Boys' Day

Today I (Nic) stayed home with Ethan while Deb and Gwyneth went to visit the Louvre in Paris. The girls will have to report on that adventure. Somehow I couldn't imagine taking Ethan to the Louvre. Thoughts of chasing him through halls of priceless art didn't appeal to me. So he and I went to the zoo and the park instead, and I got to experience some of Deb's world. Today was a good day to take off as I think Fabien and I finally figured out the problem we've been working on - albeit with a counterexample, and not the theorem. It's possible that it isn't even correct as the details have not been verified carefully, but anyway I had a pleasant feeling today thinking that it was settled. It's been nice to allow myself to be consumed by mathematics again for a while and if it pans out like I think it will from here then I'll be happy and ready to come home.

At any rate Ethan and I got to the zoo around 10h30-11, although I'm not really sure as my watch stopped working a couple of weeks ago. Since then I have no concept of time. We walked around the school groups to see the animals Deb and the kids saw previously and ate lunch. Mostly Ethan wanted to climb on things so we went to the nearby park afterwards to play. There was another large batch of schoolkids there (still don't understand the French school system). Ethan had to work around them to use the equipment. One of them was a boy who was particularly interested in Ethan and I, and the fact that we spoke English. That boy pretty much followed Ethan around the whole time, occasionally asking me things in French, which I occasionally understood. He managed to say "Hello" to Ethan many times and get a hello back. I tried to teach him "How are you?" but he couldn't pronounce any of the words. In a related incident, as we started back toward home a man on a bench said something to Ethan, and I said "Il parle anglais seulement" to which he replied "Manchester United?" and "Taxi?". I guess those were the only English words he knew.

After a slowish walk home, and a little computer time, Ethan fell asleep. Now since I'm done blogging I guess I'll have to other things like the dishes...fun!