Paris: Day 3

Wednesday, August 16th.

Today started out with the interactive Harry Potter exhibition at the Porte de Versailles convention center. We each had bracelets to tap at various points to participate in the different activities. Our names appeared on the Marauder's Map. We got to choose our house and wand, fight a Bogart, make a potion, get a prochecy from a glass divination ball and see ourselves in a pensieve memory. We went through Hagrid's hut and part of the Hogwarts grounds. The girls mounted brooms and tried to throw balls through Quiddith hoops. They went in the Ministry of Magic phone booth and Harry's cupboard under the stairs, and sat behind Doris Umbridge's desk.

They "traveled" by portkey and "harvested" mandrake roots. Then they briefly participated in a Battle of Hogwarts duel. On the way out, they posed with a cart, pretending they were going through the wall at track 9 3/4.

All along, there were displays of costumes and props from the various Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts movies. Maeva went crazy in the gift shop and would have liked to buy up all of the Ravenclaw items. However, she didn't have enough money for that so she settled on a set of earrings, a scrunchie and a winter hat.

Laureva bought herself a niffler bag charm.

From there, we walked to Melt slow cooked barbecue on Rue Cambronne as Maeva has been craving brisket and Sylvain wanted beef cheek. Laureva had a burger and I had potato salad and coleslaw. The potato salad was particularly tasty. The people were nice, it wasn't crowded and everyone's food was delicious. The mirrored ceiling was also fun:

We decided that it would be good for everyone to get a rest this afternoon, so we walked home from lunch to do that; arriving shortly before 3. Google Maps says that was 4.8km of walking so far for the day. Along the way we got a view of the top of the Eiffel Tower and passed by the Tour Montparnasse.

The girls read and played Switch: I caught up on blog posts, then joined Sylvain watching reruns of the French Who Wants to be a Millionnaire: 

As Thursday was going to be a big day, we decided to stay closoe to the evening: About 6:30, we set out for the thirteen-minute walk to Square Saint-Medard at the base of Rue Mouffetard. It's a scenic little place with a running fountain, cobbled streets and flowering plants. We found a table for drinks outside at Le Saint-Medard, just across from the fountain. The girls and Sylvain somehow got around to talking mental math and ended up calculating powers of two. Maeva got up to nearly the fifteenth, I think, before the number got so big she had a hard time remembering it.

We dined at an Italian restaurant called Les Filles across the square. Laureva and Sylvain shared gnocchi in cream sauce and a thick steak. Maeva also had the gnocchi in cream sauce and I had rigattoni with calamari in red sauce. Sylvain and I shared a bottle of chianti. The girls and I shared two panna cottas with mango sauce for dessert. The food was very nice. It was a warm evening and quite pleasant to be dining outside as the sun slowly set. Over dinner, conversation turned to past vacation memories, elementary school teachers and irresponsible pet owners, among other things.

Our evening excursion was just 2.2km on foot, bringing our walking total to a modest 7km for Wednesday.

Back at the apartment, we watched two more episodes of Young Sheldon, then turned in.