Chasse au tresor

Today being Wednesday, we all enjoyed many enriching and fun activities. I've been told we're making people jealous with our blog, so I do want to mention that we spent the morning cleaning the apartment - even in Paris this unglamourous work has to get done! Then, the three of us (Jonah was at school) packed up some sandwiches and walked to the Pompidou Center. One highlight of the Pompidou Center is always the cool ride up the escalator in a tube on the outside of the building. We also saw a couple of very good modern art exhibits (Ella especially liked the Dadaism - featuring a Mono Lisa with a mustache and the ever popular urinal by Duchamp). Abe and Ella also did some sketching. Have you ever heard someone looking at modern art declare, "That's not art, a child could draw that"? Well, judge for yourself (see Ella's drawing above).

In the afternoon, I learned how to make tarte a l'ongion, eclairs, and a few other delicious French pastries in my very fast paced and hard to follow baking class. Meanwhile, Abe took Ella to Bercy for a treasure hunt. The hunt was on the theme of the movies. They had to go from place to place finding about 30 clues and answering the questions about films and film making (E.g., what was the name of the French brothers who pioneered cinematography?) Luckily it was multiple choice! Abe's French must be better than he thought (or Ella's is), because they managed to find, read, and answer all of the clues. Ella can now send the completed form in for a prize - a ticket to a movie, I think. She told me, "This day was perfect." I remain very loyal to Wednesday.

By the way, as all French school children apparently know, the pioneers of cinematography were the Lumiere brothers.