A Parisian Kind of Day

There are many reasons why religion is popular in Europe, but even hard core atheists can appreciate the fact that Christianity begets a plethora of holidays.  This Monday was a new one for me: "Second Easter."  It's also known as the Pentecost, and it occurs six weeks after Easter. Both France and Spain celebrate it, so the weekend gets extended one extra day.

Since we figured the museums and other attractions would be extra-crowded, and since Sue hates crowds, we decide to make this a "what's it like to live in Paris" kind of day. We took a long walk to the Tuilerie gardens from our house, in search of playgrounds and trampolines.  When I was here last, I remembered a long in-ground trampoline here, but now it appears there is just a smaller structure, mainly for younger kids. Nevertheless, the Tuileries had a great playground, and Bryce and Laurel got to mix it up with a few French kids with a game on some platforms with springs underneath.  The object was to jump from platform to platform, knocking the other kids off.  We really haven't been able to interact with too many other kids on this trip, so it was nice to see our kids still had their peer group social skills intact - even with a language barrier.

 

Bryce (hiding Laurel) on a spring platform

Once the kids got too hot, we wandered farther down the Tuileries until we found a pond with several handmade wooden sailboats in it.  The kids begged us to let them rent their own.  Since this was low tech and non-electronic, we didn't think it would be very interesting to them, but we agreed anyway.  To our surprise, they played with these sail boats for almost an hour.  The vendor assigned each of them a sailboat, and gave each a stick.  They would position the boat, and then push it with the stick so that it would sail to the other end of the pond, propelled by the wind.  Getting your boat to go through the fountain in the middle was worth extra bragging points.  It seemed like this game had been here for hundreds of years, and about ten other kids were doing it as well.

By the time we were done, it was close to 3 PM, so we went in search of a light lunch that everyone would eat. We settled on a cafe, and ordered the "mixed cheese board".  Not expecting much, we were pleasantly delighted by what we received: a selection of some of the tastiest cheeses ever, with some Spain-like ham to boot.  In particular, the Camenbert and one of the Brie variants were outrageously good.  The Camenbert was just blue-cheesy enough to have a bite, but super smooth and not overpowering.  The Brie was just right creamy but not heavy.  All of us enjoyed sharing this feast of cheese, not wanting it to end.

Later that night, after visiting our friends, we sought out the lit-up Eiffel Tower. It is magnificent during the day, but at night it's even more awe inspiring.  And once an hour it gets a sparkling light treatment for five minutes or so, making the visual even more special.  We were fortunate enough to catch the sparkle show. Photographs don't really do it justice, but here goes anyway: