I’m working from home today. A few minutes ago, Kaeta wondered in and asked me (apropos of nothing) what’s at the top of the Eiffel Tower. Naturally, I googled, “top of the eiffel tower,” and I was rewarded with a youtube video taken from up there.
The video’s not all that interesting, but hey, now I know what the view looks like from the top of the Eiffel Tower. Pretty cool so far!
Then, because I know she loves maps, we looked up the Eiffel Tower on google maps.
This was immensely satisfying! After looking around Paris for a minute, we decided to watch the youtube video again, but this time, we paused it when we saw something interesting (like the Seine River). Then we’d go to the map and find the same thing there, and learn its name. For example, there’s a beautiful park just south-east of the tower called the Parc du Champs de Mars — Champ de Mars means “Field of Mars”, after Mars the god of war. It was named for its original use of military drills. (thank you, Wikipedia!)
Anyway, we had a good time talking about all that! I love getting unexpected questions from the kids.