Still springing

Hi all, Chris here.

Quick note: try this cool fare finder to help plan your trip to Paris. Or other places I guess, but who would want that??? It's the only one I've found that lets you search multiple days at the same time, and then buy the tickets from wherever you want.

It is definitely spring now (winter ended Thursday) with low-70s and sunshine. Maybe the flowers will bloom now - apparently that's usually in May but with the low temps they just haven't exploded yet. The sun isn't setting until close to 10pm nowadays, making it hard to get to bed at a reasonable time, but after our tiring weekend the boys crashed hard right at 8pm.

You had your 3-day weekend last week for Memorial Day, we had one this week for Pentecôte, a/k/a Whitsun, a/k/a the seventh Sunday after Easter (celebrated on Monday of course). Apparently it's a disputed holiday now, but we don't really understand why.

Anyway, the highlights of our last week included a Wednesday-afternoon trip to Cite des Enfants, the cool high-tech kids' playgrounds at the Cite des Sciences, where we'd gone for the Star Wars exhibit a month or so ago. (After visiting that exhibit, we realized the boys really hadn't been properly educated, so Cath sent us the original trilogy on DVD and we've watched, oh, 13 hours of Star Wars in the past two weeks.) The museum has an area for 3-5 year olds and a separate, much larger one for 5-12 year olds. Carter and his buddy Thomas, along with Thomas' mom Jacqueline and 2-year-old brother David, went to the big one. I followed Calvin around the little one. I thought he might be envious, but he was completely absorbed. Too bad I forgot I had the camera with me.

We raced home to meet Betsy because we went to dinner that night with our friend Vickie from Arrowine. We ate at Aux Lyonnais, an historic bistro now run by famed chef Alain Ducasse. Food and company were excellent.

Friday I went on a randonee, along the Chemin Jean Racine. It's a path first taken and described by the 17th-century writer, who would travel it from the Abbey where he worked to the town of Chevreuse for wine, women, and song. Apparently Racine, Pascal, and the other founders of the French enlightenment managed to piss off Louis XIV, who had the Abbey destroyed. But it's still pretty, mostly fields surrounded by walls, with a little jewel box of a chapel still standing.



Saturday we went on a pique-nique with new friends Melissa and David, who we met through Betsy's high-school friend David. We went to Parc des Buttes Chaumont in the northeastern part of Paris. The weather was quite nice and the picnic and wandering hit the spot after a relatively dreary weather week.

Yesterday we took it easy, and today, the aforementioned Pentecote holiday, we went for a long bike ride. It's kinda stressful with Carter on his own bike, even with bike lanes, so we ventured out of the city to a "Coulee Vert" (greenway) I'd read about. It's along the TGV line and runs out 15km or so from the Paris border. The ride inside Paris is nice too, mostly bike lanes (some shared with buses and taxis - yikes!) and dedicated bike sidewalks. The greenway was nice and protected, with lots of gardens and parks along the way, as well as light industrial, residential, and trainyard views. We forgot the camera, but swear it was lovely.

So we begin another four-day week (3.5 for the boys). Carter and I head to Germany on Saturday, ahead of the USA - Czech Republic match to open our boys' World Cup journey. Go Yanks!

We'll type and talk to you soon.