Day 2 (Thursday)

Thursday morning we headed out to the Musée de Arts et Métiers.  I have been excited about this museum from the beginning.  It is full of inventions.  

We saw Pascal's Arithmetic Machine and flying machines.  We saw looms and weights and measures.  We saw a camera in a bowler hat and robots.  We saw an apparatus for measuring the speed of light.  We saw an original Foucault pendulum. We saw a sundial with a lens that lit a tiny cannon at noon.  We saw train engines.  We saw a miniature Statue of Liberty.

Foucault's pendulum, the Statue of Liberty, old cars, and the flying machines were in an old church.  Miss E was fascinated by the stained glass windows.  I must admit the sun coming through them was breathtaking.



 After the museum, we got picnic supplies at the nearby grocery store.  We returned to the museum courtyard for our picnic.

Then we went searching for the birthplace of my husband's great great grandpa, Jean Baptiste Ripplinger.  We found it a few streets away at 73 Rue des Gravilliers.

At this point we wandered to the Centre Pompidou.  As we walked up to the modern art museum, Young A summed up his opinion, "Modern art is just big random structures made of steel."  After wandering through the museum, his opinion has changed, "Modern art can be anything, as long as it looks weird."

The escalators on the side of the building were fun.  The exhibit of spherical objects (balls, fishbowl, juice cart in the shape of an orange, a globe, etc.) arranged from smallest to largest, was probably the best received by our group.

By the time we got back to the apartment, the kids were worn out.  We spent the rest of the evening getting groceries and resting.

For a day that started with Miss S awake between 3 or 4 and about 7, and ended with a cranky cashier who disliked my English immensely, the day turned out pretty well.