Museums, Hospitality, Lightning, and Thunder

The last two days were the most relaxed we've had.

On Friday, we split up because Suzie and my mom wanted to shop. In the morning I took the boys to the Musee des Arts et Metiers, which contains exhibits about the invention of various things. Housed in a handsome cathedral built between the 11th and 13th centuries, it was very well done, displaying the artifacts according to various themes (measurement, materials, construction, communication, transportation, etc.) It contained things that I (and the boys) found really interesting: very early telescopes, microscopes, mechanical computational machines, computers (including a Cray supercomputer from the 1980s that took up an enormous amount of space in order to obtain the now incredibly slow speed of 265 MHz), typewriters (including one with a double-sized keyboard, with separate keys for capitals and lower-case letters), steam engines (including an enormous steam-powered wagon from 1798), bicycles, cars, phonograph records, tape recorders, lasers, etc. In the chapel, hung from the highest point in the church, was (so it said) one of the original pendulums used by Foucault to show the rotation of the earth. At noon, one of the museum's employees gave a demonstration and lecture (in French) about Foucault to about 8 of us, of which I could get about 1/16th of (he kept asking me "Comprendez vous?" and I kept lying, "un peu").


After that we met up again with Suzie and had lunch (large, delicious, and relatively inexpensive) near the Pompidou Center. We then walked past the Hotel de Ville to the Ile St. Louis and along the Seine. At this point, the boys and Suzie decided to go home, and I stayed and walked to the Latin Quarter (maybe my favorite part of Paris so far, but there are so many interesting parts that it is difficult to choose) to visit the Musee National du Moyen Age, which is partially housed in the ruins of Roman baths dating from 200 a.d., and partially in a building constructed in the 15th century. I had been looking forward to visiting this museum, but for some reason it was a disappointment. The museum was poorly lit and hot, and the artifacts -- almost all of them religious, not surprising given the primacy of the church in the Middle Ages -- became oppressive after a while. Or maybe that was the point of the museum, to try to capture the feel of life during that time, in which case the museum succeeded.




In the evening, we had one of the nicest experiences we've ever had. The parents of the wife in the family in whose apartment we are staying (Laurence) live about three blocks away. They have been very helpful to us, and they invited us over to their apartment on Friday for drinks and hors d'oeurves. We went over at 7:30, and had the best time. In addition to Laurence's parents, her younger sister was there also, and they were among the nicest, friendliest, easy-going, congenial, down-to-earth, gracious people I have ever met. We sat and had a conversation in French (mostly Suzie, until the second glass of champagne started taking effect) and English about various things, and they had prepared many delicious things to eat (quiche, sausages in croissants [they laughed at our expression "pigs in a blanket"], the most delicious cantaloupe I've ever had, charcuterie, chocolates, various kinds of nuts, I can't remember it all). It was so civilized ... just perfect. And they had us over for this wonderful feast solely out of the goodness of their hearts. It will be a memory of Paris that will stay with me forever.

That night, the boys had an experience they will never forget. It had been intermittently rainy all day, but at about 3 in the morning a full scale lightning and thunderstorm hit. I mostly slept through it, but the boys got up and went out on the balcony and watched the show. They talked and talked about it the next day. For me, a Midwesterner, thunderstorms were commonplace, but the boys were amazed, and were hoping for more today (but so far they have been disappointed).