France pt deux

 So it has been a little bit since I was in France, but I promised a later update.

Since I stayed in Nantes for most of the trip, I did stuff in Nantes, not Paris.  I DID go to Paris for a little over a day, though.

While in Nantes, I got to tour a castle (which gave a history of the city as well, the kids "loved" it). It was right in the center of the city next to the cathedral (it's a shame the cathedral won't reopen until next year at the earliest). To make up for the lack of cathedral, I dragged the kids with me to the Church of St. Nicholas, which was actually quite beautiful. Although the kids resisted at first, I could tell they were awed the moment they stepped inside.

I also went to their Natural History Museum and completely geeked out over the specimens (none were huge or famous, but they were all very interesting).

The kids and I went to the Isle of Machines, a warehouse that houses a bunch of robots and machines, which all imitate nature. THAT WAS AWESOME. We saw a robotic chameleon catch a fly, drove a giant ant, flew in a mechanical heron, and got to ride on a truly massive mechanical elephant. The kids loved.  I loved it.  I highly recommend it.

When we went, they also had a race (might've been the first annual race) between 2 mechanical dogs. They were big (like car-sized) and one of them drooled incessantly. The entire town turned out to see it.

Of course, there's a lot of culture in France... I had to shove it down my kids' throats. We went to an art museum and at first they were bored and awful. But then I had an inspiration. I saw a painting of Jesus walking down stairs towards a crowd with light shining down on him, turned to my daughter, and said, "What's everybody looking at? Is there something on my face?"  She cracked up.  We started making commentary for most of the pieces and the kids ended up enjoying themselves. We also found a new favorite piece of art... a crowd of people celebrating while they have a cat in a purrito and are force-feeding it (while the cat glares at everyone like it is planning their destruction). THIS WAS IN THE 1300s! People don't change. And neither do cats.

We ate a lot of crepe. We all had snails. We ate well. I was proud of the kids for trying new foods. Which, incidentally, McDonald's in France is very different. Reusable cups and french fry holders, bleu cheese burgers, different sauces on the burgers... it had a patisserie inside it!

As I said, we did spend a day in Paris, but I didn't realize that the Rugby World Cup started that weekend and Paris was FULL. We were able to walk the Champs des Elysee and get to the top of the Arc de Triomph, and went at the perfect time. While we looked out over the city, the Eiffel Tower lit up for us. It was awesome.

Unfortunately, pretty much everything else was booked. And they were booked for like a month out. Still, we walked around Paris, got to see Notre Dame (it is looking pretty good, only the central pillar collapsed, they saved the ceiling, and they plan on opening it to tourists again maybe next year), went to the Louvre (which was chaotic, huge and chaotic), got to be grifted (yeah, I saw you reach into my wallet and take that 20 out. I took it back and if I ever go back and they try that fake charity stuff with me again, I will absolutely go no-holds-barred on them), strolled along the Seine... It was a pretty good day.

So that was my trip to France in a nutshell. Thank you, Google Translate app, for the few instances where I actually needed you.