Luxembourg Boats and Puppets

The boys have been wanted to to sail the boats again in Luxembourg Garden, so we headed there today.

The boys had as much fun this time as they had last time.  There was less novelty this time, but there was more excitement in the knowledge of potential dangers, and the dangers befalling your boat…

Besides successful launches from the sides, and wind blown redirection, there are three major dangers.  First - getting stuck in the fountain.  Until some wind blows you out, the weight of the water from the fountain holds the boat hostage.  Jack’s boat was caught by the fountain, but quickly saved by a gust of wind.

Second – collision.  Owen’s boat collided with another one and was entangled for about 5 minutes before the boats got close enough to the edge to remedy.

Third – get caught on the duck house.  This is something you don’t want to have happen as it is a fairly permanent situation.  Poor Jack lost his boat to the duck house.  Luckily, it was about 2 minutes before our time was up. 

The boys loved “enduring” their tragedies.  They found it fun to exclaim over what was happening, talk abut what might happen next, and tell about what happened to them afterwards. 

(It pleased me to see them so positive in dealing with these little misadventures because I feel like some of their positive outlook come from my dealings with the misadventures that we have had while living in Paris.  I certainly don’t get excited by all the things that go differently than I plan, but I try hard to have a positive outlook when things do.)

Later in the afternoon (after the boys played at the park while I studied GRE vocabulary) we went to a little puppet show that has been in the Luxembourg for a very long time.  We see local people lining up for this show every day, and thought we would try it out. 

The first four rows were reserved for kids, so I couldn’t sit with the boys. (I hated not watching their faces!) Though I am sure that Owen understood much more than Jack, there was lots of physical comedy and both boys thought the show was pretty funny. 

It was a very loose interpretation of The Three Little Pigs.

Afterwards the boys played in the park again and I studied more vocab (boring!)  In the evening we headed to a large market nearby to get some food for the next few days.  We decided that tomorrow we will stay home and just relax!