Subtitled: San goes to work. I got up at the crack of 7:30 this morning to get ready for my day of meetings at the OECD. If you really want the boring details, let me know; otherwise, suffice to say that it was a day in an office talking to lots of folks about really interesting (to me anyway) stuff which I’ll write up later.
Otherwise, the rest of the clan slept late and headed out for la petite dejeuner a the the local patisserie before venturing back to the old city to visit the crypt by Notre Dame. Not really what it sounds like: more like the basements of Roman settlements. Some excitement was provided by a local demonstration with the gendarme in attendance and everything. The attendant at the exhibit was most insistent that the family come in and shut the door to keep out the demonstrators. The roving reporters for this entry (Duncan and Gillian) relate that although their visit was short, it was still cool to see stuff from the first and second century and models of Roman settlements.
A short wanter throught the Ile de Cite past the odd Pompidou center brought the clan to the museum of arts and sciences which was apparently the find of the trip. The museum passes had run out so Frank had to buy a ticket but there was no queue to worry about and they apparently had the place pretty much to themselves except from some giggling pre-teen German girls. Three votes for this museum being really cool. Gillian’s favorite exhibit was the telegraph with digital decoder; Duncan liked the science and technology exhibit with the super computers, lasers and robots (gee, wouldn’t have guessed that 😉 and Frank liked the transportation section which had lots of old cars (another shocker!)
They grabbed sandwiches and crepes from a roadside stand and wandered into a vast underground mall which Duncan is trying very hard to actually locate on a map so there may be more details (and photos) later.
Then home where they arrived in enough time to put the kettle on before mom got home from work. After a short debriefing, we were out again en mass to head to the massive department store sales and see if we could get the hang of this “shopping in Paris” thing. In a word: no. We hit Lafayette first -the crowds were unbelievable! I gave up after the third floor of women’s clothes where I couldn’t find anything that worked for me – I think that the shopping gene skipped the women in my family because I’m not only not good at it but I don’t really think it’s fun! So we headed to the kids department. Here we had much more luck; Duncan found a great shirt and Gillian found a sundress and some really cool Italian shoes. We were all set to checkout when they announced that the computers were down and they couldn’t take credit cards. Well, having a whole 20 euros in my pocket, that wasn’t going to work so we abandoned ship and tried the department store next door which was a complete bust.
So we headed for the nearest bistro and thoroughly enjoyed our last real meal in Paris. Took the metro home in time to catch the twinkling lights on the Eiffel Tower one last time (they have some special lights they rigged up for the millenium that flash for 10 minutes every hour after dark until 1 a.m.) and now it’s time for bed. We’ll pack in the morning and then get the train through the chunnel to London!
/san/
(Family pedometer reading: 27, 406 or 13 miles. I only managed about 13, 678 or about 6 miles since I worked all day!)
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