In which we should have called ahead

Today was a two part day. In the morning, Sapphire and I went shopping. 

After lunch, we stuck a couple of packages of Speculoos cookies in my new purse, along with a water bottle, and headed off for the Jardin du Luxembourg, where we intended to spend the balance of the afternoon playing at the massive playground at the park. At around a mile walk, the playground is close enough to our apartment to make paying for the train or bus seem a bit silly, but far enough away to represent somewhat of a commitment when traveling there on foot. And so, when we arrived at the playground and discovered the entire thing wrapped in yellow caution tape and crawling with men tightening bolts, trimming tree branches, painting equipment, etc. and a sign announcing that the play area would be closed on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday of that week (Wednesday is a no school day, so the playground was open that day), well, there was nothing to do for it but to break open and polish off the package of cookies before we regrouped and figured out what else we might do. 

We considered a trip to the Parc Floral, but by the time we took the bus there it would have been past 4:00, and as the Parc Floral was closed and locked at 5:00, that hardly seemed worth the time. Some research (the French SIM card and internet plan again prove invaluable)  revealed that the Jardin des Tuileries was supposed to have a good playground, and so we headed off in that direction. Alas, we had not gone very far before Ezio started to complain that his ankles and calves, and so, while the kids sat in the window of a store front, I once again pulled up the map of the area and looked for somewhere to go. We were close to Sèvres-Babylone, and there was, if I remembered correctly, a decent playground in the little park right there at the metro stop. We could go to the park, the kids could play for a while, and then we could hop the train right there and take it the few stops back home. 

Away to Sèvres-Babylone we went, the kids' spirits lifted by the prospect of a decent playground as a reward for all of the trudging that we had done. The entrance to the park was much as I had remembered it, other than the fact that it appeared that all of the lawns were now open to traffic, and the playground was just around the corner. And the playground was wonderful, as long as all of your kids were under the age of seven, which is exactly what my kids were the last time we were at that park. We chalked it up as a failed excursion, bought metro tickets, and headed for home.