Only in Paris: Museums, Scooters and Food
This week can be summarized by 3 words: museums, scooters and food.
Museums:
We spent a good amount of time this week at museums. And I
have determined that Pierce is just about the worst possible age for museums.
He now knows enough that he will not stay in the stroller, but if you let him
out he runs around like a wild man and tries to touch EVERYTHING. I am pretty
convinced that the security guards tag us as soon as we walk in the doors because
they circle us like hawks, just waiting for Pierce to breath within 2 feet of a
prized heirloom so that they can swoop in and yell at me. Needless to say,
museum attendance is not a relaxing experience, but there is just so much cool stuff to
see and learn that I can’t give it up!! So, this week’s highlights included:
Adventure day at the Paris History Museum. We have been there before, but not for a while. I knew we hadn’t gotten to see everything last time, but I honestly had no idea how much more there was to see. That place is deceptively huge! Pierce’s favorite part was a tiny “Piercy door” that he just sat in front of and opened and closed a million times. Gideon’s favorite was actually not even in the museum, but the fire station down the street. There we got to learn about Paris' emergency alert system from the 1940's in which people had to run down the street to one of the many strategically located posts and break the glass. That would in turn alert the fire station who would send help. My personal favorite was seeing an intriguing, yet disturbing pair of guillotine earrings from the 1700’s. Yikes!! Only in Paris.
Cluny Museum: After watching The Sword and the Stone for a family movie night, we decided to check out one of the world's best medieval history museums. It is housed partially in an old Roman bath...so, you get some 1st century history too! This museum’s crown jewel is “the Lady and the Unicorn” which is a tapestry from the 1500’s. We had fun looking for all the clues in each of the 6 tapestries to see which of the 5 senses was being depicted and got to try our hand at surmising what the 6th sense might be. Additionally, we enjoyed seeing the heads of statuary from Notre Dame which were decapitated during the revolution by angry mobs who mistakenly believed they depicted kings. The heads, which were assumed to have been lost, where miraculously found in the 1970's and are now housed in the Cluny! Gideon's only critique of the museum was that, "it didn't really have anything from the movie."
n Liberation Museum: Tuesday, I took the boys to a
museum about the occupation and liberation of Paris during World War II. The
day before, during quiet time, Gideon and I talked about WW2 and drew a map
where we showed who was on which team. So, Gideon was very excited by seeing
all the maps and a little disappointed that there weren’t more pictures of
Hitler (since we had learned about him.) Fortunately, he decided that Charles de Gaulle was a pretty good substitute since he also had a noteworthy mustache.
Pierce was appeased for the first bit by crackers, so I actually got to look at
some of the plaques! I was blown away. It probably seems obvious, but now that we have
lived in Paris, it all felt so much more real. Seeing pictures of Nazi flags on
streets I now know well, or looking at maps and seeing that there were Jewish ghettos in places I'm now familiar with, awakened me to a new understanding
of the reality of what happened here.
Scooters:
Pierce has really improved in his scootering abilities this
week. We have gone on a couple of outings to the post office, the park, the pharmacy, etc. And Pierce just LOVES the feeling of self-sufficiency and
freedom that comes from not being strapped into the stroller. His steering
still needs some work, so we have to be careful to guardrail him from going
into the road. Additionally, it is not unusual for him to run into a random
passerby, but he always politely gets off and says, “pardon.” Haha. I feel bad, but not THAT bad because it’s just so dang cute! Gideon continues
to rock the scooter and it has been delightful to watch them enjoying scooter
togetherness. On one of our outings to the bois, we scootered up to a group of
construction workers who were working on removing some large logs. But, rather
than using large machines like we would see in the states, they were using a
large work horse! It was so cool to watch!! Only in France!
Food:
Let’s be honest, this word could probably describe every
week here, but we did get to try a couple of fun things this week. First, I
have been wanting to do a root vegetable buffet for a while now and this week
we finally did it! All winter long there has been an impressive array of vegetables
at the store that I had never seen before. So, this week I grabbed a couple and
brought them home. We tried black radishes, rutabaga, and parsnips. Unfortunately
our turnips got taken at check out because the price sticker somehow got lost.
(Side note, here grocery shopping for produce involves you weighing your own
produce before getting in line at checkout. If you forget to weigh it and get a
price sticker, they won’t sell it to you…. So, don’t forget!) Anyway, what we
learned is that black radishes are pretty nasty on their own, but can be tolerable
and even yummy when eaten with other things. We also learned that parsnips are
GOLLY GOODNESS delicious! They may be an old vegetable, but they are the way of
the future!! Make way for the parsnip.
Additionally, each week we have been trying to taste a new
kind of cheese. This week we tried Neufchatel which seemed particularly
appropriate because it is typically sold in heart shapes. According to Wikipedia
it, “should not be confused with the American version of the cheese, which is a
factory manufactured lower fat, higher moisture content, unaged alternative to
American cream cheese.” So, don't even think about assuming it tastes like cream cheese... although the middle part does in fact, taste like cream cheese.
This week I realized for the first time since moving to France, that I have started taking things for granted. Now that we have been here 7 months, I have started forgetting to look up at the beautiful apartment buildings when I walk down the street. I have started forgetting to gaze in wonder as I run past our chateaux. I have forgotten to admire the lobster display in our local cafe window and forgotten to be amazed by the fact that all the signs are in French. It is amazing to me how we can get accustomed to even the most remarkable things and forget to be amazed by the incredible blessings all around us. I'm grateful for this wake up call and hope we can take full advantage of all the things that are only in Paris.
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