In which we take a boat trip

"In the faint, gray light of early dawn, the barge lay like a shadow on the water." So begins Maigret and the Headless Corpse, set on the Canal St. Martin (if you read French, the French version is more thorough, but is, of course, in French), which at the time of the book was still used as a shipping route, bringing good into and through Paris and out to the Seine. Now the canal is used primarily for tourists who wish to take a boat ride through the canals of Paris. (One can also take a boat on the Seine, and in fact that is much easier to do.)

There are only a few boat companies that take boats through the Canal St. Martin, partially, I expect, because there don't seem to be all that many places where two boats of any size would be able to pass each other. One of the ones that does is Canauxrama, which takes one boat from Bastille to Parc de la Villette and a second boat back every morning and afternoon.

The second Sunday of Mom's visit was beautiful, sunny and pleasantly warm, and we decided that it would be a wonderful day to go on a cruise down the Canal St. Martin, so we headed off to Bastille, and bought our tickets at the little kiosk along the quai. The ticket seller told us that they would begin boarding the boat in about 20 minutes (45 minutes before the scheduled departure, but we wanted seats on the top of the boat, not in the cabin underneath), and so Blaise and I rushed off to the Bastille street market, leaving the kids and Mom to admire the boats bobbing about the water. A rush through the market netted us bread and olives to go with the oranges that we'd brought from home, and by the time we returned to the dock, they were beginning the boarding process. Fortunately, they hadn't gotten very far, and so we had no trouble finding seats in the front of the top of the boat.

We settled in to eat our lunch and to watch the rest of the boat slowly up. The captain came on board and left again, but eventually we cast off and made our way to the start of the canal, passing under the Bastille metro station and into the vault that formed the first third of our voyage. At one point, the entire canal was open to the sky, but the first kilometers of it were covered in three successive sections between the 1860's and the 1900's. As we rode through the covered section, the guide explained in French, and again in English, what we were passing through, and at the same time the projector on the front of the boat projected images on the walls and ceiling of the vault. From time to time, sunlight and fresh air and occasionally a trailing vine came in through circular openings in the ceiling of the vault, and everyone jumped up to take pictures.

Once we had left the vaulted part of the canal, we had approximately 4 more kilometers of sailing to go before we reached the Bassin de la Villette, and we needed to go up about 25 meters to get there. Going up on water means only one thing: locks, and the Canal St. Martin has 4 sets of double locks, each set going up about 20 feet. Now, Mom likes locks a lot, so much so in fact that when we once spent a summer living in Seattle when I was a child, she dragged us to the Ballard Locks every day that it wasn't raining, and (since this was Seattle) many days when it was raining too. We hadn't told her that there would be locks on the Canal, and she was thrilled to realize that she would actually be going through locks, not just watching other people going through them. (Blaise revealed at this point that he'd never actually seen locks before.) On we sailed through the four sets of locks, with people stopping on the bridges overhead to watch the water rushing into the locks so that we could move on to the next part of the canal.

After about 2 hours, we arrived at the Bassin de la Villette, which evidently provides most of the non potable water used by the city of Paris (for such things as decorative fountains and street cleaning). Through the Bassin we went, and out to the mouth of the Canal de l'Ourcq, at which point the boat turned around and headed back to the beginning of the Bassin. Those of us who wished to be dropped off at the Parc de la Villette were, and I assume that the trip back went smoothly for those still on the boat. We stopped briefly at the Jardin des Vents et des Dunes for the kids to play, and then headed home for dinner and bedtime.

In which we go to Night at the Museum

Every spring, Europe celebrates the annual Night at the Museum. In Paris, this means that the national museums, and many of the private musuems, are open from 7 p.m. until 1 a.m, and they are, generally speaking, free. In addition, there are events scheduled at many of the larger parks and cultural centers. (When I say that they are mostly free, I mean that the Dutch cultural center charges admission to their event. Draw what conclusions you will.)

This spring, the Nuit des Musées was May 15th, and, of course, we went, along with Mom who was still visiting with us. (And yes, if you're thinking that I'm rather behind here, you're right.) After a careful consultation with the schedule for the evening, we decided that we'd like to go to the Grande Galerie de l'Evolution, which we visited when we were here in 2007 but hadn't yet on this trip. The museum, along with several others, is located in the Jardin des Plantes, and we were looking forward to walking through the park enroute to the museum. Unfortunately, the security detail at the park directed us out through the gates and along the street to the museum entrance, where we proceeded to stand in line for 45 minutes.

Once inside the museum, we headed downstairs to the dinosaur exhibit, which had both dinosaur fossils, and fossil remains of early fish, mammals, and birds, along with text explaining how various developments had been to their advantage. Then back upstairs to the ocean exhibits, where Cherry and I walked through an enormous model of beach sand and looked at the critters that lived there. (The grains of sand were nearly as tall as Cherry, and the scale-size life was still fairly small.) Blaise showed Sapphire and Ezio the seiche (cuttlefish) that he had tried at dinner the night before.

On the first floor we walked past the enormous path of animals from all over the world, and of all sizes. (Why do people think it's OK to let their kids touch museum specimens? Or even, in one case, lick them? And on a related note, what kind of kid wants to lick a stuffed lion?) Sapphire went over to one of the demonstrators and asked questions about the animals, and Cherry and I went in search of (what else?) a bathroom. Once we had everyone together again, we went up to the second level. By this point Cherry was getting tired and cranky and it wasn't much longer before she fell asleep on my shoulder, and I got to carry her through the rest of the museum. (And for just the second time in Paris, I found myself wishing that we'd brought a stroller with us. Not too bad for 10.5 months.)

My favorite part of the museum is the hall of extinct and endangered species. Have you ever wondered what a dodo looked like? They have a stuffed specimen in the museum. Would you like to see a Barbary lion? They have a pair of them, given as a gift (while still alive, of course) to the king of France for his menagerie. Once we had finished walking through there, we decided to skip the third floor and head for home.

In which we go to the Orsay

Blaise and the kids and I went to the Musée d'Orsay on Easter Sunday, since that was a free museum day. Of course, going with the kids, and in particular Cherry, meant that I got to spend a lot of time trying to keep them relatively happy and interested in what was going on. (To be completely fair, Blaise did virtually all the work required to keep Sapphire interested, and tried very hard to keep Ezio engaged with the art. It was really just Cherry who forced me to use a fake excited voice the entire time.) In any case, I wanted to go back, without kids, before we left France. Since Mom had never been to the Orsay (it's a relatively new museum), it seemed like a good idea to go with her on a morning when Blaise would be available to pick Cherry up from school.

Friday morning we took Cherry to school and then set off for the RER and the Orsay. We arrived and headed up the stairs to wait in line for security. (I'm not sure for how long they have been running security checkpoints at Parisian museums. I don't remember them when we were here before Sapphire was born, (except at Sainte Chapelle, which shares an entry with a major French court).) In any case, the line was far shorter than it had been on Easter, and so it took us only about 20 minutes to work our way through security and into the museum. Next stop, the ticket counter, and on into the museum.

We saw most of the museums' displayed collection over the course of the next couple of hours, even the Monet pieces, which I must confess I find more palatable in small doses. And yes, I know that one is required to like Monet, but I don't particularly. I'm not anti-impressionist (which is good, since the Orsay is pretty much all impressionism), I just don't particularly like Monet.

Then we worked our way home, where Cherry was very happy to see us.

That evening, Mom took all three kids to McDonalds (so they can now say that they've been to McDonalds in France, which was, for some reason, extremely important to my mom). Then, she brought them home and put them to bed, which Blaise and I met some friends of his for a very nice dinner in Paris. Apparently, the restaurant is owned by a retired bank clerk whose wife had always dreamed of running/cooking in a small restaurant. We had excellent food and conversation. On the way home, we watched a group of men playing petanque with lighters in the metro station.

In which we go to Versailles

Not a new post, but it was out of order, so I moved it.

I wanted to take my Mom to Versailles while she was here. Despite having been to Paris on more than one occasion, she had never been out to the palace, which seemed a bit odd, given that it seems to be, judging by the crowds at least, at the top of everyone's list of things to do while in Paris. We thought about going on a weekend, when, at least in theory, the fountains in the gardens would be running, until we discovered that not only would the adults cost an extra 7€, we would also have to pay for the kids to get into the gardens (under 18s are typically free for national museum sites in France). Blaise and I both thought that (based on our experience) the fountains weren't worth the extra cost, and so we decided to go on a weekday. That meant either a Wednesday, when the kids are out of school, or the 13th, which was Ascension Day and therefore a day off from school.

The weather forecast for Wednesday, May 12, promised to be drizzly in the morning, with clearing skies and sun for the afternoon. Since we would start inside the palace and then work our way out to the grounds and the "outbuildings," that sounded workable. After a trip to the grocery store for lunch food, we headed to the RER station. Ninety minutes,2 transfers, and a brisk 15 minute walk later, we were ready to buy our tickets to the chateau. Then a quick trip through security, and we, along with approximately 2.47 million other people, were inside the chateau. (We have friends who went to Versailles the following Sunday, and who, evidently, spent a hour in line to buy tickets and then had to wait in a huge line at security.)

First stop, the main palace, which, as I said earlier, was very crowded, perhaps due to the 40+ tour buses lined up outside. Our tickets included a free audioguide, but by the time I realized where we went to pick them up, the tide of people had carried us past them, as well as the maps to the chateau. Fortunately, it's difficult to get too much off track at Versailles--you just have to let the crowds carry you along and you're sure to find your way out eventually. We looked into the ground floor of the palace chapel, which was blocked off (you could see in, but not go in). My kids were quite disappointed to discover that there was a school group inside the chapel, where they weren't allowed to go, and I got to hear about how they never got to go on interesting field trips and it wasn't fair. Then we headed off through the various rooms of the palace. I won't bore you with the details as I'm sure that there's a virtual tour of Versailles somewhere on the internet. (Try here, for example.)

Next, a bathroom stop followed by a trip out into the gardens for lunch. Did I say that it was supposed to be clearing and sunny by afternoon? Well, perhaps it was sunny somewhere, but it was still heavily overcast where we were, though at least it had stopped drizzling. We found an out of the way bench, and proceeded to eat our lunch. Then we headed through the gardens in the general direction of the grand canal. En route, we spotted several dirt paths snaking away into the trees, and the kids begged to be allowed to explore them. Eventually I acquiesced, and so they bolted off down the trail, with Mom and I following at a more leisurely pace. (Blaise decided that he had too much to do to be able to afford to take an entire Wednesday off, particularly as he'd not been able to work very much at all on Tuesday afternoon because of our visit to the Gobelins, so he decided not to come with us.) After a brief game of hide and seek in the bushes and fallen tree trunks, we lured them out and finished our walk to the grand canal.

From there, we headed down the walk to the Grand Trianon, where the king could go if the pressures of palace life got to be too much for him. Cherry had picked up a small stick on the way through the gardens, and woman working security was kind enough to ask her to put it into my coat pocket while we were inside, rather than ordering her to throw it away outside. Cherry, however, was quite embarrassed by the whole affair, and insisted that she needed to be carried through the rest of the Trianon.

Next, we went to Marie Antoinette's estate. By this point all three kids were beginning to get a bit cranky, and so we only saw the Petit Trianon. There are also various gardens and other buildings associated with her estate, not to mention a working farm (which we saw some of on our way back to the exit to the gardens). The kitchen was by far the best part, and we talked about what was missing--obviously the refrigerator, since there was no electricity back then, but there also didn't seem to be any places for food storage, or facilities for washing hands, dishes, or food. Perhaps the food was brought in just before preparation, and washing was done outside.

We had promised the kids that they could play around outside if they cooperated inside, so we let them play for a little while, though not as long as they would have liked. Then we headed back past Marie Antoinette's farm (sheep and horses) to the main palace and then out and back to the train station.

In which we go visit the Gobelins

Ah, the Gobelins. Not to be confused with the goblins. The latter are little monsters. The former, a tapestry "factory."

Perhaps you are aware that my mother is a fiber arts nut, and that, now that she has retired and gotten all of the kids out of the house, she has even more time to indulge. She knits, spins, weaves, dyes, etc. One of the things that she does not do is tapestry, but she wants to (she's taking a course this summer), and so when she discovered last fall that one can visit the Gobelins, and even tour their manufacturing plant, it became the most important thing she could possibly do while in Paris. Of course, once something becomes very very important, something will happen to prevent it from happening, and so we never did make it to the Gobelins last fall.

When Mom decided that she was coming back to Paris this spring, she told me that she simply must go to the Gobelins. The first step was to get tickets. Now, you can visit the galleries at the Gobelins all day long, six days a week. You just need to buy an admission ticket from the front desk. Touring the factory is somewhat more difficult. They run 3 tours a weeks: Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 1:00 to 2:30, and space is limited to 25 people. Wednesday is a no school day, so that was out, and the only Thursday that Mom was really going to be here (she flew in and out on Thursdays) was Ascension Day, and so there was no school then either. Then, of course, there was Blaise's schedule to contend with. I was pretty sure that Cherry would not enjoy the tour (and that nobody would particularly enjoy having her on the tour either), and so it would have to be a day when he would be able to spend the afternoon with her. That left May 11 as our only possibility.

After attempting to buy tickets online (I needed either a French credit card (not debit card) or to have the tickets sent to our address in Kansas using our American card), I decided that I was probably stuck going to the store to get the tickets. Fortunately (sort of) advanced ticket sales were done through FNAC (which probably stands for something, though I don't know what), and there was one at the next mall over. So one afternoon, Cherry and I headed over and bought our tickets.

Several weeks later, the date of our tour finally arrived. I reminded Cherry when we dropped her off at preschool that it would be Papa who picked her up, and we set off for Paris after an early lunch. We had been instructed to arrive 15 minutes prior to the tour's starting time, and were then able to spend some time wandering through the current exhibit at the gallery, which consisted primarily of Dutch and Flemish tapestries on loan from the King of Spain's collection. Shortly before our tour we headed out to the entryway, and the tour began.

I can tell you about what I observed on our tour. I cannot, unfortunately, tell you much about what the tour guide said because, naturally, the tour was in French, and my knowledge of crafting terminology in French is somewhat lacking. We started our tour in the weavers chapel, then headed over to the workshops. At one time, most of the weavers (and probably the dyers and spinners as well) who worked at the Gobelins lived on site, in a giant close. We walked past the "apartment" buildings that provided housing, and then up to our first workshop.

Here, the artists were working on tapis, which is translated into English as carpet. That doesn't describe what they were making very well though. These tapis were intended to be used as wall hangings, in the same way as tapestries, and some of them had very intricate designs indeed. They differed from tapestries in that where a tapestry is woven, and therefore largely flat, these had the tufted ends of the yarn providing the surface of the work. We spent some time watching the weavers at work. Tapis making is a painstakingly slow business: examine pattern, select piece of wool, double check pattern, put in a few stitches, check pattern again, repeat. Although the weavers fingers flew while they were putting in the stitches, they spent only about 15% of the time putting in the stitches and the remaining 85% making sure that they were going to be putting in the right stitches. Interestingly, we learned that the weavers are the ones who make the determinations about which colors to using in a piece, and that while the weaving is done primarily in natural light (though not when we visited because it was rainy), the color selection is done in artificial light, to reflect the lighting where the piece will be hung.

Next, we headed back across the close to the tapestry studio, where our guide talked about the work that they do in repairing old or damaged tapestries, and the work they do in duplicating old tapestries. Then, into the workshop we went. We were able to watch several weavers at work, on several different tapestries. They are woven sideways instead of from bottom to top, so that the strongest threads run across the work when it is hung. (Also, so that it is much easier to make vertical lines in the tapestry.) They were working on several more modern pieces, on duplicating an old tapestry from, perhaps, Versailles (she said, but I don't remember), and on a large tapestry to be hung to celebrate the anniversary of the bank of France, whose mate was being woven at Beauvais, another French tapestry workshop.

In which we take grandma to Disney

My parents never took us to Disney. Not Disneyland. Not Disneyworld. In fact, come to think of it, I don't think they ever took us to anything that could possibly be considered to be an amusement park of any kind. That doesn't mean that they didn't take us places. They did-- to national parks, state parks, big cities, remote Michigan towns, historical battlefields, farms--just not to Disney. And for years I was quite sure that we were the only children on the planet (or at least in the US) who had never been to there. (Blaise grew up on Florida, and trips to Disney were definitely part of his childhood.) Naturally, since my parents had never taken us to Disney, Mom had never been to Disney either.

When she came last fall, we had plans to go to Parc Disneyland, but ran into some problems. First, Cherry and Blaise were sick. Then, we ran into blackout dates for our park passes. Then it was cold and rainy. And then the kids had to go back to school. All of which meant that, of course, we didn't end up going to Disney at all, and so when she returned to visit us this spring, that it became one of the kids' top priorities to make sure Grandma went to Disney with them.

The weather on Saturday promised to be gorgeous, our passes were valid, and so we decided to go. One more question: what time? We could try to be there when the park opened at 10 and head home for dinner, or we could go in the early afternoon and stay until the park closed that evening. (Yes, I know we could go for the whole day, but that's too long for Cherry to handle.) Since the park (and Fantasyland in particular) is very pretty when it starts to get dark and the lights go on, we decided to go after lunch.

First stop inside the park, the FastPass line at Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, then off to the Phantom Manor, where Cherry whined and complained so much in the line that Blaise offered to take her home and spend the afternoon working while she whined there. She settled down a bit after that, and we were able to spend the rest of the day without incident.

Later on, we went over to get in the FastPass line at Big Thunder Mountain, equipped with our six passes, and decided which one of us would sit out with Cherry should that be necessary. The minimum height to ride is 102 cm, and when I had last measured Cherry, she was 101.5 cm, sock foot. Since she would be measured with shoes on, she probably had those extra 5 mm, but we couldn't know for certain until they decided. We reached the front of the queue and the "cast member" measured Cherry. Twice. Then she called her coworker who also measured her twice. Then the first cast member measured her again. Then she took out a little slip of paper and wrote down that Cherry had passed her measurement, and we went into the waiting line. Down on the ride platform they measured her again, though fortunately only once, and we climbed on. Her verdict? It was fun except at the end where they "turned all the lights out and I couldn't see anything."

After dinner we headed over to Buzz Lightyear, thrilled to see that the line was only 30 minutes, since it typically has quite a long line and the kids really like it. Thirty minutes later, we hadn't moved, but they had made several announcements about "technical difficulties" and how they would "get the ride fixed as soon as possible" and Sapphire and Blaise's FastPasses for Space Mountain were coming up, so we ducked under some railings and headed out the emergency exit.

On the way out we rode the carrousel, the tea cups, and Dumbo under the lights, and then headed out to the RER station.

In which we visit the Passages de Paris

On the walls of our apartment are many black and white prints of photos taken by Robert Doisneau, a French photographer. One that has always intrigued me shows a waiter hurrying down the Passage des Princes with a tray full of food. (And yes, given what we know about the photographer, I realize that it is highly likely that the photo was posed.) Behind him one sees what looks like an indoor street, with shops along the sides and a giant clock mounted high on the wall above him. What was this Passage des Princes? Did it still exist? Are there others like it in Paris?

Friday morning I decided to keep Cherry home from school again, seeing as how she was still feverish on Thursday evening. Blaise needed to work, however, so he wanted us out of the apartment--with Cherry. It seemed the perfect opportunity to see if we could find some of these passages and explore them.

First, a few notes on the history of the passages. They were built primarily during the 19th century, and provided a place for shopping and congregating away from the horses and clamor of the streets. As sidewalks became more prevalent and horses were replaced by other modes of transportation, these passageways began to fall out of favor. More recently, however, several have been restored, and new shops and restaurants have opened alongside the older ones.

Now, we needed to select our passages. Ideally, we would be able to find two (or even more) that we could move between on foot, without having to bother with busses or trains. Along boulevard Montmartre, I discovered that there were two passages, not just on the same road but virtually opposite one another along that road.

The first passage that we visited was Passage Jouffroy, the first of the Parisian passages to be heated. (If the heat is still working, they definitely did not have it turned on. It was C-O-L-D in there.) We walked past many stores carrying home decor, much of it antique (or at least fake antique--since I was just looking in the windows I wasn't really in a position to judge (not that I would be anyway)). Past a bookstore with very old books on shelves touching the ceiling. We stopped in a little shop with miniatures on the ground floor because Cherry wanted to look at the dollhouses, and discovered that upstairs was filled with classic wooden toys and puzzles for children (much too upscale to be for kids) as well as kits for making felted dolls, knits, and any number of other fiber objects. Of course my mother was thrilled, since her true love is fiber arts, and she ended up buying roving in a rainbow of colors so that she and the kids could make felt butterflies and teddy bears.

At the end of the passage, we noticed that it seemed to continue on the other side of the street, and so we crossed into a somewhat more dilapidated section which was full of more antique book and furniture sellers. (After we got home I discovered that this was not, in fact, an extension of Passage Jouffroy but rather Passage Verdeau, an entirely different passage.)

Next, we headed back toward the entrance to the passage, stopping at a candy shop for some nougat and olives au chocolat and across the street to the Passage des Panoramas, the earliest of the Parisian passages. We passed stamp dealers and coin dealers and more stamp dealers. In case you were wondering, buying a complete set of French stamps from 1917 is very expensive. From 1997, not so much. Where the Passage Jouffroy had tea shops and candy shops, the Passage des Panoramas had proper restaurants, and lots of them. By this point we had been walking for a couple of hours, it was almost noon, and we were all getting hungry. So we found a restaurant with a reasonable formule and stopped for lunch.

In which Mom arrives

Thursday morning, my mom (who shall for the near future be referred to simply as "Mom," mostly because I'm lazy and it saves me a few keystrokes) arrived in Paris, and of course, I needed to go to the airport to collect her. This should be a relatively simple task. She arrives and waits by the customs exit, I come by train to get her, we leave. Very simple. Of course, things were a bit more complicated because her flight was scheduled to arrive at 7:45 and what with needing to clear immigration and get her luggage and get back to our apartment, I couldn't both take Cherry to school and get there right away, so we agreed that she would just sit tight until 10:30 or so, and then we'd mosey on home together.

In the middle of the night Wednesday, Cherry woke up and informed me that she needed to "hoe up," which she then proceeded to do, fortunately not in the bed. And then she went back to sleep, only to wake up 3 hours later and inform me that she was hot and her head hurt. So I gave her Motrin and held her until her head stopped hurting and she could go back to sleep (on the couch). Naturally that meant that she wasn't going to be going to school on Thursday, which eliminated one of the issues with going to get Mom. Of course it introduced another one, namely, "what to do about Cherry." Option 1--take her with me--seemed out because not only would it expose everyone on the train to whatever she had, it would expose her to what everyone on the train had when her immune system was clearly already dealing with something. Option 2--make Blaise get Mom--didn't appeal to Blaise, who observed that he would definitely lose an entire morning's work. Option 3--leave Cherry with Blaise--didn't appeal to Blaise either (see the problem at option 2). Eventually option 3 won out on the grounds that he might possibly be able to get some email or something sent while caring for Cherry.

Then I had a brilliant idea. Blaise had to eat breakfast and take the kids to school anyway, so he wouldn't be able to start working before 9:15 or so no matter what. Since Mom's plane had landed by 8:00 (I checked the website), I could go to the airport then, and meet her early, and he would get more work done and she wouldn't have to spend as long sitting at the airport. It would all work out perfectly.

So I headed for the airport, arriving around 9:20, and headed for our agreed upon meeting spot--outside the customs area of Terminal 2A, which was exactly where we had met in October. Mom had said that she would find someplace to sit and knit in that area, and so I started looking for her as I approached. I didn't spot her on my first pass through the area, but that didn't particularly concern me. Perhaps the line at immigration had been long, or maybe she'd needed to find a bathroom when she got off the plane. Furthermore, there weren't all that many seats, so she might have needed to walk a ways to find one. Probably she just figured that she would walk back to the customs area around 10:15. I would just go further up and down the terminal and perhaps I'd even peek into the restaurants and cafés to see if I could spot her there. So I walked all the way from one end of terminal 2A to the opposite end of terminal 2C and back, peeking into all the seating areas and restaurants along the way. No luck.

By this time it was close to 10 and I was beginning to get a bit concerned. Well, perhaps her flight had come in at some other part of terminal 2. After all, things might still be messed up from the volcano, and they might have had to shuffle some planes around. No big deal, she was probably just waiting for me at terminal 2E or something like that. I would go to the information desk and confirm that the flight had landed where it was supposed to. So I waited my turn at the information desk, and asked them to confirm that her flight had indeed come in at terminal 2A, and was informed that it had in fact come in to terminal 1, which is a completely different building on the opposite end of the airport complex. (Even the RER has two stops.) The best way to get there? Take the airport shuttle train over.

Through terminals 2A and 2C. Through the train station. Out the doors and down the stairs to the shuttle. Board and wait while the train passes through a parking lot, Terminal 3, another parking lot, and at last, Terminal 1. By now I've learned my lesson. There are multiple halls to terminal 1 and I straight to the nearest information desk to figure out which one I need. The nearest elevator will take me to where I need to be, so I go up and look around. The area is small, and it fairly quickly becomes clear that Mom. is. not. there. Nor is she in the bathroom, or the one coffee shop. Perhaps she's still inside the baggage claim (2.5 hours after she landed? Not likely.). Back over to information where I confirm once more that this is where her flight landed, and tell the woman working at the desk that I can't find my Mom, who was supposed to wait right there until I came to get her. Evidently they don't page people, but they make an exception. I wait, anxiously for several minutes. Nothing.

What to do? Perhaps she's contacted Blaise? In any case, he's probably wondering what on earth has happened to me. I phone, tell him that I'm still at the airport and that Mom is missing and that they switched terminals and that. . .. He says he'll confirm the terminal for me, and has me talk to Cherry. My time runs out, and I'm out of change. I rush to the newsstand and buy the cheapest thing they have in order to get more. I call back. Her flight did in fact land at terminal 1, baggage claim 4, which I can see quite nicely through the window. Perhaps she's downstairs by the check in desks? I go back down the elevator and look around. No.

And then I hear, very faintly, an announcement, with my name, telling me to do something, though I can't figure out what it could be. Back up the elevator to the helpful information desk people. I tell them that I've heard my name, but couldn't understand where I was to go. My mother is waiting for me at terminal 2D they say, and offer to call back over there to tell her that I've been located.

Back down the elevator, the escalator, onto the shuttle, through the parking lot, terminal 3, the other parking lot, up an escalator and along the other side of terminal 2 to terminal 2D. And there she is, waiting for me. I tell her that she should have stayed where she landed and I would have found her. She says that the agreement was to meet where we had met before, and so she had made her way over to terminal 2 after her plane had landed, not realizing that there were 7 subterminals, all looking pretty much the same. She had thought that 2D looked familiar (it probably did, they all do) and had settled down to wait for me to pick her up there. When I didn't come by 10:45 she started to get worried, and thought that perhaps I had tried to meet her at terminal 1, and so convinced the information desk to have me paged.

I call Blaise to let him know that we're on our way back.

In which we visit the Cantal

As I have mentioned before, Blaise has two friends named Sébastien. Both of them are philosophers of mathematics and both of them are currently in Clermont-Ferrand. Sébastien I

(and I feel like I'm writing some bizarre version of The Cat in the Hat here) invited us to his home for dinner on Tuesday night. Sébastien II invited us to spend the weekend at his family's country house in the Cantal.

Friday evening, after spending the afternoon trying to drive up the Puy-du-Dôme and being thwarted by heavy fog that closed the access road (not like we would have been able to see anything anyway), we drove over to Sébastien's house in the suburbs of Clermont-Ferrand and waited for Sébastien and his wife to return from work. Then we headed out for the 2 hour drive to the Cantal, switching up the adults so that each car had one adult who knew where they were going, and the preschoolers since it was by that time clear that Cherry would be miserable riding in the car without me. (As it was she sat in almost complete silence the entire ride in Cathy's car.)

We arrived at the house around 8 o'clock, and pulled the cars into the side yard. A description of the house: It was a traditional farmhouse for that part of France, with the shelter for people on one end and that for the livestock on the other. Perhaps at one time there was a communicating door between the two parts, but the barn had long since been sold and so there was no more. Upstairs were two large rooms, one set up as a bedroom and the second as a sitting room, as well as a toilet and a smaller room which was used primarily for drying laundry. Downstairs, accessible only by going outside, there was a large room which was part sitting room, part dining room, part kitchen, with a large fireplace to one side. Along the back wall were a toilet room and a bathroom, and opposite the fireplace were two smaller bedrooms, one for the children and one for the parents. We had the upstairs, though we didn't spend much time there, and Sébastien and Cathy and their kids, Octave and Sylvia, had the downstairs.

Although we had big plans for all of the things we wanted to do and see during our visit, most of them were thwarted by rainy weather, sick kids, and the desire to get back to Paris ahead of the worst of the returning spring break traffic. We did get to do some things though.

First of all, we got to visit Sébastien's cousins' farm, which was located a literal stones throw from the house. We fed grass clippings to their (enormous) rabbits, and saw their geese and chickens. Then we stopped to see the cows. Only the Salers cows were in the barn in the morning, but we could see all the calves in the back part of the barn. Then we walked across to the building where they make cheese, both cantal and salers, and put blue shoe covers on (to protect the cheese from the farmyard mud, of course) and watched as Sébastien's cousin explained the cheese making process to us.

First, the milk is pumped, still warm, under the "road" and into a huge wooden vat, where cultures are added and the milk is stirred. Once it forms curds, the whole mess is turned out onto a big metal table lined with cheesecloth, and a big press is applied to the top to squeeze out the whey. After it stops dripping, the curd is cut into big chunks and turned and the weight is reapplied. This is repeated 10 times to ensure that all of the whey is removed from the cheese. Next there are a bunch of steps which were carefully explained to me in French, involving cutting the cheese up into little pieces and putting it into buckets and then into a mold that said "Salers" on it. (Salers is made between mid April and mid November. Cantal is made the rest of the year.) After it is shaped in the mold, the cheese is laid on a shelf to ripen and turned regularly to ensure proper aging and the development of a good rind. And then of course comes the best and most important part: eating it!

Also, there was time for playing outside in the yard, or garden as they called it. Mostly this was because the amount of time it looked like rain was imminent was substantially more than the amount of time it actually rained. The little girls played in the sand box and the play house, and Sapphire and Ezio (and Octave when he was feeling OK) played rugby with Sébastien and Blaise.

Before dinner on Saturday we went back over to the farm to watch the cows being milked. The Salers cattle had been joined by lots of Holsteins and a few Montebeliards, and the Sapphire and Ezio had fun climbing and sliding on massive hay bales. Cherry contented herself with grabbing handfuls of hay from the ground and throwing it into the food trough in front of the cows.

In which we explore Clermont-Ferrand

The University in Clermont-Ferrand which Blaise gave his talk at is involved in an exchange program with Kansas State. This meant that in addition to giving a talk to the philosophers there, Blaise was supposed to meet, at least briefly, with the woman in charge of the international exchange student program at the university. So Thursday morning he left after breakfast to go to meet with her and then afterwards to go to a philosophy of math discussion of some sort. (I must confess that I only sort of know what he did in Clermont-Ferrand work wise. I know he had some meetings and some talks and stuff like that, but I'm not really all that interested in the details.)

Then, he and I and the kids and both Sébastiens went out for lunch at a little restaurant that is owned and run by a friend of one of the Sébastiens (not the one who invited us over for dinner on Tuesday). The food was good. The conversation was good. The bathroom was up an impossibly narrow spiral staircase, and of course Cherry needed to go to the bathroom thrice, and Ezio once.

Afterwards, the second Sébastien took us for a walk around Clermont-Ferrand, showing us what there was to see. We started by walking over to the Cathédrale Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption, which is built out of black volcanic rock. Its twin black spires are visible (and easy to identify) from all over town. On the wall above one of the outer doors was an ode recognizing the supreme being, dating to the French revolution and later covered up. It was discovered recently during restoration, much to the horror of the priest, who wanted to have it removed, or at least recovered. Since it is of historical significance it remains uncovered.

Next we went to Notre-Dame-du-Port, which was the church in which Sébastien and his wife were married 1o years ago. Since then, the church has undergone significant work, and the dark interior of then has been clean and painted so that it is now a light yellow. Outside, we climbed the belvedere (viewpoint) to get a look at the outside of the church.

We wended our way back through the streets of Clermont-Ferrand, stopping at the wine shop of a friend of Sébastien so that the kids could use the bathroom. We bought some wine. And the owner began wrapping it in magenta tissue paper. And of course all three of my children promptly announced that they got the tissue paper when we got home. So Sébastien politely observed to his friend that there were 3 children, and only 2 pieces of tissue paper, thereby obtaining for us not 1 but 6 additional sheets of tissue, for which the children thanked him graciously.

In which we visit the Auvergne

The city of Clermont-Ferrand is located in a region of France called the Auvergne, and so, on Wednesday, when Blaise didn't have anything on his schedule in Clermont, we set off to explore the region. While we were at Sébastien's house, we had made a point of asking for advice as to where to go and what to see. After all, we had only a day, and I'm sure that we could easily have spent a week exploring the region. (For comparison, we spent a week in Perigord three years ago, and could easily have spent a second week without running out of things to do.)

We started out by heading to Besse, which is up in the mountains and very close to a big ski resort called Super Besse. We found parking, and walked into the old town. (There is an old town above which is very scenic and beautiful with lots of archways and narrow streets--beware of trying to follow your GPS, and a new town below which is also pretty but not particularly striking.)

At the center of town is the Église Saint-André, a romanesque church that was started during the 12th century (though not finished until many centuries later). We walked through it, enjoying the peace and the fact that it wasn't swarmed with tourists.

Next, Blaise wanted to find the house where Bourbaki was born. (For those of you who aren't mathematicians, Bourbaki is a French mathematician. For those of you who are purists, Bourbaki is actually the name taken by a group of French mathematicians, and so, of course, we were searching for the house where the idea of the group was hatched, rather than a specific individual.) In any case, we stopped by the tourist office to ask, and the woman working there indicated an area on the map. We dutifully headed over and begin searching carefully for a plaque of some kind (Blaise had been told that there was one). We walked up and down every street in that area of town, scrutinizing every building for the telltale plaque. Failure. Eventually I ran (since it was almost noon and the tourist office would be closing) back to the tourist office to ask for clarification. I was told that the sign had been taken/fallen down, but that the relevant building was on the corner, and was now an inn/restaurant. We decided not to go back for another look.

By then we were getting hungry, so we decided to find some lunch. We found a restaurant offering a reasonably priced formule for lunch, and decided to stop. Blaise and I had truffade and salad with blueberry tart (an Auvergnian specialty) for dessert. Sapphire and Ezio split fondue St. Nectaire and the accompanying blueberry tart. Cherry ate off everyone else's plates.

After lunch, we headed for Lac Pavin, which is a lake formed in a volcanic crater. We walked part way around the lake on a trail, and I spent the entire time convinced that Cherry, who didn't want to hold my hand, was going to wander distractedly off the trail and fall down the slope into the water.

Then we went to Saint Nectaire, which is another Auvergnian village. It is famous for two things: its thermal baths and its church. By this point Cherry had fallen asleep in the car, and so Blaise took the kids into the church while I sat in the car with Cherry and learned about ski resorts in the Auvergne. Once they were done, we switched jobs and I went into the church while they stayed in the car. I returned to see Cherry sitting proudly in my seat, and not at all eager to move, so I headed to a little shop up the road which purported to sell local sausages and cheeses to buy something to eat for supper.

In which we are invited for dinner

While we were in Clermont-Ferrand, one of Blaise's friends invited us to come to his house for dinner with his family Tuesday evening. Blaise had a full day of talks and meetings with people in the philosophy department in Clermont-Ferrand, and so the kids and I were on our own for much of the day. We spent the morning at the playground, though we were forced to come back to the hotel twice: the first time because Ezio decided that he desperately needed to have brought his soccer ball with him, and the second because Cherry needed to go to the bathroom and the toilet at the park was locked. Then we walked to the Petit Casino (which is a French grocery chain, not a place to gamble) and picked up bread and ham and chips and juice to go with our oranges for lunch.

After lunch I decided that Cherry should take a nap (hah!) since she had been up late the previous night and I figured that it would be another late night, so I sent Sapphire and Ezio into the other room with their books and DSs, and put Cherry in bed and waited for her to fall asleep. Eventually she did go to sleep, and by the time she finally woke up it was close to 4. Now, a problem: Blaise had said that he would probably be home sometime between 4:30 and 5:30, but he wasn't at all sure, and I didn't know at what point we would need to leave for his friend's house for dinner. Perhaps we could just play quietly in the room until Blaise got back? That worked fairly well until 4:30, but then the kids started asking, "When is Papa coming home? Is Papa coming home soon? Do you think Papa will be here soon?" and climbing on the furniture and bouncing off the walls and it became clear that we needed to get out of the hotel room before someone started pounding on the door or something (or someone) got broken. Of course now the problem was that we didn't know how long we could safely be gone for. What if Blaise came back with Sébastien and we were going to walk to their house and we weren't there? I left a note, hanging over the top of the door, which said that we had gone to the playground and that he should find us there if necessary, and we headed off.

We returned around 6, driven by Sapphire's concern that they would have left for supper without us and that we wouldn't be able to find them. The note was still hanging over the door. Blaise arrived a few minutes later, and we left soon thereafter.

Sébastien and his younger son were waiting for us when we arrived, and his wife and older son pulled up in their car as Blaise tried to park our monstrous vehicle. We all headed into the back yard. Cherry, of course, refused to so much as look at anyone, but Sapphire and Ezio immediately hit it off with Sébastien's sons, who are slightly younger than they are. They spent the next 45 minutes running around the backyard together, occasionally coming over to grab a carrot or olive or slice of sausage out of the bowls on the table. Cherry sat on my lap and ate cheese crunchies. The grown ups talked. Fortunately, Sébastien's wife speaks English, as does he, so conversation was easy from my side. Perhaps not so easy from their side. Their kids are also bilingual, having spent a year in school in Ontario, but I think most of the conversation among the kids was in French.

After dinner (which did not consist of little nibbles but of grilled pork and savory tartes and salad), the adults decided that it was getting awfully chilly and that we should all head inside. The kids headed for the living room where they watched a movie, and the grown ups headed for the table, where they did not. Cherry stayed safely entrenched on my lap. Then, dessert (chocolate cake with strawberries and whipped cream) and we gathered our kids and headed out to the car. As we left, their younger son was trying to convince his mom to let him eat the last slice of cake.

In which we explore Lugdunum

In case you were wondering, Lugdunum is the Roman name for Lyon, as Lutecia is the Roman name for Paris. Thanks in part to my son's addiction to Asterix comics, I have learned the Roman names for many places around Europe and the Middle East.

We woke up on Monday morning in our hotel in Lyon much earlier than I had been hoping, given our failure to go to bed at a reasonable hour. Our first order of business, after showering and dressing of course, was to find someplace where we could get some breakfast. Of course, we could have eaten breakfast at the hotel, but doing so would have increased the price of the stay substantially, and we were fairly certain that we could find a boulangerie that would allow all of us to eat for what one hotel breakfast would have cost.

We headed out towards the Saône River, hoping to spot a boulangerie along the way. Just before we reached the river, Blaise spotted one down a side street, so we stopped for viennoiserie: little brioches for Blaise, pain au chocolat for Cherry, torsades for the big kids, and a pain au raisins for me. Then we headed across the river with our food, heading for a playground with some benches. After we had eaten our breakfast (and discovered an extra pain au chocolat in the bottom of the bag) we walked through the streets, watching as the city got ready for the day.

We passed the funicular station to the top of the hill, and checked to see how much it would cost to ride to the top of the hill: almost 13€ round trip for our family, since there were no half price or free tickets. We decided to pass. A bit further on, we came to Saint-Jean-Baptiste (in French, but nice pictures), a beautiful cathedral built between the 12th and 15th centuries. Near the front is an astrological clock which dates from the 14th century. It gives the date, and relative positions of the sun, moon, and earth. Of course, given the date at which it was built, this was done using the assumption that the sun circled the earth, rather than the other way round. Evidently, the date will be accurate until 2019. (Perhaps we shouldn't let this be widely known, or it might become the basis for another end of the world theory.)

Next, we walked back to our hotel to check out, and dragged our luggage to the parking garage a half kilometer away. "Why didn't you pack a smaller suitcase of things for this hotel?" "Because we don't have any smaller suitcases." "Oh." We made it, eventually, and managed, with some maneuvering, to extract our vehicle. (Did I mention that we were driving an SUV? Not a vehicle particularly well suited to narrow underground French parking garages.)

We had a couple of hours before we needed to leave for Clermont-Ferrand (Blaise was giving a talk at 5, and wanted to be settled in our hotel before then), so we thought that perhaps we would see if we could drive to the Fourvière, at the top of the hill overlooking the river, and the destination of the funicular that we decided would be too expensive. We set the GPS and headed across the river and through a series of switchbacks to the top of the hill, then set out to find parking. Much to our amazement, we discovered that there was parking right in front of the Roman ruins, and that, despite our valiant attempts to find someplace to pay for it, we couldn't. Imagine, free parking right in front of where we wanted to go, in the 3rd biggest city in France.

We set off up the path to the top of the ruins, walking across stages (and discovering afterwards that everyone sitting on the seats could hear everything we said, thanks to the amazing acoustics) and up the steps to the top of the theatre. There we discovered a warren of rooms and passageways to explore, walking through arched water channels and doorways to see as much as we could. Eventually, we made our way across to the Odeon (little theatre), and walked across the stage, made of a rainbow stones from all over the known world, circa 400 AD. Amazingly, it appears completely unscathed by its exposure to the elements over time. At that point we headed back to our car, where we lunched on cookies and oranges (very healthy, I know), and headed for Clermont-Ferrand.

After passing through the plain of Gergovia, we arrived in Clermont-Ferrand, found our hotel, and settled in. Blaise left almost immediately for his talk, and I nursed my headache with a cup of coffee (which I should have drunk in the morning, before the headache started), and put away our things. The kids cooperatively played with PlayDoh. Then, we headed for the large park we had seen driving in, hoping that it might have a playground. It did, and so the kids played for an hour or so before we headed back to the hotel to wait for Blaise's return, and dinner.

In which there is a guest blogger

Today, Cherry went on a field trip. Here is what she had to say about it. (Translated from Cherryse by her mother)

We went to the Cité des Sciences. We had this camera. We played with the water. I also did a camera thing. We went to the building room and the smelling room. We rode a bus to get there. I sat by Lisa on the way and Inés on the way back. I went with Colleen and Nathan's daddy at the Cité. We went up some steps and down some steps. I got to do a painting--a movie painting thing. That was the funnest thing. And the other funnest thing was getting to go with Colleen and Nathan's dad.

In which we travel to Lyon

Blaise has a couple of professional friends in Clermont-Ferrand, in the center of France. Both of them, confusingly enough, are named Sébastien, and both, naturally, study philosophy of mathematics. Both of them, also, suggested that he might wish to come visit Clermont-Ferrand, and give a talk at one of their workshops, and one suggested that, should he desire to bring us with, he would be happy to put us up for a few days at his country house in the Cantal. So it was arranged. We would go to Central France for a week, and spend the first several days in Clermont-Ferrand and then the weekend at Sébastien's country house. In due time, I made arrangements to rent a car, picking it up on Sunday morning, and dropping it back off on the following Monday morning. Then, of course, Blaise rechecked the schedule, and discovered that our hotel reservation in Clermont-Ferrand wasn't actually due to begin until Monday night, and so we had to figure out what to do.

Obviously, the easiest thing would have been to change our car reservation, and to plan to pick it up on Monday morning instead of Sunday, thereby cutting our trip a day shorter but saving some cash. Instead, Blaise suggested that Lyon (the third largest city in France, in case you were wondering) was only a couple of hours from Clermont-Ferrand, and that, furthermore, the other Sébastien (i.e, the one without the country house) was from Lyon and would probably be more than happy to give us ideas about what we might like to do there. We could drive to Lyon on Sunday, spend the night and the morning on Monday, and then head for Clermont-Ferrand in time to check in to our hotel before Blaise had to give his talk at 5:00.

Of course Sébastien was happy to tell us what we should see in Lyon (far more than anyone could possibly fit into a long evening and a morning, no matter how determined they were). The next step was finding a hotel that could house all of us, no mean feat during spring vacation in a country where it seems that many hotels have only two person rooms. After sifting through the options on Booking.com, I found a well located hotel with two family rooms, one of which appeared to meet our needs and which was still available.

Sunday morning, Blaise took the train to the Gare de Lyon to pick up our rental car, and the kids and I got together our things for the trip. We bought a cellphone without a calling plan for the trip, and we had agreed that he would call and let the phone ring once when he got to the car, and then again when he found a parking place in front of the apartment, at which point we would drag our stuff (luggage, backpacks, and, of course, car seats) down the elevator. By the time we had waited 30 minutes after his first phone call, I had decided that his arrival must necessarily be imminent, and suggested to the kids that we begin the process of moving our things to a spot in front of the church. We could all take the first load down, and then Sapphire and Ezio could wait with our things while Cherry and I went up for another load. When we got down the second time, we were greeted by a breathless Ezio, with the news that "Papa has an SUV!" This was not at all what I had reserved, but evidently it was what the car rental place had available as an automatic, and so it's what we ended up with. After some difficulty getting the car seats installed (the headrests came forward over the seat, and Cherry's car seat is quite tall), we were off to Lyon.

Our drive was relatively uneventful. We stopped partway through to eat our picnic lunch at a roadside rest area, and the kids played for a little while on the playground after lunch. Sapphire was dismayed to discover that all of the toilets were squats because, she claims, she always ends up getting the back of her pants and shoes wet. Cherry, who ends up peeing outside with alarming regularity, was unfazed. I ended up holding Sapphire's hand while she squatted, which worked.

We arrived in Lyon without further incident, and found our hotel without much difficulty, and then another problem presented itself. Although we had reserved a parking space in the hotel garage, said garage was located a half kilometer away, and the temporary parking on the street in front of the hotel was full. I climbed out and went to check in while Blaise drove around the block, and then we all rode to the parking garage. Another problem: French parking garages are not designed for SUVs. Eventually we managed to get the car parked, and headed back to drop off our backpacks in our hotel room, which was very cool. The kids had their own room with 3 single beds, which was separated from our part of the room by the bathrooms (in proper French fashion, the toilet was in its own room) and two sets of doors.

Then, needing to take advantage of our brief stay in Lyon, we headed out. First, to the Place Bellecour, which, being located directly across the street from our hotel, was not much of a walk. Then we walked to to the Hotel de Ville, passing though some other squares on the way. On the way back, we stopped for dinner at a restaurant which claimed to serve authentic Lyonnais food. Then, back toward the hotel, with an impromptu detour to visit a memorial to one of the first hospitals in France. (It was torn down in the early 20th century, but the people of Lyon left (built?) a big stone tower as a memorial.) Then we spotted a sculpture of a tree covered by enormous flowers of all types and colors, so of course we had to go see that, and then the river was only a few steps away so we saw that. Then, back to the hotel where all three kids begged to be allowed to take a bath, something that they hadn't been able to do since we left the US. (In case you were worried, we do have a shower in Paris--just not a tub.) And Blaise prevailed on me to let them, despite the fact that it was already nearly 10:00.

In which we picnic at Buttes Chaumont

About a week before we left for Southern France, one of the people who is in France working with Mic Detlefsen's group suggested that several of us get together for a picnic. One of the couples who was only here for a few months would be leaving before we returned from the South, and the weather was supposed to be relatively nice. Blaise suggested that we go to Parc Buttes Chaumont (click here for pictures--not mine), since it is supposed to be quite nice and he had never been there.

So, Friday afternoon Sapphire made oatmeal raisin date walnut cookies, and I made tomato and beet salad, and then we got on the train to head into Paris. Blaise was already in Paris with all the other philosophers, since they had agreed to meet and discuss someone's paper before dinner, so it was just the kids and I heading into Paris. We got off the train at the Buttes Chaumont metro stop, and I confidently headed for the stairs. Ten flights of steps later, I was wondering how I could possibly have forgotten how far underground that station was. After all, the last time I was there (in 2007), I was wearing Cherry and toting a huge bag of food up all of those steps.

We headed for the playground, which we had agreed would make a good meeting place, and the kids ran and played until we saw everyone else coming up the hill from the other direction. Then we found a patch of grass, partly in the sun and partly in the shade, and spread out our sheets and blankets, and ate dinner.

After dinner, Blaise (and a few other people) wanted to explore the park, and so we gathered our stuff, found a trash bag that actually had space for our garbage (did I mention that the weather was nice, and so we had a lot of company) and headed out. First we made for the temple on top of an island hill in the middle of the lake, then we headed across the "suicide bridge" to the other side of the park. By that time it was getting close to time for them to close the park, and so we headed out the nearest entrance and continued to talk. The wife of one of the philosophers is a linguist, and she and Sapphire were having a conversation about whether or not animals actually talk.

In which we go to the Musée de l'Armée

When Blaise's parents visited last December, one of the things that his Dad wanted very much to do was to go to the Musée de l'Armée. His Mom was less interested in going, and so as it turned out, Blaise, Danny, Ezio, and Dad went to the Musée de l'Armée, while Sapphire, Cherry, Mom, and I went shopping and baked Christmas cookies.

I wanted to go to the Musée de l'Armée at some point during our stay in France though, and spring break seemed to present the perfect opportunity. Blaise was quite clear that he wouldn't be interested in returning during our stay in France, since they had been fairly thorough when they visited in December. Ezio was game to go back though, and we could go on a weekday and let Blaise have some peace and quiet for getting work done, something that can be in short supply when the kids are out of school for a couple of weeks.

So, Tuesday morning, we set out for the museum, with the idea that we would spend a couple of hours and then head home for a late lunch. Oh, how the best laid plans. . ..

We got off the train at Invalides, as directed by the RATP website, and headed up the stairs to the surface. Then we had to figure out which way to go. Ezio helpfully explained that it had taken them half an hour to figure out how to get the museum when they came in December, which was not particularly reassuring. Fortunately, I spotted a building that looked big and official, and decided that, despite the fact that it didn't have a visible sign, that it was likely to be the right place. We walked down Les Invalides toward it, stopping regularly to pick up pretty stones and put them in pockets (to the point that I was somewhat concerned that Cherry might lose her pants), and in through the gates.

Next job: find the ticket office. Although this sounds like it ought to be relatively simple, it turns out that it actually isn't so easy. The museum is inside a substantial complex, part of which is still used as a veterans' hospital (at one point it was entirely a hospital) and the various parts of the museum all have separate entrances. There were automatic ticket machines outside each of these entrances, but they dispensed only full price tickets: if you were eligible for free or reduced price tickets you had to go to the actual ticket office to get them. Since under 18s are free at all French national museums, that meant that we didn't want to use the dispensers.

As it turned out, the ticket office was located on the opposite end from where we had come in, so we stopped there, then decided to go see Napoleon's tomb, which is in a big dome at one end of the complex. They checked our tickets, and we headed inside to see the massive coffin (actually, it's 6 coffins, one inside the other), first from above, and then, after descending the stairs, from the side.

Back up to the top, and then Ezio decided that he wanted to show us the part that Grandpa had been most interested in. Over to the WWI and WWII section we went, showing our tickets at the door once again. We began at the end of the Franco-Prussian war, then on through WWI and WWII. We saw one of the taxis that was used to bring troops to the front in the first war, and video of the triumphal parade after the victory. We looked at maps that showed the progress of the Allied troops in driving the Axis out of France and Italy. We read bulletins explaining what the Nazis were going to do to resistors, and to their families.

By that time it was after noon, and we were hungry. Complicating things somewhat, we hadn't yet seen the medieval section of the museum, and Sapphire wanted to look at armor. What to do? Well, perhaps we could manage lunch at the museum cafeteria, assuming that it wasn't too pricey. Two sandwiches and two pieces of flan, divided 4 ways, set us back 14€ and filled all of our stomachs. (The sandwiches were huge.)

Then it was off to look at armor. Cherry was very excited to discover that there was some armor that would have fit her. It was actually made for a 5 or 6 year old, so it would probably have been a bit big for her, but that was a minor detail as far as she was concerned. It was clearly much too small for an adult. Ezio decided that he would photograph all the armored horses that we saw. Sapphire admired the fancy sword hilts. There was a temporary exhibit on how medieval manuscripts were made, complete with 4 illuminated texts to look at, through glass of course, and a display of the various tools and pigments that would have been used. In case you were wondering, the gold you see in medieval books is real gold, and while the scribes used quills that were fairly large (think of those that you've seen in illustrations), those used by the illuminators were tiny.

Back out to the courtyard, and into the complex church, which was built by Napoleon for the use of his injured soldiers. The inside is almost undecorated, except for the flags and pennants of conquered armies flying from the rafters, and the plaques to French military heroes decorating the pillars.

Finally, I wanted to see the Napoleonic exhibit, which was being renovated when we were in Paris before. We entered the building, showing our tickets once again, and headed up the stairs, where we were greeted by a sign informing us that the lights had been dimmed in order to better preserve the artifacts and admonishing us, therefore, not to take photographs. We saw Napoleon's horse, stuffed, of course, and displayed in a case. We watched movie/maps, which explained the tactics involved in a few of the important battles. We saw a life-sized mock up of what Napoleon's tent might have looked like. (In case you were wondering, he had things pretty good, even on military campaigns.) Then, we went up two more floors and looked, very briefly since the girls were getting whiny, at the scale models of various fortified cities, which were, evidently, used in planning military attacks and defenses.

And then, at last, we headed home, to discover that Blaise had had an extremely productive day, and hadn't, despite Sapphire's fears, been the least bit concerned about the length of our absence.