........ Zoë Serenity Gooch........: November 2014

Thursday, November 20, 2014

Saturday, November 15, 2014

Today we had an easy day of going to the park... Zoe is now an expert pigeon feeder.. she had them literally eating out of her hand, lap, off her head, off her shoulder. Finn got brave and patient enough to hold his hand out and had little sparrows or finches eating out of his hand in a fly by and one point I saw a giant crow hop up his back on his head and off again.

Then we took the train to the best museum yet to the Musee Marmottan Monet museum. It was small enough but wonderful.. we saw a lot of Berthe Morrisot and Monets, including a bunch of artists he learned from. There was also a room of illuminated manuscripts and this cool wooden triptych of the virgin mary death's, upon looking at reminded Bruce and I of Dan Brown's books.

we then had Raclette in the Latin Quarter near Notre Dame, and had plans to go to Luxenbourg Gardens again to play with the boats, but it was sprinkling rain. Instead we need up at our favorite place for hot chocolate/lattes and munchies we found in a chocolate store (chocolate eggs for kids, ginger and dark chocolate for me, and apricot/chocolate/walnut for Bruce) and a play at the Eiffel Tower.

One more full day of fun before we have to say good bye to lovely Paris.

Here is your ticket

"Here is your ticket to the very expensive museum. Oh, and it is also a tuna can"

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“Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand.”
Chinese Proverb

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Dr. Amy Ashurst Gooch http://www.sci.utah.edu/people/agooch.html
Research Scientist amy.a.gooch at gmail.com
Scientific Computing and Imaging agooch at sci.utah.edu
University of Utah

979 353 1230 (Texas Virtual)
801 828 5038 (Cell)
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Friday, November 14, 2014

rain and Louvre today

We've had amazing weather.. except for today.. it was just drizzly rain, and I think with my sniffle, I'm happy to walk less. I don't think I was the only one. We didn't end up doing much today.. wandered through Louvre Egyptian, ate lots of good food, and came back early (5:30) .. the kids are playing with legos and having Siri search for weird things like "blonde haired girls" "barbies with girls" "Taylor Swift with boys".

Versaille yesterday

Yesterday we went to Versaille.. wow has it changed since we were last there. Bruce remembered how hard it was to find food, so we brought a picnic lunch, only to have it confiscated and given a bag check number for it (yes, we got it back). Knowing what I know now, I just would have handed them a bit of bread and kept most of the food in my bag.. they didn't double check.

Now there is a ton of restaurants, paths, lots of places to wander. We headed straight into the garden, down the t-shaped lake path. Lot of Parisiens were running, biking. They now rent golf carts for $35/half day and bikes for $11 to $27. We probably should have tried the bikes.

The kids loved the stroll and spent the first bit gathering sticks "for their fire".. Finn found a slug on a branch whom he named "sluggy", and we he wrote his journal entry for the day, all it said was "I saw slug". Zoe found a stick at some point that became her best friend.. we stopped for dinner later and she thought she lost it.. it was a very temper tantrum moment that was averted when I found "sticky" in my bag.

My favorite part of Versaille is the Queen's Hamlet.. it is beautiful.. quaint remake of what an ideal village would look like. It had ducks, geese, a swan, carp in the water who just nibbled under the bridge; a mill, winding staircases, gardens, and gardens full of carrots, artichokes; they had 3 cows, sheep, its turned into a small working farm with active care takers. We returned to the tradition of following a path and "getting lost".. i.e. we knew where we needed to go, had a detail map, but got a fence which was locked, saw a place to cross, but it was a giant moat.. somehow ended up in the research center. Bruce and I did a similar thing about 15 years ago when we visited. We finally came out a gate marked with a sign that probably said "don't go thru here"

It was an amazing amount of walking and we hit the palace for the last 15 minutes it was open. I told Finn about the secret passages that you can see in the walls of the palace and then he asked to go back to the Queen's palace so we could look for more secret passages. Wish I had used that earlier ;)

We finished the day with a lovely plate of cheese and meat and bread, and Zoe ate a hamburger.. I have to remember to ask them to cook the burgers more. Finn is basically existing on cheese and bread.

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

feeding birds at the park

Best after museum flowers ever

Centre du Pompidu Contemporary art

pushing boats

Pushing boats

Zoe

Today we met up with our friend Vidya Setlur, went to a really nice 2 hour lunch at and Indian restaurant .. the kids behaved amazingly for sitting so long. Afterwards we went to the Jardin des Luxenburg, where the kids pushed boats around the fountain. This was after they got rid of a hole loaf of stale bread to ducks and pigeons. I have a lot of wonderful pictures to show all of this, including Zoe with a lap full of pigeons.. she was so proud and excited.

around 4pm we went to the Centre de Pompidou to see the modern and contemporary art.. still not my thing, but it was fun to have fun drawing on the chalk board room.. too bad the chalk was down to slivers.

Then we ate in the latin quarter at a pizzeria and finished up with my new favorite chocolat chaud.. yummy.

The kids made up a game similar to War using the ticket stubs from the Metro on the way home.