Training Archive: barbIn the 7 days ending 2008-04-26:
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| S | M | T | W | H | F | S | |||||||
Saturday Apr 26 | ||
| Running 50:00 [2] | |
| Route.
We are leaving today. We didn't make it to either Disneyland or Parc Asterix. | ||
Friday Apr 25 | ||
| Bicycling 1:00:00 [1] | |
| Versailles bike tour
First stop after the train to Versailles was the market to pick up picnic supplies. Marcus, our tour leader, helped us park our bikes neatly: 
The model village near the Petit Trianon, where Marie Antoinette pretended to be a simple country lady or shepherdess: 
We bicycled around the Grand Canal. The approach to gardening is excessively geometric. 
David and Isabel getting along in the Hall of Mirrors: 
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Thursday Apr 24 | ||
| Running 1:00:00 [2] | |
| Morning run to the Seine and then across to Ile de la Cite where I stretched next to Notre Dame. I found the souvenir Isabel has been trying to find again ever since she first saw it on a walk with Grandma and Grandpa. (Red beret with "Paris" and the Eiffel Tower in sequins.) To the Tuileries, where I stopped to watch a duck family (1 relaxed mother, 2 quacking dads, and 10 little ducklings) stroll right past my feet. Back via les Halles. Route
Rest of day: with the family to the Picasso museum, then pizza. We ran into someone we knew on the street!! Helen, from Seattle, who we met at cooking school on Tuesday. Next, the Holocaust memorial (heavy security!). Across the river to buy Isabel's beret, then on to the Musee d'Orsay for impressionism etc. Ended up in the 9th arrondissement for outrageously yummy dinner with my 2nd cousin Sue and her hunky new French dairy farmer boyfriend, and her 17-year-old son (my 2nd cousin once removed) who is about to take his baccalaureat. 
Dave had crepes flambee.  | ||
Wednesday Apr 23 | ||
| Note | |
Wednesday we took a da Vinci Code tour of Paris, starting at the Ritz Hotel, where Hemingway and Coco Chanel and other famous people have stayed. We walked to the grounds of the Louvre, talked about the paintings in the book, and checked out the inverted pyramid. Here is our tour guide, Alex, with a picture of the Caravaggio painting from the novel:
The largest glass pyramid was being cleaned by a robot. We walked across the river and past the Academie Francaise, where among other things they police the French language and try to get people to say things like "chien chaud" instead of "hot dog." Then into the Latin quarter and the church of St Sulpice, which has the Rose Line mentioned in the novel, running along the floor and up this obelisk. We checked out the heavy altar candlesticks that Silas supposedly used to smash the floor tile and get into the Brotherhood's hiding place. After the tour we had lunch with a former student of my father's. Then we went back to the Louvre but inside this time, and saw the Mona Lisa and many wondrous works of art. And I noticed this ancient Egyptian foretelling of the coming of Barack Obama: 
But maybe I was getting a little slap-happy by that point. All that walking and looking at stuff... | ||
Tuesday Apr 22 | ||
| Note | |
| The full set of our Paris photos is here.
Tuesday Dave, Isabel and I went to cooking school on the outskirts of Paris. We started by going to a market, where our teacher explained how to read the chalkboards describing the food for sale, the significance of the different categories of vegetables, how to tell if you are dealing with a farmer or a reseller, and so on. 
We learned the meaning of the different labels on poultry. She also taught us about buying from a fishmonger, though that wasn't on our menu. There you could buy snails and really big shrimp. We bought bread. Then we drove to our teacher's house where she taught us to cook chicken with a creamy tarragon sauce, and apple tart with a jasmine custard sauce. The first thing we did was make vegetable stock, using among other things an onion studded with a single clove; the combination of the onion and clove smells was pretty cool. Below, Isabel and Dave are measuring 50 grams of sugar for the custard. 
Putting together the tart: 
After the food was cooked, we sat down and ate it! And drank wine. Yum!!!! | ||
Monday Apr 21 | ||
| Bicycling 30:00 [2] | |
| Returned bikes to Fat Tire.
Spent the day walking around Paris with the family. Climbed the Eiffel Tower. | ||
Sunday Apr 20 | ||
| Bicycling 1:40:00 [2] | |
To the Gare de Lyon where we missed the train by about 3 minutes. Then back home with pains au chocolat for the family, and coffee. Then back to the Gare de Lyon for the next train.
Moret Veneux des Sables train station to the orienteering. Then back. Then back home in Paris. | ||
| Orienteering 1:55:00 [3] 9.27 km (12:24 / km) | |
| Time is not accurate - we started late because of missing the train, and I forgot to note what time we started. It was somewhere between 1:45 and 2:00. I actually beat Dave by a couple of minutes, which surprised me, since I saw him ahead of me repeatedly during the course - and he's faster. But if the course is long enough, then eventually he'll make mistakes and I have a chance.
This was really fun; mostly very runnable forest, some climb and a lot of fairly flat terrain. Map was 1:10,000 with 2.5m contours. Name of map is L'Homme Fossil. While Dave and I went on our orienteering adventure, the kids and my parents slept in and had a late breakfast. Then they went out and walked past the Pompidou Centre where a street artist nabbed David and drew a caricature of him, and then asked for 50 euros but the family bargained him down to 10. Then they went to the river and watched boats go by. They went to Ile de la Cite and looked at buildings. Then they went to see Notre Dame from the outside, and inside Saint Chapelle and the Conciergerie, the prison during the Reign of Terror. The grandparents ran out of money so they couldn't go get ice cream at Bertillon's. Grandpa suggested that one grandchild go to Denis Gillain (a former student of my father), and one grandchild go home with Grandma. After Grandpa avoided the question of what they'd do at the house of Denis Gillain, and how long it would take, the kids decided they'd both go home with Grandma. | ||
