Day off with Zoe

Today was a French holiday, but I was on call for work, so after setting up the beamline, I decided to go into Grenoble with Zoe. I figured that if something bad happened at the beam, I could drop ZZ off at home and be back there within the acceptable time (happily, no problems occurred). We started off with a trip to the museum, where we saw the Balkenhol exhibit. I quite liked it but Zoe was generally unimpressed until she saw the room full of Penguins. Next, it was downstairs to see some of the permanent collection, where I saw a painting from Gerhard Richter's series of candles (familiar to many of us as the cover to Daydream Nation). From the musée, it was on to a park in the quartier St. Laurent. It met with Zoe's approval, except for the fact that there was no slide, so it was soon time to move on. Along the way, we passed a really cool looking cafe which was unfortunately closed. We had a lovely café and syrop de menthe right next to the pont Saint Laurent.

From there, it was on to the excellent, but chaotic park at the jardin de ville, where I received more questioning looks regarding my black eyed daughter.



After chasing Zoe around for a while, we left with the intention of buying some shelves at the IKEA, but it was a complete mad house, so I chickened out and left without even parking. Instead, we went to Espace Montagne, where zoe played on the kids climbing wall, and I tried on some fancy down jackets. For some reason Espace Montagne has organized their gigantic outerwear section according to brand, not function! So if you are looking for a shell, you have to traverse the entire floor looking at the various brands. Even so, it is more comfortable than the tiny Vieux Campeur, where every jerk outdoors enthusiast in Grenoble seems to go!