I saw a colorful sculpture garden out the window of the modern art museum last Sunday, but when I got outside, I couldn't find it. Today we stumbled upon it. It's actually a fountain in the summer time - all the colored characters spray water. Some clever teacher was having her 2nd graders run laps around the perimeter before going into the museum, probably trying to wear the kids down a little.
Since it was predicted to rain, we went in search of the Covered Passages - glass-domed alleyways lined with shops and restaurants. The first one we found must have been near a school, because there were students sitting in the hallway with their sketchbooks drawing the ceiling structure.
We wandered over to the St Germain section of the left bank - the "Medieval" side. I went into several book and paper shops, but didn't want to carry anything back in the rain. You could easily get lost around here, because everything winds around. I read that when they were originally building everything, they didn't concern themselves with any kind of city planning. Everyone needed to be near the river, so buildings were just separated with dirt paths. Later they paved everything over, so the streets look like giant spider webs. Courtney uses her little pocket map to get around; I use my GPS.
We stopped at a little cafe for lunch. Courtney ordered the "plat du jour," which turned out to be an enormous lamb shank with noodles and a salad.
We learned a valuable lesson today - don't eat French chocolate before bedtime. We each had one little square of this bar while watching a movie before going to bed, and ended up not being able to fall asleep until after midnight.
