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Though I doubt Sonja would care if we only went to the 4 or 5 parks in our immediate neighborhood, for my own enjoyment I plan to take her a bit farther afield. With this in mind on Wednesday we went to Parc de La Villette. This is a huge park in eastern Paris that used to be slaughterhouses before the invention of trucks with cold storage. It was designed by the famous architect Bernard Tschumi. It was an interesting experience. The playground was entirely fenced in, and to get in you had to go through a small building with a lot of security guards. Inside there were separate areas for different age groups. There were these amazing low zip lines for the older children and an air bounce and giant water mattress for the little ones. It was an absolute mad house. Daycares bring large groups of children to public parks, so there were many more kids than adults. Sonja was one of the littlest kids there, but she seemed to hold her own.
I had my second drawing class today. It was held at Sacré-Cœur, right around the corner from us. It is so nice to spend a couple of hours enjoying and drawing the amazing view. After class, I called Ken on my cell phone and discovered he was just on the other side of Sacré-Cœur at the playground with Sonja. In the short distance between where I was and where they were, a harvest festival had sprung up. So, we walked around to the little booths tasting and buying wine, apricots in wine, sandwiches, mushrooms, and other tidbits. It made for a lovely afternoon.
Now Sonja is napping and Ken is at a park using the free wi-fi to get some work done.
BTW, I think I’ve discovered the root of the “French Paradox,” wherein the French eat decadently, yet stay thin. The answer is they climb 1,000 stairs a day. (Not exaggerating). Between the 100 steps down (and up again) to the metro and the 100 steps up to the main street (and down again), I think I could eat five chocolaty desserts a day and still fit into my pants.
Tomorrow we have no classes, so we will probably take a day trip somewhere – off to consult our big pile of guide books and choose a destination.
