Flash McQueen

We woke up to another overcast morning but today, we had a rainy-day plan in place! So after remembering to put our rain coats on, we took the metro to the Musee de Herbs (translates to Sprout Museum but in the case, sprouts refers to children!). They had a beautifully curated Keith Herring exhibit that was displayed and sized just for kids. Now this is not a regular kids museum like in the US where it is a big free-for-all. Here, you need a reservation for a particular tour and you are lead through the museum in groups of children who are the same age discussing the art work and interacting with the activities they had put together. Afterwards is an art workshop that is similarly structured. One of the activities was using clay to make a car like a Keith Herring piece featured in the exhibit. One of the boys was referring to his creation as Flash McQueen - it looks like Pixar characters translate here!

The whole morning was en francais so it really put all of our language skills to the test. There was not another tourist in sight so we really got to see what the locals do with their kids. We all had a blast!

We needed sustenance after all that art so we returned to Chez Denise for steak frites and Ile Flottante. Jacqui was playing restaurant later in the day and explained the dessert this way to her 'customer' (Charlotte) ... 'it's whipped cream floating in ice cream soup - you'll love it'.

After a couple quiet hours in the afternoon, we took Natalie to Musee L'Orangerie which is the proud exhibition space for 8 huge Monet canvasses in his water lilies series. These 2 rooms were built specifically as Monet had directed to display these works and it was to great effect. After closing down the museum, we walked over to Palais Garnier hoping we could score last minute tickets for the second to last opera this season - Cosi Fan Tutti. After a l-o-n-g wait, we were able to grab tickets for 2 box seats. It was a fantastic show but afterwards we were ready for a substantial dinner. We walked over to the 5th and had a hearty dinner at Les Papilles before collapsing into bed. All in all, a banner day.