Seeking the Sciences

After our 2 days of walking, stair-climbing and constantly being on 'high alert', Paris had exhausted us, so much so, that there was a lot that I would have loved to have seen again from my trip 5 years ago, but time and proximity to our hotel stopped us from seeing the real beauty of Paris. In someways, it's probably a good idea that we didn't go to places like the cultural charm of the Latin Quarter and the gorgeous back streets north of the Louvre, as I think walking those streets with two pubescent boys would probably ruin the romance of it all. I think next time I visit Paris, I must do so with a lover, not a girlfriend or my boys and really get a sense of the romance...

So, after a trip to the laundromat and seeing a stationery car door open on a speeding ambulance with sirens blarring, ripping the side mirror off and shattering the passenger side window, we enjoyed another breakfast at my favourite little bistro in Grands Boulevards. We then ventured out to the north east to the Cite des Sciences et de l'Industrie at Porte de la Villette. It's a high-tech science museum with interactive science experiments, a Geodome called the 'Geome' where you can watch IMax style movies, and plenty of research and innovation coming from the French schools of Industrial Design. They had designed a super computer that can download 15 million books in 2 seconds. They had a whole section on Habitee Innovation (essentially, home innovation) and what was disappointing for my boys who were keen to see the innovation and future models of where technology will see us in the next 20-30 years, they had more interesting information on 'material technology,' especially for energy efficiency in homes and using renewable resources to create plastics, like rice & corn instead of crude oil, coal and animal oil. For instance, they were working out a way to recreate the light source in glow worms to insert into wallpaper, to make instant, no-cost energy mood lighting. Ingenious!

That was really the extent of our day. Off to get a car tomorrow and travel through the heart of France.