Oli's First Big Outing

Two Saturdays ago, we took little Oliver on his first big outing. Before that, he had been on short walks around the neighborhood, to the doctor, to church, and to the store... but this was much more ambitious. We decided to visit the eclectic, vibrant part of Paris known as The Marais. We started on Rue des Rosiers, the heart of the historic Jewish quarter, where we all bought falafel for lunch:

We then camped out on the steps of an old school to chow down:

On the facade of the school was a plaque, instructing its viewers, "Do not forget" about the 165 children from this very school who were deported to the Nazi concentration camps and exterminated there during WW2. My mother and I had just finished reading Sarah's Key (which I recommend, by the way), a book that told not only the story of Jewish children at that time but also the role of the French government in their suffering, a sad story indeed:

Ironically, directly across the street was a reminder of the ideals of the French republic - liberty, equality, and brotherhood... all of which seemed to be absent at the time of the deportation:

Once we had finished eating, we made our way through the Marais toward the Place des Vosges and came across a shop bearing a name we liked:

The Place des Vosges, a square dating back to the 17th century, was lovely, and we thoroughly enjoyed some downtime there:

We even visited the garden of the Hotel de Sully, a mansion just off the square:

Our real purpose of going there, though, was to visit the home of famous romantic writer Victor Hugo, author of The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Les Miserables. His former apartment, overlooking the square contained, among other things, his very interesting writing desk, which was set up so that he had to stand to use it... which did not look comfortable to me:

Sweet Little Oliver was being such an angel that we even had time for a drink at a wonderfully Parisian cafe right on the Place des Vosges:

All in all, I'd say it was a wonderfully successful first big outing... Just a taste of what's to come (seriously, I have a week's worth of sight-seeing that he participated in still to post, so stay tuned!).