Paris, Day 6: In Which the Family Splits Up and Does Different Stuff According to Their Interests

After our trip to the Louvre on Wednesday evening, Ed and I decided that Mary (and only Mary) would love to see the Egyptian and Greek and Roman collections, so we decided to split upon Saturday. Ed was willing to take Mary to the museum and I had been wanting to spend more time exploring the Bois de Vincennes. They had a marionette theatre in the park that I wanted to see, but the kids kept yelling that puppets were creepy and voted for the boat ride instead. I guess the Parisian puppet theaters will have to wait for my next trip.

Ed and Mary at the Louvre:

Ed decided to try to use the bicycles to get to the museum, and Mary did really well. They didn’t make it all the way, but cycling on Paris streets can be unnerving, especially for a younger rider. As for the Louvre, we were right. She loved it. She has decided that she loves all museums. Awesome.

Dad and Mary take a selfie

Ed and a Roman emperor take a selfie. 

Mary and Dad take turns taking pictures of each other.

What? Goofing around in the museum? She must be with Ed.

After a couple hours, Mary started to get tired.

Apparently, she was either underwhelmed by the Winged Victory, or she was exhausted. She does have the “Louvre Look.”

Candice and the Kids at the Bois de Vincennes

One of the largest parks in Paris, it includes a zoo, a castle, a three different botanical gardens, two or more lakes, and the national institute of sport. It’s much bigger than we could ever cross on foot in a day (with kids), so we just started at the end nearest to our house. We found a lovely playground (of course) and the kids entertained themselves in the sand for two hours (again). I only got them to leave by promising a boat ride on the lake, which proved to be lots of fun.

I have to confess, that I'm starting to get tired of hearing "Mom! Look at me!" or "Mom! I have to show you this RIGHT NOW!" coming from four different directions at once, all the time. Sometimes I just want to say "Could you all please just get joy out of whatever it is without needing my validation that it's cool/neat/fun/amazing/etc.?"

Isaac was very excited to try rowing. The oars were big, heavy and awkward, but he didn’t give up and he finally got the hang of it. I rowed for a while, and it wasn’t easy. Abby and Joe and Linda all got a chance to try, as well, so we didn’t go very far. But everyone had a great time. The kids loved the ducks and swans and weeping willows all around the lake.

There was a lot more fighting about rowing than this picture reveals.

After the boat ride, I acquiesced to the children’s demands and let them take one ride on the nouveau carousel. You know the kind I mean—the gaudy and tacky ones they bring with the traveling carnival at the Fourth of July. Abby rode on Jasmine’s flying carpet, Isaac and Linda rode in Dusty the airplane, and Joe was on a school bus. Why do kids love this kind of thing—three minutes of going up and down and around with flashing lights and bright colors? I guess we adults have our own sort of fun like this. We just call them cell phones.

We met up at home for dinner and then Ed and I, although tired, didn’t want to waste an evening. We looked up a jazz act we were interested in and headed down to the Left Bank for Café Laurent to hear a post-bob quartet of which we can no longer remember the name. Before they started we ordered some water and juice, and since I wanted something to snack on, Ed pointed to the table next to us and basically intimated “We’ll have what their having.” It turned out to be Greek caviar, which tasted pretty awful. Luckily, our bill didn’t break the bank, and since there was no cover charge on the band, we still felt we got more than our money’s worth. The music started at 9 and although we hadn’t intended to stay out late, we couldn’t tear ourselves away until after 11. The music was soulful, the talent was top-notch, and the surroundings were comfortable—a lovely evening.

We arrived about 20 minutes early and got the best seat in the house.

The trumpeter was very French—no smiling, impeccably dressed, skinny and suave. I played the trumpet in high school (never very well), and I used to listen to great trumpet jazz. This was as good as any recording I ever bought, maybe better simply because it was live.

None of our evenings out would be complete without sending a photo to all of Ed’s family on a WhatsApp chat to gloat about our adventures.