Today I decided to let Katie pick our activities. She decided on the pet market on Isle de la Citie. This island in the Seine that features Notre Dame cathedral hosts a flower market most days of the week, but it becomes a pet market on Sunday. My animal loving girl had to see this. Ascending from the metro we walked right into a mad scene of parakeets and birds of all kinds in cages lining the pedestrian walkway. Walking along we found more birds than you could ever imagine, mainly parakeets, but others as well. We saw chickens of all sorts (both roosters and hens), ducks, doves, and even big fat plump pigeons. I thought of getting one for my brother who is afraid of pigeons, but decided against it. We also found all kinds of small furry animals, including mice, hamsters, gerbils, rats, guinea pigs and rabbits. Katie was in heaven at a large open box of baby rabbits and guinea pigs, immediately picking out the rabbit that she wanted me to buy her. It took all I had to convince her that we were not allowed to bring an animal home from Europe. “Katie, we can’t even bring home a banana!” I argued with her. She begrudgingly walked away from the bunny whom she had already named “Cutie Pie Snuggles”.
We then walked along the Seine going into a number of pet shops and looked at the poplar French pets. Not one poodle to be seen, but plenty of Jack Russell terriers, Yorkies and Chihuahuas. Fascinatingly, the cats were double the price of the dogs at these stores. The prices for the cats, all purebred, hovered between 1500-2000 Euros (!!!) while the dogs were around 700-1200 Euros. Who would pay $3000 for a cat at home? That would be insane, people give cats away!
My favorite display was a case of about 100 mice with a large spinning wire wheel. At least 50 mice were on the wheel at one time, spinning in a frenzy. Mice were on both the inside and the outside of the wheel and the ones on the outside kept flying off every so often. We watched it in fascination as the mice that flew off clambered right back on for a wild ride. They seemed to love it. We also saw some pets that we don’t sell anymore at home like Amazonian rain forest parrots, small turtles and ball pythons.
In the afternoon we went to the children’s puppet theater at Luxembourg gardens. While my survival French is holding up well here, it is up to even a children’s performance. The cost of the tickets was 9 E and I gave the seller a 20. She asked me in French if I could give her one more euro and she would give me back a ten. I stared at her blankly and she switched to English. I could just hear her thinking, “you can’t understand me and you are going to a French play? Good luck!”
But even though we couldn’t understand the dialogue, much of the humor of the puppets was universal as we followed the story of the famous puppet Guignol as he rescued a princes captured by pirates. We loved how the puppet involved the children in the performance, turning to the audience and asking them questions. They were laughing so hard as he talked to them, shouting out directions. At one point he needed to jump off the boat and kept asking the kids to count to three “Un, deux..” they’d count and he’d interrupt them “Un moment, I forgot my hat” Again, “Un, Deux, “ “I forgot my rope,” over and over five or six times until the children were shrieking in laughter. It was a very French way to spend a Sunday afternoon in the park.
Love the image of gangs of spinning mice, and little mice flying everywhere. Sammy the cat would love it.
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