After sleeping late, Marilyn and I toured the Musee de Arts et Metiers, where we saw numerous examples of French technology, including a splendid Focault pendulum,an early Daguerre camera, and the Caselli Pantelegraph (the first fax machine)Part of the museum is housed in a an old church, which provides a dramatic setting, and also seems to offer an enigmatic commentary on the historical (and current day) conflicts between science and religion.
My favorite exhibit there was an airplane that I have never heard of before: The Avion 3, built by a frenchman named Clement Ader airplanes in the 1890's, and claimed to have made a flight on one of them in 1890, some 13 years before the Wright Brothers.
The Avion 3 is remarkable because it's wing structure is based on that of a bat--it looks, quite literally, like a bat plane. Ader claims to have made a flight of 900 feet with this plane in 1897, although few believe that he actually succeeded in any kind of prolonged powered flight with any of his machines. He remains quite well known in France, where he is considered the father of French aviation. I am amazed that in all my work on "The Wright Challenge" I had never come across him.
After visiting the museum, we went to the Budget office to rent a car for our trip. This required a tremendous amount of xeroxing of various forms by the woman in the office. The car we rented is a Peugot 107, which makes a Volkswagon Beetle look like a Hummer. We fearlessly (?) braved the rush-hour streets of Paris (the scooters are enough to drive you batty) to bring the car to a parking lot near our hotel, positioned for an early start the next day.
Bobbie joined us for dinner at a restaurant near the hotel that Marilyn had eaten at before, Le Noces de Jeanette. (The Wedding of Jeanette) Bobbie ordered something called an Andouillette AAAA, which she assumed would be some kind of sausage. I guess it was, in a manner of speaking. We found out later that it was a pig colon filled with pig intestines. The AAAA means it was given the highest rating by the people whose job it is to rate such things, but it still seemed virtually inedible to all of us. We decided the AAAA is the sound people make when they try to eat it. Sorry if we are offending any andouillette fans or raters, but we call ‘em like we see ‘em.)
Off to Normandy tomrorrow!
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