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.