The weather app predicted 39c - given our failed attempt to escape the heat on the metro yesterday, this morning the kids and I headed to the Science and Industry museum, indoor fun! 

This past week has seen riots in Paris over Uber's new UberPop service so we'd avoided it so far. Our cab ride yesterday was preceded by a 15 minute wait at the cab rank in the boiling sun with every cab pulling over 50m up the road before the rank to pick up a new ride, when we eventually got one he refused to put on the air. So we decided to get an Uber ride out. The rate was 10% cheaper, the car was new and clean, the driver opened the door for the kids, gave them lollies and bottled water, and had the air cranking full pelt - and offered to play our spotify music if we wanted. I'd riot too if I was on the wrong end of that service gap.

This is the largest science museum in Europe, but I think by large they mean space. For interesting exhibits the London and even the Deutches in Munich have it beat. In the ticket queue boo thought we should know "Mum doesn't never comes to these things with us because she's already too smart, when she was a girl she read 14 books a week"! 

Inside we battled dusty french on some exhibits while others had easy english translations at hand. Anything interactive won outright though. They currently have a special expo for kids on love and sex for 9+, Zizi Sexuel l'expo. The kids loved both brushing up against boundaries and taking it in turns to see who was the most disgusted. Everything was accompanied with English explanations so Fid got engrossed in most of the exhibits, while Boo was happier just to poke fun at things. We also got to visit the planetarium, only in French, it's a testament to the visuals that the kids sat for nearly an hour in a cool dark room, laying back in a comfy sofa, listening to a french lecture and both stayed awake through it all. They came out bubbling with Blackholes and GPS and hubble, all without understanding any of the spoken content.

With no Disneyland in this trip, the kids had negotiated an amusement park into the stay, I'd stupidly mentioned the Fenton trip to Jardin d'Acclimatation out loud and some how it became a commitment. We met up with Gab back at Madeline, had some lunch then hopped another Uber ride to that gardens. By Le Concorde we'd realised the reason he was going the wrong way was because he wasn't our Uber ride - one Uber quirk, it isn't possible for him to charge us for a ride he hasn't accepted. We got out to rebook thinking he was going back to get his correct fair, but instead he waited and accepted our new booking. When we got back in the car it said the outside temp was 47c - we felt every notch of it!

Our first time at the Gardens, we can thank the Fentons for the pointer. The kids had an absolute blast running from attraction to better attraction. They were red as tomatoes running around in that crazy heat. They found all three rollercoasters, the enchanted river cruise, the grotto, the bouncy thingy - they loved it all. Gab and I slugged along behind them for awhile before setting up camp in a shady cafe and handing out tickets whenever they returned.

The park closes at 7pm, so we headed back to Madeline to find some dinner. It was wrong of me to complain about how many Americans there were around here. Tonight we were surrounded by Australians, perhaps google makes all the same recommendations? We didn't get home until 10:30, thought it felt more like 7. Tomorrow we head to London, here's hoping for some cooler weather then!