can take walking home from the park.

 

 Today was a busy day.  We hosted Girls' Book Club.  We read Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin.  Lillian ran out of our book club to go to another book club at the American Library.  They are reading The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate.  After book club, Sylvia and I headed to her Girl Scout meeting.  She earned her petal for being strong and courageous today.  Go, Sylvia!

 

 

  The leaves are slowly appearing on the trees. The Paris gardeners have been given the thumbs up to put in the spring flowers. Once I decided I should take a photo of all of the lovely flowers, I had a hard time finding any. 

We have been having lots of rain and I am ready for the sun to shine.  I am hopeful that next week it will begin to feel like spring.

Chagall Exhibit at Musée du Luxembourg

This Saturday we went to the Chagall exhibit at Musée du Luxembourg.  Pierre bought our tickets earlier in the week online, and we were very glad to be able to skip the hour long line.

 

 

We hopped off the metro and found that were in the right place.  My Acadian posed with our enthusiastic daughter and her pet.  Don't miss the sneak peak at French spring fashion in the background.

As we wandered through the 6th arrondissement, we came upon Saint Sulpice.

 

 This fountain is in a square in front of Saint Sulpice.  These lions were lunging and growling at me!

We came upon this Rimbaud poem Le Bateau Ivre (The Drunken Boat). A Dutch foundation, Tegen Beeld, specializes in painting poems on walls around the world and chose Le Bateau Ivre because Rimbaud wrote the poem in a nearby cafe. If you want to read the entire poem or its translation, or learn more about it go to  this website.

The lane with the Rimbaud poem ran right into the Musée du Luxembourg.  This museum was the first museum in France; it was opened to the public in 1750 and is located in the lovely Jardin du Luxembourg.

 

 The exhibit is titled: Chagall Between War and Peace

The exhibit pamphlet outlined his amazing life.  "Chagall died in 1985, at almost 100 years old.  He had crossed the twentieth century, lived through a revolution, two world wars and exile."  Marc Chagall was the youngest of six children in a Lithuanian Jewish family.  He was born in Vitebsk, Belarus, which was then part of the Russian Empire.

Chagall fell in love with Bella, a girl from Vitebsk and was engaged.  He went to Paris in 1910 to be an artist.  Before returning home, he had his first show in Berlin.  He returned to Vitebsk to marry Bella and the outbreak of WWI kept them from returning to Paris.  In 1923 he returned to Paris with Bella and their daughter Ida.

In 1937, Nazi authorities confiscated Chagall's paintings that were in Germany.  Chagall moved south of the Loire before fleeing to the United States.  "War, persecutions, exodus, and burning villages haunted his pictures: from then on a dark tonality invaded his paintings."  In New York Chagall met Pierre Matisse; son of Henri Matisse, who was a gallery owner.  He helped show and manage Chagall's art until the end of his life. 

 

Throughout 1944 Chagall waited anxiously for the liberation of Pairs, his adopted city where he wished to return.  But the sudden death of Bella sent him into an extended period of mourning.  Bella died of a common sickness that could have been easily cured, if medicine were not in short supply due to the war. 

Chagall returned for good to France in 1949 and settled in Southern France.   

He painted large murals for the Metropolitan Opera in NYC and the ceiling of the Opera Garnier in Paris.  I need to go on the tour to see the ceiling.

The museum provided a beautiful booklet for kids with lots of interesting  information about Chagall and fill in the blanks for throughout the exhibit.  The show was packed and the girls were happy to escape outdoor and spent a long playing at the Jardin du Luxembourg.

Musée Maillol--Murano glass exhibit

My TEFL course, no-school Wednesdays, and the girls coming home for lunch two days a week, means that Friday are the one day that I have to get out and about.  I am very happy to have this time to explore Paris.  This week, I jumped on the Velib' (Paris rental bikes) for the first time since last fall.  I headed to the 7th arrondissment to meet up with my friend, Anne, for lunch and to visit the Musée Maillol. 

Aristide Maillol met his main model and muse, Dina Vierny when she was 15 years old (He was 73.).  Their relationship over 10 years was highly productive for the artist.  Dina spent her life assuring that Maillol would be remembered with a museum of his own.  Dina Vierny worked for the French Resistance while she was Maillol's model, and it is worth clicking on her name and reading what Wikipedia has to say.

 The Musée Maillol is currently hosting a temporary exhibit on Murano glass.

Verrerie Fratelli Toso
Coupe avec trois dragons et un dauphin
vers 1900

There were no photos allowed, but thanks to the world wide web, I was able to steal some photos from this link ...and some others.

 According the the exhibit, a long time ago glass blowers were sent to Murano, an island off of Venice because their trade/art was a fire hazard. "In the 13th century the dangerous glassmakers' furnaces were banned and the nearby island of Murano became the centre of a production that would soon outsrip the Levant and dominate the European market for centuries to come."

The exhibit showed examples from Medieval Venice to the 21st century.  The exhibit began with the most recent works, which were a bizarre assortment of modern art.  Some of the pieces were bizarre and beautiful and many just bizarre.  Although photos were not allowed, I took a photo of the title of this work.  I was able to find a photo of the work on the WWW.  

 

Art?