off the beaten track

Chloe’s birthday! She opened one present in the morning when she woke, then we headed out to the Jardin d’Acclimation. It wasn’t obvious of it was going to rain or not, so we kept our fingers crossed. We bought a book of tickets and headed in, along with busloads of kids. Our first stop was the Enchanted River, where we took a nice boat ride around a river. From there, we ended up in the carnival area and the girls rode two rollercoasters. Chloe wanted to try the bumper cars, but didn’t figure out how to make her car go until the time was just about up, so she went a second time and had a blast!

We walked through the little zoo, then went to the water play area, but it was really too cold out to make it very fun. We had paninis at the little restaurant, then the girls went to jump on the trampoline. Chloe got to jump for 7 minutes on trampoline #7 on 7/7, her 7th birthday! The girls decided to use their final tickets on the dragon rollercoaster, then we headed back to the metro.

It was drizzling at the Grande Arche when we arrived and was pouring by the time we got to the top. We wandered around the computer museum while waiting for the rain to stop. We went out and looked at the view, but the wind was strong and chilly. After descending, we took the metro to Les Halles, but the children’s garden was closed because of the rain. We walked to Pompidou, then by Hotel de Ville where there was a neat exhibit about gardening. out front. We passed Notre Dame, and Chloe soon fell asleep. We wound our way home, stopping at a grocery store.

Barbara hadn’t left for her dinner yet, so we had a little birthday party for Chloe. I worked on photos and other things during the evening.