PereLachaise Cemetary

Today we visited the Pere-Lachaise Cemetary. http://goparis.about.com/od/sightsattractions/p/Pere_Lachaise.htm

John's not feeling well - he has a bad cold or flu, so I took the kids out. First we went to the grocery store to get juice and lunch stuff. Asia picked out some hot dogs and strawberries. We can't get too much since we'd have to carry it all home. The kids are so much better now with walking long distance and carrying stuff. Not one complaint, though the grocery store is only 1/2 a block away or so. After lunch, we planned to go to the cemetary and have a snack there - the strawberries and drinks. When we got to the cemetary, we found one of the guard stations and asked for a map of the cemetary. Then I picked out a few people to find. The kids didn't know any of them. We picked 8 people to find but only found 4 of them before we ran out of time and energy. We found the graves for Rossini, Chopin, Jim Morrison, and Ledru-Rollin. We wanted to find Ledru-Rollin only because the main street we live near is named after him. After awhile at the cemetary, Asia started to get spooked out. She wouldn't even drink her Orangina or yogurt drink in the cemetary. She thought if she stayed near there or breathed in the cemetary, she could die. She also didn't like the lack of color and the dirt. Zach had a great time. I had him find the different graves while Asia was the photographer. That helped some. The last grave we looked for was Jim Morrison's. It was a little more difficult to find because it's not right on the main paths like the other's. We walked by it at least once and circled the area around it. I only found it because I saw people going to it. We found a few grassy areas to take a break in. The last one was near the crematorium, I think. First we played hide and go seek. Asia and I had to find Zach. The problem is that he kept moving around when he saw us. I filmed the search but ended the film before we found Zach since it was taking too much space on the camera. It was supposed to be like one of those reality shows. At the end, Asia and Zach filmed one of their Harry, Buzzard, and Goober shows. It's starting to become a theme to record these reality spots. John started it with the kids where John is Harry, Asia is Goober, and Zach is Buzzard. I think it's supposed to be a spoof off of the cable show, ICarly. Anyway, the kids get really crazy when filming one of their shows. I have to figure out how to get them on the net, but they're kinda long. After we filmed the show at the cemetary, some guard on his motorbike started yelling at us that the cemetary was closing. Then he drove on further to yell at some other people. He was herding us back to the main entrance. That was kind of funny considering that they were yelling in French and most of the visitors were not French. I just knew that ferme was closed so that's enough for me. At first I thought they were yelling at us for filming or because the kids were too loud.

After the cemetary, we went to one of the local parks and the kids played at the playground and in the sand. Zach was using his empty plastic Orangina bottle to make some interesting percussion sounds off of the bench we were sitting on. He really has an ear for rhythm. Then it looked like it was going to rain and it was 7:30 PM anyway, so we headed off to find somewhere to eat. We were going to go to this one place nearby on Ledru-Rollin that had some great chocolate mousse but it was closed. So we went down Rue de la Roquette to a place we went to before that looked like a coffee house. They actually have a children's menu, though not the biggest choices - ham or a hamburger patty. Zach ate it though. Asia shared some pasta and scallops with me. Then we shared dessert - ice cream and a really good brownie.