In which we spend Christmas at the Magic Kingdom

Ever since we started dating, Blaise and I (and the kids) have spent Christmas in Atlanta with his family. Of course, this year we weren't going to be able to do that, given the cost of international plane tickets for 5 people. That meant we needed to find something else to do on Christmas Day.

When we bought our Disney passes last summer, we noticed both that Disney was open on Christmas Day, and that our passes were valid on Christmas. (We have about 30 days when our passes don't work over the course of the year. There is a pass that works all 365 days a year, but we judged that it wasn't worth spending the extra 30€ a person for it.) Naturally, it seemed like it would be fun to go to Disney on Christmas, and we expected that it probably wouldn't be that busy either, after all, don't people have better things to do on Christmas Day?

Shortly before Blaise's parents left (so about 2 weeks before Christmas), the RER A went on strike. We figured the strike would surely be over by Christmas, since none of the other transport strikes since we've been here have lasted for more than a few days, and most have been only a single day. Christmas Day arrived and the strike was still going on, though it seemed to be weakening. The claim on the RATP website was that they were running 3 trains out of 4, which worked out to 4 or 5 trains an hour. Not too bad, even though we wouldn't know until we got there exactly which 3 out of 4 trains were running.

We headed for the RER station around 10:00, and walked down to a completely deserted platform. Evidently, a train had just left; further evidence that there would be trains running with some regularity. At 10:25, the signs on the platform announced that our train was currently at La Defense, on the opposite side of Paris, about 35 minutes away. We watched the signs update as the train passed through all the stations between La Defense and Val de Fontenay, then noticed that the arriving train was only going to Torcy rather than all the way to Marne-la-Vallée and Parc Disneyland. No matter, we would get on anyway, and just pick up the next train from Torcy. Perhaps they were running trains between Torcy and Marne-la-Vallée? We arrived at Torcy after a 20 minute ride, and discovered that virtually everyone on the (extremely packed) train was waiting for the next train to go the rest of the way to Disney. We also discovered that the next train was at . . . La Defense, and would not be arriving for an hour or so. Once it finally did arrive it was also completely packed, but we managed to shoehorn everyone from the previous train onto this one.

Around 12:30 we arrived at Disney and headed for the Disney Studios, which we hadn't visited before. Blaise was excited about the prospect of riding some of the roller coasters in that part of the park, so we headed over to the Rock 'n' Roller Coaster, which claimed to have a fairly short wait. We then discovered that although Sapphire was tall enough to ride, Ezio was just a fraction of an inch too short, and would have to wait outside with Cherry and I while Blaise and Sapphire rode together. He sobbed through their entire ride about the unfairness of it. Ezio was tall enough to ride the Tower of Terror with Blaise and Sapphire though, while Cherry and I tried (unsuccessfully) to stay warm in a gift shop.

We headed over to the main park after that, since the other coaster was closed for repairs, and we weren't particularly interested in sitting through any of the shows. We rode a few rides, and then headed for the exit, and over to the RER station. According to the signs there, our train would not be departing for another 40 minutes, so rather than sit on the station platform for that long, we went up to the Marché de Noël outside Disney Village. We ended up catching a second train 10 minutes later than our intended train, and had our car almost entirely to ourselves the whole way home. (The first train had reached sardine-like levels five minutes before leaving the station. I think we were still the only ones who chose to wait, even though the second train was on the board well before the first left.)

In which we celebrate Christmas Eve

In France, the traditional Christmas meal is eaten on Christmas Eve night, after midnight mass, and is quite elaborate, with many courses, and, of course, a bûche de Noël to finish the meal. We began the process of preparation on Wednesday. There were a couple of complications.
1) We weren't going to drag our kids to midnight mass. Perhaps more relevantly, we weren't going to force all the other people at midnight mass to listen to our exhausted 3 year old scream through the entire service, so we would be eating earlier than midnight.
2) We had some unexpected expenses early in the month, and payday was Christmas Day, so we had 60€ remaining with which to buy food for our feast. (Not to mention Christmas Day itself, and the day before Christmas.) That meant we wouldn't be having the traditional foie gras, oysters, three kinds of roast game, cheese plate, etc. The bûche was nonnegotiable.

We ultimately decided on Boeuf Bourguignon for dinner, along with mashed potatoes, salad, and brussels sprouts. We bought a bûche at the local bakery. (Next year, I'm going to make one for Christmas dinner. Consider this as laying claim to planning the dessert!)

Christmas Eve morning we went to the library to pick out some new books. Sapphire discovered that they have tons of Babysitter's Club books. I discovered that it isn't easy to find books that are difficult enough to challenge Ezio, but not too intense for a not quite 7 year old. Unfortunately, he's pretty much exhausted the Asterix comics at this point.

After lunch, I started cooking. Blaise stopped at the ATM and discovered that we'd been paid a few days early, so we took out some cash for our Christmas Day plans.

Dinner was very good, as was the cake. I'm happy to report that my children like brussels sprouts. Afterwards, Cherry went to bed, and Ezio and Sapphire and I played some cards.

In which we go for a walk

It's been a rather damp and chilly December here in Paris (which I understand is nothing out of the ordinary), and Wednesday was no exception. By Wednesday evening, things had dried out a little bit, and so after dinner we all headed out for a walk. (Between the weather and Cherry's stomach bug, we'd been stuck inside more than was good, and Ezio was beginning to climb the walls.) Sapphire and Blaise had discovered a big apartment building with lots of decorations a few nights earlier, and Sapphire was very excited about showing it to us.

We headed off, up the steps across the street. When I saw which direction we were generally heading, I suggested that we swing by the Mairie on our way to the apartment building. Fontenay-sous-Bois had set up a bit of a Christmas forest in front of the town hall, complete with an atelier de Père Noël (Santa's workshop) in a little cottage. The kids and I had seen it during the day, but wanted to see what it looked like lit up, and Blaise hadn't seen it at all. Since we were the only people there, they had great fun chasing each other through the lanes while Blaise and I chatted and watched them run.

After 15 minutes or so, I suggested that we head over to the "long building" as Sapphire called it. (It's right next to what she calls the "tall building".) We can see this building from our apartment, and from there it looks quite ordinary, but we walked around to the other side of the building that night. Most of the building was pretty ordinary looking, but there were probably 20 balconies that were lit up like Christmas trees, each different of course. We admired the lights, and the kids chased each other around for a while. Then we realized that the area they were chasing each other in had a 6 foot drop off to a parking area on the other side, so we rounded up the kids and headed for home.

In which Rebekah wraps up the events of the last couple of weeks

In a desperate attempt to get current, and because we didn't do anything that was all that exciting recently, I'm going to attempt to write a single post which covers the time from December 10th until the 22nd.

December 10--Blaise and his parents and brother visit the Louvre.

December 11--Blaise's parents and brother leave for Atlanta.

December 12--Our trip to the library to get new books is complicated by the fact that the RER A is on strike. (Actually, it's still on strike, though things seem to be easing somewhat.)

December 13--Both the RER A and the RER E are on strike. We stay home.

December 14--Today is the beginning of the last week of school before Christmas break.

December 15--Blaise gets a letter with his social security number on it. Yippee! Now he has health coverage. (Actually, so do the rest of us, and we have all along, but he won't have to pay up front and get reimbursed any more.) Ezio's goggles get stolen at swimming, which is part of the regular school curriculum here.

December 16--The kids and I take the train into the city to go to the Cité des Enfants. All three kids go to the big kids section, which is overrun by centre de loisirs kids. (The centre de loisirs is the name given to the before/after school care, as well as the care given on Wednesdays and during school vacations. It's run at the schools by the municipality, and cost is entirely dependent on family size and income.)

December 17--Sapphire and Ezio have their Christmas lunch at school, complete with 3 different desserts, and venison terrine. Cherry's maternelle has a Christmas program after dinner. She is very excited to be in the program, and happily goes off to her classroom to line up before the program. When her class files out, she sees all the people in the audience, can't find us, and bursts into tears. She spends the rest of the program sitting on my lap. The rest of the kids sang very nicely (including a couple of 4 and 5 year olds who sang solos. I was impressed by how self possessed they were.) We get 3 inches of snow. In case you were wondering how Paris handles snow, the answer is "not very well".

December 18--Cherry wakes me up at 4:30 with the words, "Don't worry Mommy, I can throw up by myself." No school for her today. Today is the last day of school before Christmas vacation for the big kids.

December 19--Our plans to go to the kids' Christmas party at the American Library are cancelled because Cherry is still vomitting. Sapphire spends all day playing with Blanche. Blaise gets a letter telling him that his Carte de Séjour is ready to be picked up at the sous-préfecture.

December 20--Still sick. At least noone else seems to have gotten it.

December 21--Blaise takes the train and bus to the sous-préfecture because the sidewalks are icy. Cherry and Ezio and I walk up to the Mairie (town hall) to pay the kids' lunch bill for November. We also are finally able to complete the social security applications for the kids and for me, because we now have a letter with Blaise's social security number. There is a beautiful fôret de Noël in front of the Mairie. Afterwards we go to the playground at the park behind the town hall, and discover that it is closed. (All the big playgrounds are closed on Mondays for maintenance, a fact which I had forgotten.)

December 22--Blanche is grounded, which means that she can't play with Sapphire. We try to go to both the Parc des Epivans and the Parc Hôtel de Ville, but they are both locked (and it isn't Monday). Perhaps they are worried about someone getting hurt in the snow?

In which we celebrate Christmas

First, an apology for being so far behind. With luck, I'll be able to catch up over the next week (though with the kids out of school that may be a bit trickier). So, we're currently back on Wednesday, December 9, in case you're trying to keep track of what's happened when.

Wednesday morning there were still many last minute things to take care of before we could actually celebrate Christmas. Many gifts still needed to be purchased. Some kind of a festive meal had to be planned. The gifts that we did have needed to be wrapped. Early in the morning, even before we ate breakfast (later than normal, since there is no school on Wednesday in France), I headed over to the Auchan and bought Cherry's gifts. When we were there Tuesday she had explained that she desperately wanted a baby with a stroller, but I was not about to buy it for here while she was there with me. I also picked up a very cool Usborne Christmas sticker book.

After breakfast, Blaise's parents came over (Danny had decided that our couch was better than 3 adults in a hotel room). The men (Blaise, Danny, Max, and Ezio) headed into Paris to go to the Musée de l'Armée. (Since I wasn't there, I have no idea what happened, except that Blaise inadvertantly got a sandwich with mayonnaise for lunch, and that Ezio was very nearly suffocated on the train ride home.) The women (Ginnie, Sapphire, Cherry, and I) headed over to the mall and the Auchan to complete our shopping, which went something like this:
Shoes for Cherry--check
Shoes for Sapphire -- fail
Scarf for Sapphire -- check
Art supplies for Sapphire -- check
Sticker books for Cherry -- check
Asterix book (in French!) for Ezio --check
Umbrellas for all three kids -- check
Food for dinner -- check
Cookie ingredients -- check
400 g Milka bar -- check (admittedly, half of this was actually for the cookies. Please don't ask how long the second half lasted me.)
Wine -- check
Our shopping done, we headed home.

By this time it was almost 2 o'clock, and we were all starved. After lunch, Sapphire did crafts with Grandma, Cherry fell asleep, and I wrapped our gifts. We made cookies (only one kind). Ginnie wrapped gifts. We started dinner. I began to wonder if the men had gotten lost. Finally, they arrived, and Danny went to wrap his gifts. We opened gifts. Cherry loved her stroller and her bébé (who has been named Baby Junior). Ezio's favorite gift was a light saber. (Evidently I should have wasted luggage space on one back in June.) Sapphire promptly demonstrated to everyone the proper French way to wear a scarf. Blaise and I got luxurious hand knits from his Mom.

After dinner and dessert, the kids were packed off to bed, and Blaise's parents headed back to the hotel.

In which we prepare for Christmas

When Sapphire discovered that Grandma and Grandpa Arana were coming to visit us in December she was ecstatic. When she discovered that they were coming at the beginning of December, rather than for Christmas, she was demoralized. After all, in her memory, we always celebrate Christmas with Grandma and Grandpa Arana and Uncle Danny. (We missed when she was 2.5, because I was almost 9 months pregnant, and no airline would have let me fly cross country, but she doesn't remember that.) So, in consultation with Grandma and Blaise, it was decided that we would instead celebrate Christmas on Saint Nicolas Day.

Saturday came, and Sapphire went off with Grandma to the Auchan to buy her presents for everyone. Uncle Danny had (wisely) bought his presents ahead of time and put them in his suitcase. There were school pictures from the kids. But that was it. Grandma and I had neglected to do any shopping, and it was late and we were tired. So, much to Sapphire and Ezio's disappointment (Cherry can't read a calendar yet) Christmas was postponed to Wednesday.

Tuesday morning I made a trip to the store and picked up Sapphire's present, then spent an hour wandering fruitlessly around trying to find something that I thought Cherry or Ezio would like. After lunch, I took Cherry and she informed me that she desperately wanted a baby with a stroller. (I picked it up Wednesday morning, before breakfast.) Ezio was harder.

We (the kids and I) met Blaise and Danny and their parents at the Galeries Lafayette in Paris that evening (they had spent the day gallivanting about the city), and once we had looked at the Christmas displays outside we headed inside and on up to the toy department. Ezio spent most of his time lusting after enormous Lego sets (which he knew he wasn't getting), and Cherry and I wandered around hoping to find something that he would like that was in our budget. I found some Meccano (like an Erector Set) and picked up a set for him, after checking with Danny (Blaise had wandered off) that it would be something that would have appealed to a 7 year old boy. (I later learned that it had been one of Max's favorite toys as a child.)

We headed back home, and agreed to finish our preparations Wednesday morning, and open gifts before dinner.

In which we go to Montmartre

Sunday morning, Blaise's parents came over around 11, with their bags all packed. They were going to spend Sunday and Monday nights at a hotel in the Latin Quarter, near the Sorbonne. In order to facilitate things, they had carefully selected a minimum of things to bring with them, all of which fit into a backpack, and were planning to leave their big (OK, they weren't actually that big) suitcases here with us. That meant that we could spend the day in Paris without having to drag heavy suitcases with us, or having to come back out to the suburbs to pick up their luggage.

First we toyed with the idea of going to the Musée de l'Armée, even calling to see whether or not they were open. (There's been an ongoing museum strike that has closed most of the museums here sporadically.) They were. Ultimately, we (that is, Blaise) decided that the best thing to do would be to go to Montmartre and see the area that we lived in 2 years ago. So off we went.

We got off the train at Abbesses, at the top (or near the top, at any rate) of the Butte Montmartre. (I'd actually never been in that metro station before. We lived relatively close, and so when I needed to be up there, I just walked. In fact, since our favorite bakery was located near Abbesses, I walked there virtually every day, and often twice a day, with Cherry on my back in the Ergo. Now I would make her walk it too.) We first walked over to our favorite bakery and bought sandwiches and pizza and fougasse for lunch, then sat in the park to eat them.

Midway through our meal it started to drizzle, and we took shelter under an overhang to wait out the rain. It quickly became clear that unless we wanted to spend our entire afternoon under the overhang wating for it to dry up, we would have to deal with getting a bit wet, so we headed up toward the Basilique du Sacré Coeur. To get there, you first come to a big plaza area, from which you have a very nice view of the church. To get closer requires climbing lots of stairs, or paying for a ride on the funicular, which zips right up the side of the hill, but costs a full Metro ticket for a 2 minute ride. Blaise's parents rode. The rest of us climbed. Once we'd finally reached the top, it was evident that a cloudburst was imminent, and so I herded the kids inside the church while Blaise and Danny searched for their parents.

Afterwards, we went around to the side of Sacré Coeur, and visited Saint Pierre de Montmartre, which is the oldest church in Paris. (It was dedicated in 1147. In contrast, Sacré Coeur is quite new, less than 150 years old.) Afterward we bought roasted chestnuts and mulled wine and water at the Christmas market outside, and then began the trek down the hill toward Place de Clichy and our old apartment.

We walked past the Place du Tertre, and down Rue Lepic to the Moulin Rouge, then along Boulevard de Clichy and up Rue Cavalotti to our old apartment. I'm fairly sure that the same homeless guy was still living on a ventilation grate outside the Flunch, though he has now built himself a makeshift shelter out of cardboard boxes. I wonder if he has his office chair in there?

Then the kids and I got the train home, and the other adults walked through the cemetery and then headed over to the hotel. ( I made the mistake of deciding to transfer at the Gare du Nord from the 2 line (La Chapelle) to the E line (Magenta). We walked nearly a kilometer between the lines, went from an elevated line down to one 4 levels underground (i.e, there were 3 underground levels of track higher up), watched 3 guys being frisked by the cops, and walked through an army security area. Next time, I'll stay on the 2 line till Nation where I can switch to the A.

In which we go to a Christmas market

One of the things that Ginnie wanted to do while they were in France was go to a Marché de Noël, or Christmas market. Actually, she had wanted to take the train to Strassbourg to go to a market, but we managed to convince her, with some difficulty that that was unnecessary. There would be plenty of Christmas markets in the Paris area, and it would be much easier and less time consuming to go to one of them instead. So, she did her homework, and discovered that there was supposed to be a big market under the Grande Arche at La Défense.

After lunch on Saturday, we set out, leaving Danny at home to nurse his stomach flu/food poisoning. (Since none of the rest of us have it, I'm going with food poisoning.) We transferred from the RER to the Metro at Charles de Gaulle-Étoile, and then rode line 1 to the Esplanade de la Défense. (A note to explain the detail: The Paris area is arranged in zones for transport purposes. The city of Paris itself is zone 1, and then zones 2 - 6 circle it like the stripes on a target. All rides on the metro are considered to be within zone 1, although many of the terminal stops on the metro lines aren't in fact within the city of Paris. In particular, line 1 ends at the Grande Arche de la Défense, which is actually in zone 3, at least if you take an RER line there. We live in zone 3, so, by switching to the metro line in Paris proper, we were able to use a cheaper zone 1 to zone 3 ticket, rather than a more expensive zone 3 to zone 3 through Paris ticket.)

The walk up the esplanade to the Arche was very beautiful, in a modern sort of way. Evidently someone had sponsored artwork in the form of gigantic cylinders (think 3-4 stories high and 20 feet around) decorated in a variety of different ways. Cherry (and I) used the (non public) bathroom at the La Défense museum. (I highly recommend bringing a 3 year old with you to Paris. Pretty much no-one will deny a bathroom to a preschooler here, and they can be difficult to find.) Then we dove into the Christmas market. Forty five minutes later, we'd had donuts, mulled wine, chocolates, and raclette, and we were all more than ready to escape from the claustrophobia inducing crowds. We then made the mistake of entering the enormous mall alongside the Grande Arche, hoping to find shoes for the kids. Fortunately, we were able to escape with no major injuries and all of the children, but it was a close thing. We eventually found the entrance to the Metro station, and took the trains back home.

We celebrated Max's 70th birthday with coq au vin (next time I'll pick a quicker recipe since we didn't eat until well past 8) and pastries from the bakery down the street. We all sang in English, and then Sapphire and Ezio sang in French as well. (Cherry fell asleep before dinner, though she can sing Joyeuse Anniversaire as well.)

In which we take grandparents to Disneyland

One of the things that we wanted to do with Blaise's parents and brother was go to Disneyland. Unfortunately, it appeared that the weather on Saturday and Sunday was likely to be sketchy at best, and Disney was going to be an outdoors all day kind of an event. After checking the forecast for the entire length of their visit, we decided that Friday looked like the most likely day for an outing to Disney.

Friday morning, I called Sapphire and Ezio's school to let them know that the kids wouldn't be coming (I told Cherry's teacher on Thursday) and we set off for Disney. We had to stand in line to buy tickets for Max, Ginnie, and Danny (we have passes), and then we headed into the (not very busy park). By the time we ate lunch at 12:30, we had already ridden Peter Pan, the Pirates of the Caribbean, Great Thunder Mountain Railroad (Max and I stayed with Cherry, who got her picture taken with Tigger), and the Haunted House. In other words, we'd managed as many rides in 2 hours as we did in 8 hours when we last went.

After a pizza lunch (which may have given Danny food poisoning, we're not exactly sure) we headed out for more rides. All of us rode It's a Small World, which now, interestingly, does have Israel represented. I'm fairly sure that it didn't last time we were there. We rode the Buzz Lightyear ride, which always seemed to have a huge line, and shot lots of Zurg with our laser blasters. Then Blaise and Danny wanted to ride Space Mountain, and Sapphire wanted to join them. We weren't sure that she would be tall enough, but she was, just barely, and so Ginnie joined them. Since Cherry and Ezio weren't tall enough, Max and I took them back on the Buzz Lightyear ride, at their request. Then Max, Ginnie, Blaise, Danny, Sapphire, and Ezio rode Star Tours, and Cherry and I rode, you guessed it, Buzz Lightyear. Again.

Blaise and Danny wanted to ride the Indiana Jones ride, (the kids were all too short), so we headed over there, detouring for rides on Pinnochio, Snow White, the Hedge Maze, and the Spinning Teacups. Then, they walked to the coaster with their parents (who didn't ride it) while the kids and I climbed way up into the Swiss Family Robinson's treehouse, and then back down the other side. Then, Sapphire wanted to ride Great Thunder Mountain Railroad again, so they did. We finished off with another ride on the Pirates of the Caribbean to warm up, and then headed home for dinner.

Total Time spent at the Park: 8 hours
Rides Ridden: 14+, depending on how you count
Longest Wait Time: 30 minutes (Star Tours)
Shortest Wait Time: 5 minutes (Lots of stuff)

In which we see churches, 1, 2, 3

Blaise's parents (Max and Ginnie) and brother (Danny) arrived from Atlanta Wednesday morning (at 6:04 a.m!), and so Blaise headed out to the airport around 5:05 to go pick them up. By the time they had cleared customs and passport control and picked up their luggage and taken the train back to our house, it was nearly 9:00, and we were all ready for breakfast. After breakfast, Max took a nap, and the rest of us headed over to the grocery store to pick up food for lunch and dinner. It was a very slow trip, because Sapphire wanted to show Grandma all of the Christmas chocolates and decorations, and Ezio wanted to show Uncle Danny all of the toys, and of course we had to pick wines and look at the huge refrigerator cases full of foie gras. We did eventually get out of the Auchan, and headed back to the apartment for lunch.

Once we had eaten lunch, we needed to do something to keep everyone awake and active, as a means of getting everyone onto European time as quickly as possible. Blaise had agreed to meet a friend from Claremont-Ferrand (in central France) to pick up some Cantal that had been made by his (the friend's) cousin, so it seemed to make sense to go into the city. We rode the RER to Chatelet, and then walked along the Seine and over the Seine until we reached the Cathedrale de Notre Dame. We spent about 45 minutes wandering through the inside of the cathedral and around the back to see the flying buttresses (which Ezio thought was extremely funny). At that point it was 3:40, and we had just under 2 hours to fill until it was time for Blaise to meet his friend at the Sorbonne. Since we only had an hour and a half or so until we would have to walk over to the Sorbonne, we didn't really want to pay admission anywhere, and since it was windy and drizzly and generally not very pleasant out, we didn't really want to find a playground (there is now one alongside Notre Dame, in case you ever need one there). That pretty much left churches as an option.

I remembered that my mom and I had passed Saint Severin and Notre Dame on our walk between Cluny and the Musée des Arts et Métiers, and figured it must therefore be somewhere in the area. Since it was on our list of churches that we wanted to see at some point while we were in Paris, I suggested that we walk over there. As it turned out, we took the wrong bridge (evidently we had seen the front of Notre Dame, but I had remembered seeing the back) and ended up sort of wandering around until we spotted the back of a church, which was clearly not Saint Severin, but which at least promised to be warmer and drier than where we were.

So we went around to the front, passing through a gaggle of guys drinking in the churchyard, and discovered that we had found Saint Julien le Pauvre. (The website is put together by a KU person (student, perhaps?), and is really well done. Definitely worth a look.) This was good for two reasons. The first is that it gave me a much better idea of where we were. The second is that it is one of the oldest churches in Paris, and one that I had wanted to see (Blaise, perhaps, not so much). We weren't certain at first whether we would be able to get inside, but eventually found and open door and went it. The church is quite small, and though it was built (in the 12th century) as a Roman Catholic Church, it is now a Melkite Catholic Church. Cherry and I walked through it, and everyone else sat in chairs and admired the view from there. (One must keep moving in churches with Cherry, or she is inclined to squawk, and you will get nasty looks, at best.)

Since we now knew where we were, we were able to find Saint Séverin easily enough, and walked around to the front to find that it was indeed open. Once more, Cherry and I toured the side chapels while everyone else sat in the middle and listened to the organ music and admired the stained glass. (Fortunately there were no "professional shushers" here.) One of the things that I noticed in the side chapels were many plaques recognizing the saints (especially Mary) for their intercession for various things. Most of them were from the late nineteenth and very early 20th century. (Perhaps plaques from other times had been removed to expose paintings or art, or perhaps this was only popular during that time.) A surprising number were grateful for help with exams, probably upwards of 60%. (We also saw these at the Église des Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer a couple of summers ago. Most of those were thanks for being rescued from capsized boats.)

Afterwards, we headed for the nearest RER station, and Danny and Blaise continued on to the Sorbonne to get our cheese. The train was packed, and I was fortunate to get to sit most of the way home. (Since Cherry does not reliably hold on while standing on a moving train, she needs to be held if I/we can't sit.) Everyone else was stuck standing up. By 9:30 everyone in our family was in bed. I'm not sure at what point the others crashed.

In which we celebrate Thanksgiving

As you all know, last Thursday was Thanksgiving. Of course, the French don't much care about American holidays, and so the kids all had school anyway. (I suppose we could have kept them home, but that seemed a bit like overkill.) So Thursday night we had a traditional Thanksgiving dinner of Asian noodle salad with shrimp and pan browned brussels sprouts. Now I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that I've gone off my rocker, because as everyone knows, that isn't traditional Thanksgiving fare at all. Of course, it's also not traditional to send your kids off to school on Thanksgiving.

We actually did have a Thanksgivingish sort of dinner on Saturday, when the kids didn't have school. I did need to make a few modifications to our traditional spread, however.
1) Whole turkeys are something like 14€ a kilo, which works out to something like $9.60 a pound. Besides, we'd never be able to fit one in our oven, so I roasted a chicken instead.
2) The only cranberry-like food to be found in Fontenay was Ocean Spray cranberry juice cocktail. No fresh cranberry and orange relish for us.
3) Durkee French Fried onions and Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup? (OK, I didn't look for those, but I'm sure I wouldn't be able to find them. The green beans wouldn't have been a problem.)
4) The stuffing recipe, though delicious, could feed an entire nation for a month, so I found something a bit lighter.
5) And we replaced both the pumpkin pie and sweet potato casserole with sweet potato flan.

In which we deal with more bureaucratic shenanigans

While my mother was visiting, a few weeks ago, Blaise and I went to the sous-préfecture because our temporary cartes de séjour were about to expire. They provided us with replacement receipts, assured us that we would be contacted about our medical visits soon, and advised that we would be able to pick up our cartes as soon as our medical visits had been completed.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago. Blaise met with a woman who works for an organization whose job it is to help foreign researchers navigate the bureaucracy that is France. Originally, he contacted her because he wanted help figuring out how to sign up for a mutuelle. (Basically, that's top up health insurance. For most things, the government insurance pays 70% and you pay 30%. For serious things, they pay 100%. The mutuelle pays for the 30% that you're responsible for.) She was very upset that we (he) hadn't had our medical visits yet, and sent an angry email off to the OFII (Office of French Immigration and Integration), demanding an appointment for him. Three days later, he discovered an email in his spam folder stating that his appointment was the previous day. He phoned the woman back, and received a new appointment for this Wednesday morning at 8:30.

Along with the email, he got two letters. The first listed the documents that they wanted him to provide: passport, copy of the letter, vaccination record, all of his recent chest x-rays, and copies of the bills from his hospitalizations. Fortunately, we were able to provide the first 2. The second explained that in order to get his carte de sejour, he would need to purchase some special stamps, valued at 15€ (9 of these) and 55€ (3 of these) and provide the stamps to the people at the department of foreigners. Evidently they were available at tax offices, and at certain tobacco shops. (They were not available at the Fontenay-sous-Bois town hall. I checked.)

So, at 7:15 yesterday morning, he left on the hourlong trek to the south side of Paris for his check up. He arrived, got checked in, and was called back with the first group of 20 or so people to be seen. He was weighed, measured, and given a chest x-ray. They checked his blood pressure and blood glucose (and we think for malaria). He met briefly with a doctor, who discussed the importance of vaccinations with him. (He does have them. It just didn't occur to me to bring that particular piece of paper with me to Paris. When we get home, I will be scanning each and every piece of paper we own.)

Since he was done by 9:30, he decided that he had time to take the train to the sous-préfecture and walk home afterwards. So, he found the building, and went to the cash desk to buy the stamps. Then he brought them, and the certificate from the visite medicale to the desk of the department of foreigners, where they said, "Oh, we don't need those right now. Now that your file is complete, you can expect a letter in the mail in about a month telling you to come and pick up your carte de séjour."

In which the kids have a day off of school and we celebrate my birthday

Last Friday, Sapphire and Ezio brought home notes in their black notebooks (used for communications between home and school) to the effect that their would be a teacher's strike at their school the following Tuesday. As it turned out, there was a national teachers' strike, but not all of the schools participated, and so Cherry did indeed have school on Tuesday morning.

So, after Sapphire and I had dropped her off (Ezio went for a walk with Blaise) , Sapphire, Ezio and I headed off to the American Library to get some new reading material. W had hoped to get home in time to pick Cherry up from school, but missed the RER that we needed to do so, and arrived home around 12:05, to see a sobbing Cherry. Evidently, she had burst into tears at the sight of Blaise coming to pick her up probably in part because she was expecting me, and in part because she realized that the fact that i wasn't there meant that I had gone somewhere with Sapphire and Ezio and without her. Once she had calmed down and we had eaten lunch, Sapphire, Cherry and I headed over to the Auchan with the goal of purchasing a (small) Christmas tree and trimmings for under 20€.

We got the following:
- one pale blue Christmas tree, 90 cm tall
- two sets of 20 multicolored Christmas lights
- two meters of silver tinsel with stars
- six silver balls
- six blue balls
- six blue balls with silver glitter.
All for the grand total of 16.35€, which I was able to pay for entirely with the credits that I had earned buying Auchan products. (On a return trip to buy groceries later that day, I added 3 Advent calendars.)

Wednesday was my birthday. I am once again a square, and the ages of all three of my children evenly divide mine. Blaise had his visite medicale (finally. More about that in a subsequent post.) While he was gone, the kids and I spent a little bit of time tidying the living room, and then set up the Christmas tree on a small table (think TV tray table) in front of the patio doors. Evidently, if you buy the Christmas ornaments that come 6 for 0.80€ you are expected to put the strings in yourself. Sapphire folded an origami star for the top of the tree out of yellow paper, and we commenced the job of asking Cherry to please leave the tree alone every 10 minutes. On the plus side, the au rabais (French for "el cheapo") Christmas ornaments are also made of plastic, so it's not like their likely to break.

After an early dinner, we headed into Paris to look at the lights and window displays at the Grands Magasins (big department stores) along Boulevard Haussman. They were very beautiful, with lots of animated marionettes and sparkles. The animated windows had little boardwalks set up in front of them to allow even the smallest children to see. Afterward, we headed up to the toy department at Galleries Lafayette, and looked at Legos and stuffed animals and Polly Pockets.

In which we attempt to go to the Parc Floral

Last Sunday when we got home from the Cité des Sciences, I had an email from Caroline, suggesting that as we had been unable to spend any time together at the Cité des Enfants, we get together this weekend at a playground. I had mentioned the playground at the Parc Floral as being a particularly nice one, (certainly, it's a particularly large one) and so we agreed to meet there this Sunday afternoon around 1:30. Blaise decided that he wanted to walk it (about 3 miles from our house) and then take the train home, but the kids and I decided to take the train both ways, since I wanted them to have energy left for playing when we got to the park.

So, Blaise set off shortly before 1:00, and we agreed to meet inside the park at the playground, since he was fairly sure that he wouldn't actually make it there by 1:30. The kids and I got a few things together and then headed over to the RER station. Now, the best RER exit for the Parc Floral is at Vincennes, which is actually a zone 2 stop. (Paris is zone 1, and the zones increase in concentric circles as you get further from the city. Fontenay-sous-Bois is zone 3. Charles de Gaulle airport and Disneyland Paris are both zone 5, though in different directions. The cost of the ticket depends on how many zones you have to cross through on your journey, so a Val de Fontenay to Vincennes ticket is about 30% cheaper than a Val de Fontenay to Paris ticket. Clear as mud? Good.) Since Vincennes is a zone 2 stop, I wanted to buy the less expensive tickets for Sapphire and Ezio (I had some left from a trip to the doctor).

So, when we got to the RER station I glanced at the schedule board and noticed that we had about 3 minutes till the next train heading for Paris on the A line. Not a problem, buying tickets is a relatively quick process, and there was only one person in front of me at the ticket machines. Unfortunately, she didn't exactly seem to know what she was doing, because it took her a very long time to finish her ticket purchase. A glance at the schedule board suggested that I was down to about a minute and a half. I quickly selected a carnet (book of 10 tickets, about 20% cheaper than buying them individually) within the Ile de France (Paris region), scrolled through a shockingly large list of V stations to find Vincennes, selected tarif reduit (half price for the kids) tickets and realized that I had actually chosen to buy individual tickets. Cancelled the order. Start over, get to the payment screen and realize that I'm buying full price tickets. Nothing to do about that now as the board says that the train is approaching. Stick in my debit card. Punch in the pin. The machine prints the tickets with agonizing slowness. I grab them and we rush through the turnstyles and down the stairs to the track. As we run up to the train the horn sounds, the doors close, and the train pulls away. Eleven minutes to the next train.

We make the next train and ride it to Vincennes. We get off and go up the stairs (What? No escalator?) to the entrance, only to discover that our tickets won't work to get us out of the station. Though I try sending them through several times, they keep coming back as invalid. (Apparently this happened to Blaise last week as well. It would have been nice had he let me know.) Eventually we get out through the handicapped/stroller entrance when someone comes in through it. By this point it's well past 1:30, and we definitely need to hurry.

We walk along the outside edge of the Chateau de Vincennes (at one point the tallest castle in Europe, it was built in the 14th century by Charles V), and then up to the gate of the Parc Floral, where we are stopped by a guard informing us that the park is closed because of approaching storms. We wait, and the Gelmans come out, and a few minutes later Blaise walks up. Since the park is closed, and we've all come out here, we want something to do. It isn't supposed to rain for another three hours, so the park closure seems a bit premature. Andrew agrees to ride to the Monoprix with his two boys and see if he can find a ball so that we can play soccer in the field alongside the chateau. We agree to meet him there. Five minutes later it's raining hard, and the wind is whipping the rain into our faces. We take shelter in the shadow of the gates and wait for them to get back. By this time we've decided that when they come we're all just going to head to our respective apartments and put on dry clothing. In the meantime, we discuss the differences in attitudes toward school lunches between France and the US. (My kids were served fish with a sauce of mussels and shrimp for lunch today. And they ate all of it. Happily. Friday they had mussels in the shell to celebrate the convention on the rights of the child.)

Eventually Andrew and the boys returned, and we all headed back to the train station. This time we barely made the train back to Fontenay. We arrived back just in time to see the sun come out.

In which we go to the Festival des droits de l'enfant

Twenty years ago, the United Nations adopted the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and it was ratified by most of the world. (I shall remain mum on which two have failed to ratify it.) To celebrate, the city of Fontenay-sous-Bois (and the rest of France) has been having child centered activities for the last fifteen days. There have been concerts, special movie showings, discussion groups, and other numerous other things going on. (Here I would link to the program if I could find it online. Evidently it was either never available online, or perhaps it's already been taken down.)

Thursday Sapphire and Ezio went with their class, as well as lots of other classes from lots of other schools, to the Salle Jacques Brel, which is basically a big multipurpose room. They use it for concerts and conventiony stuff, and probably some other things as well. In any case, the students were counted off into groups and sent off to various centers to explore, and to learn a little bit about what the UN Convention says. Ezio made a very cool mask (think masquerade ball shape) with lots of glittery stickers and feathers as part of the Right to Travel/Vacation station. He also got to do some painting on fabric, though I'm not entirely clear as to what that was about. Sapphire got to make a flag as part of the Right to National Identity station. She also got to help design a city as part of the Right to Adequate Housing station.

After school, they very excitedly informed me that the activities would be available all day on Saturday as well, and could we please go to them because Sapphire had really wanted to make a mask because that would have been much cooler, and Ezio would really have rather made a flag and Cherry would have loved playing in the house set up, and. . .. (They did breathe eventually.) So after lunch today we set out for the Salle Jacques Brel, where each child was given a map to guide them through the activies. We started out at the Right to Travel, where Sapphire made a lei (a Hawaiian necklace, she called it), and Cherry and Ezio were mostly bored. (Unfortunately, Ezio is not very interested in crafty stuff, and Cherry does not yet have the dexterity to do things with pointy needles.) Then we headed over to the play house/store area for the Right to Play. Sapphire wanted to do another craft, and I had noticed a station (Right to an Identity) where they were making dolls out of empty water bottles, newspapers, and scraps of cloth. So we headed over there. Sapphire ended up making a really pretty cool doll, though it took her forever to do it. Meanwhile, Cherry and Ezio colored self portraits onto stick figures. I was impressed to see that Cherry actually mostly colored in the lines for the eyes, and Ezio is beginning to draw very nicely, even if he doesn't like doing it very much. Afterwards we spent a little more time in the playhouse, and then headed home.

In which Sapphire and Ezio write my blog post for me.

Sapphire:

Today we, as in my class, went to the rights of children* festival! We got to make flags!
My class even rode a BUS to the festival! We had so much FUN!!!

Me and another girl got interviewed by an adult. And filmed. And also in my flag group there were kids from all different countries: Russia, France, Turkey, Portugal, Pakistan, and others. We got to paint on a big piece of cloth. We painted a city. We also got to design our own city. It was so, so, so much fun!

Ezio:

today our class even rode a bus

I wrote a lot. In French. I went to a really fun thing. What we did before we went to school. Le chat. la maison. l'école. le papa. le garçon. la maman.

Those are all words in French. À la maison, la petite fille joue avec le chat.

Le petit garçon, la petite fille.

Other than spelling, those are completely unedited. Evidently, it is really fun to ride a bus.

*This year marks the 20th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and there have been celebrations going on most of the month in Fontenay-sous-Bois.

In which we spend Sunday at the Cité

For the last several weeks, Sapphire has been begging me to set up an outing with the Avigads. Busy schedules on both of our parts, as well as illness, intervened, and so it wasn't until this weekend that we were actually able to get together. Elinor asked if I minded if we invited the Gelmans (another American family that is here for the year, with sons the same ages as Ezio and Cherry), and so they joined us.

The original plan was to meet at the Jardin des dunes et des vents (garden of dunes and winds), an (evidently) very cool playground at the Parc de la Villette. When we arrived, however, we discovered that the playground was closed because of technical difficulties. Apparently there are a bunch of inflatable toys there, and they couldn't get the inflater to work, so they didn't open the playground. This was a problem, because while there are lots of other playgrounds in the Parc de la Villette, none of them (at least of those that we've found) is particularly large or cool, and we had eight kids to keep happy.

Since the weather forecast for Sunday was a bit iffy, I had packed our passes for the Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie. As it turned out, the Gelmans also had passes for the Cité, and the Avigads had been contemplating buying them, but had never gotten around to it. So we headed over to the museum, and I put reservations for the two parts of the children's museum (depending on the ages of the kids) on our passes and the Gelmans passes. (They had ridden their bikes, and so had to deal with locking those up.) Meanwhile, the Avigads bought their passes and made reservations for themselves at the children's museum.

Our reservations were for 4:30 (I won't do that again. Everyone (my kids, and all the other kids) was cranky by the end. Tired and hungry does not make for good sharing.) and so we had about an hour and a half to spend before going to the children's section. The Gelmans and Avigads took their kids and Sapphire and Ezio to see a 3D movie, while Blaise and I took Cherry (and the Avigads middle daughter) upstairs to the science museum. We had agreed to meet them in the mathematics section, so we spent the next hour exploring that part of the museum. (It's very nicely done. Some calculus, statistics, differential geometry, topology, etc.)

Then we headed down to the children's museum. Most people headed for the big kids' (five and up) section of the children's museum. Cherry and I, together with Caroline and their younger son, headed for the little kids' section. The idea was that we would spend time together in the museum, and I think that was true for the group at the older kid's section. Cherry, however, decided that she must start in the water section. Caroline's son decided that he must start in the building section. After 20 minutes, they simultaneously switched rooms. And so it continued through our 90 minutes in the museum. We rolled balls down ramps, tried to identify smells, and waited a long time (by three year old standards) to use the lightwriters.

We finally made it home around 7:15, absolutely starved and completely worn out.

In which we get wet

Saturday morning dawned dampish. Not exactly raining, but not not raining either. It was sort of a light mist, the kind that results in permanently foggy glasses. So on the way home from the bakery, I zipped the baguettes inside my jacket (and was awarded with some very odd looks, perhaps I should have brought an umbrella instead). In any case, it meant that we spent the morning inside, for the most part.

Around 11:00 the sun came out, and Cherry and I headed over to get groceries. In true Cherry fashion, she checked to make sure that I had a one euro coin to use in the shopping carts, and then insisted that we go get a cart from the basement.

A note of explanation: In Europe it's quite common to have to use a coin to unlock your shopping cart from the one in front of it. The coin is then held in a little box until you lock your cart back up again to the one in front of it, when you can retrieve your money. As a method of preventing cart theft it's probably useless. As a method of preventing parking lots from being overrun with stray shopping carts, it's brilliant.

A second note: The Auchan has 3 parking areas. The first is at ground level in front of the mall complex. Given my preference, this is where I would pick up my shopping cart. The second is underground, and requires riding a moving sidewalk down to pick up a shopping cart, and then back up. This is Cherry's preferred place to pick up a shopping cart. The third parking area is on the roof. Please don't tell Cherry about it.

After lunch, Blaise suggested that we walk to the local market, since I hadn't been there before. (This is not the one that I went to with my mom.) Although it was sunny when we left, at least sort of, by the time we'd gone half a kilometer it was raining hard. Since we had only one umbrella, we sought refuge under a tree (no thunder) and waited for it to let up. Then we continued on to the market, which was nice, but not overwhelming. There wasn't much there that I would be unable to find at the grocery store, unfortunately. (The market in Nogent-sur-Marne had more things, but it's also twice as far away.) We did find a needlework store (mostly embroidery and needlepoint, but some yarn, I think), though it was closed for lunch so we couldn't go in. On the way home, it poured again.

In which we deal with things medical, part II

Thursday morning, Blaise went off before breakfast to have blood drawn, in the hopes that that would answer questions about what is going on. He came back just in time to take Sapphire and Ezio to school, and so we didn't get a chance to talk about how things had gone until after we had dropped all 3 kids off at school.

At that point, I looked at his reimbursement receipt (thus far, our healthcare experiences in France have required that we submit receipts for reimbursement to the French health insurance system, which we can't do until after we have our Carte Vitale), and realized that they had used his (dummy) Social Security number to bill the French health insurance system for their part of the payment. (A note of explanation: For most things medical, the French health system pays 70%, and the user pays 30%. That increases to 100% paid by the health system for serious or long term things (cancer, pregnancy, etc) or if you're sufficiently low income. Top up private insurance is available and widely used to cover the 30% the health system doesn't pay.) On the plus side, that meant that we didn't (yet) have to pay the full cost of the labs. (I suspect that there is a very good chance that we will have to cover the extra 70% and wait to be reimbursed by the health system once we finally have our Cartes Vitale.) On the minus side, we realized that our 30% is going to add up to a whole lot of money very quickly if we have very many more of these.

So, we decided that we needed to get the supplemental insurance, and quickly, since Blaise has another test lined up for Monday morning. Also, we needed to figure out, hopefully, some way that we wouldn't have to pay the entire cost of the test up front. (Particularly as we have absolutely no clue how much the entire cost of the test will be. It's hard to be wise consumers when you don't know the costs up front.) So Blaise started sending out emails, and looking online. I started looking online. (Unlike him, I don't have the right kinds of contacts here for dealing with this stuff.) As far as I could tell, everything required that you have a social security number. Blaise's contact suggested that we use our American social security to pay for the test. (Umm, no. That's not going to work.)

Finally I suggested that Blaise contact a woman in Nancy (Ann) who had been extremely helpful with getting things lined up before we got here, but had told him that he should work with her colleagues here in Paris once we arrived. (He hadn't contacted them because he didn't think they were very helpful when he tried to contact them when we were here two years ago. Basically it's a foundation that's set up to help foreign researchers navigate here in France.) He emailed Ann, and phoned the group here in Paris to see if there was anything they could do to help.

Friday morning, after he had dropped Sapphire and Ezio off at school, he headed into the city to meet with one of the people at this group. Together, they filled out the enrollment forms for the supplemental insurance. She sent an email to the OFII (the immigration office) to try to figure out why we have not yet gotten our medical exams. And she told us that we should go to the social security office to apply for our social security numbers, despite the fact that we don't yet have our actual Cartes de Séjour. In fact, she typed up most of the forms that we need to have filled out.

So, immediately after Blaise got home we ate sandwiches, and headed off for the local social security (CPAM) office. Where we successfully applied for Blaise's social security number. Mine was held up because we didn't have a copy of my translated birth certificate. (I think it got mixed in with my dossier at the sous-préfecture.) Sapphire's and Ezio's got held up because we needed a letter from their headmistress certifying that they were enrolled in and attending school. Cherry's didn't need to be held up (she isn't required to go to school), but it seemed easier to process it along with the other kids'.

We got home, and Blaise had a confusing email from Ann. After a phone call to her, he discovered that we are supposed to be covered, not under CPAM, but under MGEN, the branch of the health insurance system that deals with public employees in education, among other fields. Furthermore, we should have gotten paperwork from them back in July, and didn't. So he called the MGEN office (which is, unfortunately, located several suburbs and multiple train transfers away) and they agreed to mail us the paperwork that we need to fill out.

I'm still not exactly sure where this leaves us as far as medical expenses go. We know that we have coverage, but it isn't clear how long we might have to wait for reimbursement, or whether we'll have to pay the entire cost of Blaise's test Monday up front. I'm assured, however, that we'll love the insurance system once we manage to actually get through all the bureaucracy.

In which we deal with things medical

It's been a rather dull yet stressful week thus far. On Tuesday, Blaise decided that he had not yet fully recovered from what was bothering him last week, or perhaps that something else was going on. Since he's under a lot of stress with dealing with tenure and all that good stuff, he's been obsessing about what could be causing his symptoms, and noticing each and every twinge. In the hopes of giving him some peace of mind, we headed off to the doctor on Tuesday morning, first contacting some of the people he knew in the hopes of finding a doctor who spoke more English than did the one last week.

Fortunately, the doctor who was recommended to us spoke relatively good English, so there were no concerns that perhaps key issues were being lost in translation. Also, the acuteness of the situation had changed, and so it seemed clear to us (as well as to the doctor) that the solution did not lie in antibiotics. Unfortunately, that meant testing to see what was going on, which, of course, costs money.

Now, here is the complicating factor. We're covered under the French healthcare system. But in order to prove that we're covered, we have to have this lovely piece of ID called a Carte Vitale. Which we don't have yet, because I was under the impression that we couldn't actually get it until after we had our Carte de Séjour which we can't get until after we have our Visite Médicale. My understanding, and Blaise's, is that we will get reimbursed by the healthcare system once we can get our Carte Vitale, but that until then, we may need to pay out of pocket.

At this point, we're hoping that perhaps we can use the receipts for our Carte de Séjour to enable us to at least begin the paperwork for the Carte Vitale, but we still need copies of our rent receipts for the last 3 months. (Evidently this is to prove our residency in France.) Since our rent payments have been directly deposited into our landlady's bank account, we don't have any proof of payment. So now I'm waiting to hear back from our landlady, in the hopes that we will be able to begin the Carte Vitale process tomorrow, or perhaps even this afternoon.

In which we buy Kleenex

Saturday was my mom's last day in Paris, and we were hoping to do something special. Although rain was forecast, we thought that if it looked like it was going to be spotty, we might head out to Disneyland Paris anyway. Otherwise, we would go to the Cité de Science and the Cité des Enfants. In any case, we were not going to spend another day hanging around the apartment.

And then Sapphire and Ezio woke up with coughs and stuffy noses and low grade fevers. Disney was out. The science and children's museums were out. We thought about taking a boat trip down the Canal St. Martin, but decided that we didn't want to risk exposing the kids to any other bugs when they were already fighting colds. So we stayed in the apartment for the most part.

In the early afternoon, Mom and I took Cherry (by far the healthiest of the three) to the Auchan to buy groceries. We picked up 2 big boxes of tissues, and a package of a dozen packets. By dinner, the kids had finished the first box of tissues (and the half box left over from before) plus 5 of the packets. Sapphire was complaining that her nose hurt and was red and she looked like Rudolph. So, after the kids were in bed my mom and I walked back over to the Auchan to pick up two more boxes of tissues and some chapstick to put on Sapphire's nose. (We went through both of those boxes yesterday. I should have bought stock in Kleenex.)

In which we walk from Cluny to the Musée des Arts et Métiers

I had great plans for my mother's visit. We were going to go to Disney, and a bunch of great museums, and parks, and show her how wonderful Paris is. And then everyone got sick. (She was here for 12.5 days. Of those 12.5 days, at least one person was ill enough to stay home for 9.5 of them, and the kids were in school for 2 of the remaining 3.) There were, however, two things that she really, really wanted to see (other than her lovely grandchildren of course): the tapestries of the lady and the unicorn at Cluny, and the jacquard looms and the musée des arts and métiers.

Friday morning we convinced Blaise to pick Cherry up from school, and my mom and I dropped her off and headed into the city. Our first stop was the Museum of the Middle Ages (Cluny). Although we had visited the museum on Sunday, my mom really wanted to buy a book about the tapestries, and hadn't gotten to because Cherry was in the process of melting down and Blaise looked like he was about to collapse. (Note: Sick enough to stay home does not, unfortunately, always mean having enough sense to stay home. Especially when there are free museums to visit and you've been housebound for a week already.) So we went to the bookstore and my mom picked up a book about the tapestries, as well as some keychains for the women in a knitting group that she leads. I decided that her purchase qualified us to use the restrooms, and we headed off.

The walk from Cluny to the musée des arts and métiers is just over 2 kilometers long. According to google maps, it requires no fewer than 17 steps, 14 of which are continues (the street changes names) and 2 of which involved turning left, walking 5 meters, and then turning back right. In retrospect, I probably could have skipped printing the directions. En route, we passed the following churches:
1) Saint Severin (click the British flag for English)
2) Notre Dame
3) Saint Jacques
4) Saint Nicholas des Champs
and a bunch of others that we couldn't find names for.

We arrived at the museum and went up to the top floor. Mostly we walked through until we got to the fabric room, where we stopped to examine all of the looms on display. There were a couple of full size looms, but most were painstakingly made working reproductions, which someone had taken the time to weave several inches of cloth on so that one could see what the looms' outputs would look like. My mom took photos of all of them, a task that was made somewhat easier by the fact that teh security guard was sleeping through our entire visit. (On the other hand, it's not like it would be all that easy to haul off a huge Jacquard loom without anyone noticing.) Mostly we hurried through the rest of the museum because we had somewhat limited time, though we stopped to look at the gears room.

Then it was back to the metro, and home, where we were greeted by an extremely enthusiastic Cherry.

In which we go to the market

Thursday morning all three kids headed back to school after the Toussaint (All Saints' Day) holidays. So, after I had dropped Cherry off (Blaise took Sapphire and Ezio) and tidied the house a bit, my mom and I headed to the next suburb over for the market. (We tried to go to one in town, but there is no market in Fontenay-sous-Bois on Thursday morning.)

It took us about 20 minutes to get there, and then we spent 40 minutes wandering through all the stalls and stands, looking at what they had. First, we walked through the outside part of the market, which was where all of the clothing vendors had set up, not to mention the shoe salesmen, yarn sellers, and pots and pans merchants. Once we had exhausted the possibilities there, we headed to the inside part of the market. While there were some dry goods there, the vast majority of the inside stands were selling food of some sort: breads, pastries, meat, cheese, fish (with heads and eyes), fruits, vegetables, candy.

Afterwards, we headed back to the apartment, and then went to pick up Cherry from school.

In which we quest for our cartes de séjour

A brief background:

Anyone who wishes to live in France for longer than 3 months or so has to apply for a residency permit, called a carte de séjour. In order to obtain this permit, you first go to the préfecture (or the sous-préfecture) for where you live, and show them your passport, visa, birth certificate, proof of address (so rent receipt or utility bill), proof of employment, and a few other things. They take copies of all of these things, and give you a piece of paper with some information and your photograph. This is your application receipt, and it is valid for 3 months. Then, you are supposed to be contacted by the regional office of immigration and integration (OFII), who schedules you for a medical visit. After the medical visit, you take a form back to the préfecture where they present you with your actual carte de séjour in exchange for 300 euros.

In our case, this all went smoothly until the part where OFII was supposed to contact us with information about our medical visits. After 8 weeks of waiting and hearing nothing from them, I tried calling them. When that didn't work, I tried emailing them, but their email account just bounced back everything I sent them. So I wrote them a letter, and enclosed a stamped, self addressed letter, and heard nothing. Finally, we asked a friend of Blaise's who is French to call OFII for us. They didn't even answer the phone.

With nothing left to try, and only one day remaining before our receipts expired, Blaise and I headed back over to the sous-préfecture, hoping that they would be able to do something about it. (Fortunately, we were able to leave all three kids at home with my mom.) After waiting in line for a bit, we were able to give our about to expire receipts to the clerk, who asked for our medical visit papers. When I said we didn't have them because OFII had never contacted us, she assured me that they would contact us, probably around mid-December. In the meantime, we just needed new photographs, and the would make us new receipts that would be valid for an additional 3 months.

We didn't have additional ID photos with us (maybe we should start carrying them around?), but there was a photo machine in the building. Unfortunately the machines only take coins, and all of my cash was in bills. There was no change machine, the building was about to close for the day, and the cash desk was unwilling to make change. So, I walked up to the big line of people waiting for tickets to allow them to pay their bill, and pleaded for someone to change a 10€ bill. Eventually I ended up taking 8.50€ in coins in exchange for my bill, which gave us enough for the photo machine.

After waiting in another line, we got tickets to go back to the carte de séjour person and get new receipts. She assured us that they would be the last temporary cards that we would need. We'll see about that.

In which we go to the department store

When my mom came last weekend, she brought with her a kumihimo disk and various yarns and ribbons for Sapphire. Sapphire loved it, and has made many beautiful cords in a rainbow of colors with it. Then, of course, she decided that she wanted to learn how to knit. Now, Sapphire has decided that she wants to learn how to knit on many different occasions, and each time she has given up in frustration after 10 or 15 minutes, but my mom thought that Sapphire was working so well with the kumihimo disk that perhaps she actually was ready to learn how to knit. Unfortunately, my mom didn't bring supplies for teaching her how to knit with her, so we needed to track down knitting supplies.

In Manhattan, finding knitting supplies would be fairly easy. If you want inexpensive stuff you go to JoAnn's, or Walmart, or Hobby Lobby. If you want classier stuff, you go to Wildflower Yarns. In any case, the needles and yarn are easy to find. In Paris there were more obstacles. The first, obviously, was that we had to figure out what yarn was called in French. Evidently, it's fil, but that's also the word for thread, string, and wire. So doing a google search for fil might lead to a yarn store, or it might lead to a store that specialized in barbed wire (probably not a great thing to learn to knit with). Eventually some English language searches for yarn and Paris suggested that there were some Phidar boutiques in Paris, including one in the BHV, a big department store. Also, the store was said to have a sizable craft section, and it was certain to have toys and books, since all the department stores here seem to have those.

Unfortunately, various illnesses and other issues interfered with actually going to the BHV until Tuesday. We set out through the Auchan mall so that I could stop at the ATM on the way to the train station, but we were sidetracked when I saw a winter coat that I thought Ezio might like. Trying to get him to the store to try on clothes is a bit like pulling teeth, so I took the opportunity to have him try it on. He liked it, so we bought it, then headed back to our apartment to drop off the jacket he had been wearing. Back through the mall we went, to the ATM, and finally to the train station, where we hopped the train into Paris.

Once we arrived at the proper metro stop, we discovered that we could go directly from the station into the store, which meant that we didn't have to get wet, or lost. We started on the craft supplies floor, where we were able to find lots of colored pencils (for Sapphire), but no yarn. So we stopped in the book section to pick up the newest Asterix book (in French) for Ezio. (He learned to read English from Spiderman comics. I think he's going to master French from Asterix comics. My opinion of comics has changed dramatically.)

Then we headed up a few more floors to find something for Cherry. She's not quite old enough for crafts, and she's not ready to read Asterix, so it was the toy department for her. My mom picked out a Polly Pocket set for her, and then we headed over to the restaurant for lunch. According to my mom, the view out the window was amazing. According to me, the view of the white wall behind her was, well, white. The apple tart was pretty good though.

On the way back down, we managed to find the tiny yarn department tucked away in the home decor floor. While my mom and Sapphire picked yarn and needles, Ezio, Cherry, and I examined doorknobs (which come in an amazing array of shapes) and looked at lights. (Did you know that you can buy fluorescent light bulbs in every color of the rainbow? I've always wanted purple lights in my kitchen.) Then we headed back down to pick up a second Asterix book for Ezio (because you have to spend the same amount on each grandkid, you know).

We headed back home afterward, and Sapphire learned how to knit from my mom. Ezio started reading his Asterix books. Cherry played with her Polly Pockets. And I snuck Nutella.

In which we visit the doctor

By the time we got home from the museums on Sunday, Blaise was feeling quite ill. He had been suffering from some gastro-intestinal issues (which I will leave to your imaginations) for several days which had gotten substantially worse. They didn't seem serious enough to warrant a trip to the emergency room (not to mention that I had no idea how we would go about that), but it did seem worth seeing a doctor about in the morning.

Monday morning, I began the process of trying to find a doctor who spoke some English. I began by calling the doctor's office in our apartment complex. No English. Next, the doctors' office up the road a bit. There may have been a doctor there who spoke English, but every time the receptionist tried to forward my call, I got cut off. (This business of getting cut off when a call is forwarded seems to happen to me an awfully lot in France.) The third call I made to a doctors' office near the center of the city. The receptionist assured me that the doctor spoke English, and suggested that we come in that morning.

Once I had showered and dressed, Blaise and I set off. Fortunately, we were able to leave the kids with my mom, so it was unnecessary to drag them with us. We found the doctor's office and added our name to the list at the desk. Then we went into the waiting room, and waited.

I think this is what was going on, though I'm not exactly sure. It appears that most general practice doctors in France split their hours into two parts. During one of those parts, they see patients who have made appointments. During the other part, you just show up, take a number, and wait for your turn. So the reason the receptionist suggested that we show up in the morning was because that was when the doctor had drop in care hours.

In any case, there were about 6 people ahead of us, and once they had all gone in, the doctor called us back. (No nurse, interestingly. Perhaps that's normal there, I don't know.) It turned out that he did not, in fact, speak much English, though he did speak some. Between my French, Blaise's French, and the doctor's English, we managed to muddle through somehow, and left with prescriptions for an antibiotic, an antidiarrheal (it's amazing what you need a prescription for here), extra strength tylenol (ditto), and Prilosec. We were also given strict instructions to go to the emergency room if Blaise got sicker, and to return on Wednesday if things hadn't improved substantially.

We paid our 22 euros (not bad for a doctor's visit) and headed for home. After lunch, I went to the pharmacy (which had been closed earlier) and spent three times that much filling the prescriptions.

Fortunately, after 2 days of antibiotics, antidiarrheals, and a severely limited diet, Blaise seems to be feeling quite a bit better, though he's beginning to be a bit cranky about subsisting on rice, pasta, and bananas.

In which we see Medieval Stuff

When we visited Paris two years ago, one of the museums that we visited was the National Museum of the Middle Ages (also known as Cluny, which is what I'm going to call it). This museum has, among other things, a tapestry series called The Lady and the Unicorn, which is one of the most famous tapestries in the world. When my mother realized that we had seen it, she was extremely jealous, so of course we needed to go to see it while she was visiting.

Yesterday morning, we made plans to go to the Cluny, as well as the Museum of Decorative Arts, since our experience in the past was that the Cluny was not an all day affair. The former museum was part of the free first Sunday program, the latter was not, so we had to decide what the best order for visiting was. Eventually we decided that we would go to Decorative Arts first, with the idea that Cherry and I could split afterwards if necessary, and Mom, Blaise, Sapphire, and Ezio could continue to Cluny.

The Museum of Decorative Arts was somewhat underwhelming. They had a really cool glass elevator, which Cherry and I rode down to the bathrooms, and an interesting exhibit of Depression era evening gowns. Evidently French women during the Depression were all very tall and flat chested. I got to show Cherry a Fisher Price record player and a couple of other toys that I had once had. We also got a very nice photo of her throwing a silent tantrum on the floor of the museum.

Afterwards, we headed over to the Carrousel of the Louvre for lunch. We had acceptable Japanesish stuff, but at least we were all full afterwards.

After lunch, we headed out (in the rain) to walk to Cluny. I'm still not exactly sure why we chose to walk, since it was a decent way (just over a mile), and there were convenient train stops for both museums. By the time we got there, we were soaking wet, and then we had to wait for half an hour to get into the museum, during which time Cherry announced (loudly) every 30 seconds that she needed to pee. We finally made it inside, and headed straight down to the bathrooms. Cherry wanted to use her own potty, but was willing to have me guard the door instead of locking it, fortunately.

We saw a very cool exhibit celebrating 50 years of Asterix down in the recently restored Roman frigidarium. We went upstairs and saw the lady and the unicorn tapestries. We saw a 7th century Visigoth crown. (Actually, we saw three of those.) We saw a surprising number of depictions of Mary nursing baby Jesus. Then we headed home on the RER.

In which we celebrate Halloween

Several weeks ago, Blaise's mom emailed me to ask whether or not they celebrated Halloween in France, and I was forced to admit that I really didn't know. I knew that Toussaint (All Saints' Day) was an important holiday (the kids get a week and a half off school), but I had no idea about Halloween. So, of course, I got on the internet and poked around a bit. As best I could figure, there was some Halloweeny kind of stuff, but it wasn't really a very important day. I did, however, find that the American Library in Paris was having a Halloween party for kids, and since Halloween was a Saturday, it was actually on Halloween. So, last weekend when we went to the library, I signed the kids up.

Then, we planned to buy things to make costumes on Monday. But Cherry was sick, as was Blaise, so that didn't work out. Neither did Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. By Friday things were beginning to seem a bit desperate, so off to the Auchan we went. Since Halloween isn't a very big thing here, there aren't rows and rows of costumes like there are at, say, Target. Instead there were a few witches hats, a bit of face paint, a pumpkin costume, and some Asterix and Obelix masks.

Sapphire wanted to be a witch. Since she already had black pants, we found her a black sweater, and, fortunately, a witch's hat. We debated buying face paint, but she really wanted green, the one color that they didn't seem to have.

Ezio wanted to be Asterix. We had originally planned to make some cardboard wings and attach them to his winter hat, but were lucky enough to find an Asterix mask in the bin of Halloween stuff. Then, we needed to find a black shirt, which was surprisingly difficult, and red pants, which was unsurprisingly difficult. He eventually ended up with a black girl's turtleneck and a pair of Asterix pajamas that had red pants.

Cherry wanted to be a pumpkin. Since there was no appropriate pumpkin costume at the Auchan (the one there was for 10 to 14 year olds, which seems like a kind of lame costume for a tween), we needed to make one. So we needed something orange (a bath towel) and something for a face (a yellow washcloth). There was, fortunately, a sewing kit in the apartment. And so Friday night my mother made Cherry a pumpkin costume out of a towel and cut up bits of washcloth.

Saturday after lunch, we set out. We stopped along the bridge to snap a picture in front of the Eiffel Tower, then headed the rest of the way to the library. Sapphire insisted that I carry her hat the whole way because she was worried that she might look odd with it on.

Once we were at the library, the kids got to decorate pumpkin and ghost cutouts, which the library staff then hung all over the library's reading room. Then they sang some songs and listened to some stories. They went for a parade through the library and had a costume contest (which none of my kids won). Finally, they watched the Great Pumpkin movie.

On the way home, Cherry melted down, oh, say, 50 times, and so the 45 minute trip ended up being a 90 minute slog. Then we had trick or treaters knock on our door, but no candy because we didn't know there would be trick or treaters. Oops. Perhaps we could have offered them red beans and rice.

In which we attend a birthday party

Yesterday, around 1:00, Sapphire's friend Blanche rang our buzzer. When I answered, she asked whether Sapphire, Ezio, and Cherry could come to a birthday party for her cousin that afternoon. We had planned to go into Paris with my mom that afternoon, so I wasn't sure whether they would want to or not, so I asked Blanche to wait a minute while I checked with Sapphire. Sapphire definitely wanted to go, and Cherry thought that maybe she would like to go (Blanche's sister is in Cherry's class at school) as long as I went with her. Ezio definitely did not want to go, but my mom said she would spend some time with him. Sapphire let Blanche know that we would be coming.

The party was scheduled to go from 3:00 until 5:00 (actually until 6:00, as it turned out, but I either misheard or mistranslated what Blanche told me). That meant that we had about 2 hours to eat lunch, buy something to cook for dinner, and pick out some sort of gift. Lunch was easy, as it basically involved reheating the previous night's leftovers, and dinner was planned, though we didn't have the ingredients on hand yet. The gift was more of a problem. Blanche's extended family all lives together in her apartment, and while I knew that she is 9, her little sister is 3, and her older sister is 15 or 16, I had no idea whether the cousin having the birthday was a boy or a girl, or what age s/he was. We went to the Auchan, and settled on a box of colored pencils, and a notebook of drawing paper as a suitable gift. We figured that at least that was a relatively flexible gift, as far as age and gender went, and I was guessing that the birthday child was probably not older than Sapphire and Blanche or the younger 2 would never have been invited.

We got home, and my mom helped Sapphire wrap the gift while I put the groceries away. Sapphire changed into a dress, and we walked next door to Blanche's apartment building for the party. Blanche's older sister let us in, and we were surrounding by running preschoolers and adolescents. It was fairly obvious why Blanche had wanted Sapphire to come; they were the only kids between 5 and 15 who were there. The kids all danced to very loud music, and I tried to figure out who the birthday child was. Finally, I asked Blanche, and discovered that it was twins! Oops. That was not a possibility that I had planned for!

Sapphire and Blanche had a lot of fun running around and dancing. Cherry wasn't sure what to think. Mostly she sat on my lap and watched what was going on. I finally had the opportunity to ask where Blanche's family is from. Answer: Ivory Coast. She may actually have been born there. I'm not exactly sure. Around 5:00 we left because I needed to make dinner, and because I was feeling slightly guilty about abandoning mom.

In which Cherry locks herself in

On Tuesday we went to the Town Hall (Hôtel de Ville) to pay for lunches for the month of September. Cherry wasn't feeling well, but I thought that the fresh air would be good for her, so I stuck her on my back, and off we went. Once we got there, my mom waited outside the building with Sapphire and Ezio while Cherry and I went up the stairs to the schools department. We waited in line for a few minutes and paid the bill.

Then, Cherry decided that she needed to use the restroom. We headed in to the bathroom, and she decided that she wanted to use a stall by herself, and I could use one by myself. Since the bathroom didn't seem likely to get a whole lot of use (it's basically an office building), I told her that was fine, and she headed in. Of course, once she was in the bathroom, she turned the lock, because that's what one does in a public restroom stall. (An important note: while American bathroom stalls generally have doors that stop about a foot above the floor, and have plenty of space above them as well, European stalls have doors that go from the floor to the door-frame.) After a few minutes she told me that she couldn't figure out how to flush the potty, so I suggested that she open the door so that I could help her. You can probably see where this is going. She couldn't figure out how to unlock the door. I asked her to turn it as far as she could one direction, then the other. The door remained locked. Next, I looked at the lock to see how easy it would be to open. It needed a screwdriver or something like that. I tried the end of one of my keys, but that didn't work at all.

So I told Cherry to stay where she was (in retrospect, that was foolish. Where would she have gone? Into the toilet?), while I went back to the schools office to ask for help. They weren't sure how to get the door open either, but 3 of them rushed off in different directions to try to figure things out. A fourth came into the bathroom with me, and after looking at the door for a minute suggested that I pull it closed as hard as I could, and then ask Cherry to turn the lock again. The lock snicked back, and a sobbing Cherry tumbled out. We thanked the people who had helped us, and headed back outside to meet everyone else.

In which Mom arrives and we have a rather annoying train trip

We've been looking forward to having visitors while in Paris, since Paris has many more interesting things to offer than Kansas does. Think Louvre, Notre Dame, Eiffel Tower, and Versailles versus corn, wheat, cows, and men in purple T-shirts. (Yeah, yeah, I shouldn't diss Kansas. I know. I like Kansas, but perhaps not as a tourist destination.)

My mom was scheduled to arrive in Paris this morning, and was a bit worried about whether or not she could handle the trip from the airport to our apartment by herself, particularly as it was the first time she had traveled internationally by herself. Of course, I agreed to take the train out to meet her. Yesterday, I called to let her know that it might actually be Blaise who met her, since Cherry was sick, and I didn't want to drag her out to the airport and Blaise was less than thrilled about dealing with a sick kid. So the plan was that if Cherry was sick, Blaise would meet my mom at the airport, and if she wasn't sick anymore, I would take her.

Then Blaise woke me up at 4:30 to ask if I could take his temperature. (No, I don't know why he couldn't take his own temperature. Maybe temperature taking requires ovaries?) So now he was sick, and of course Cherry still had a fever. The obvious solution would have been for me to just go alone, but he was even less equipped to deal with her than he normally would have been. So I loaded her in the Ergo, and set off for the RER station.

We bought tickets, and I arrived at the platform just in time to see the E line train that I wanted pull away. The next train wasn't for another 15 minutes, so I headed back to the A platform, since the A line trains run more frequently. The normally 15 minute ride to Chatelet took almost half an hour because we spent so much time standing still. Then we boarded the express train to the airport. Basically that means that although the train goes through all the stops between the center of Paris and the airport, it doesn't stop at any of them. Except that our train stopped at all of them. For a really long time. Enough time for throngs of people to get on and off. At least they could have if the driver hadn't made announcements asking us not to open the doors at each stop.

We finally arrived at the airport a good 40 minutes after I had planned to get there, and hurried off to meet Mom. I was concerned that we were late enough that she might have wandered off in search of us. Fortunately she was waiting just where we'd agreed to meet her, so that part at least went smoothly.

On the way home, we had to switch to a different B-line train halfway to Paris because they were having electrical problems along the line. (That's probably why the trip to the airport took so long too, but my French was not nearly good enough to understand garbled loudspeaker French.) We got back and were mobbed by Sapphire and Ezio, who had stayed home with Blaise.

In which Cherry leaves a "gift" for the people on the Metro

Sapphire and Ezio were sick with what may have been the flu this week (I think it probably was. Blaise claims that I'm just buying into the hype. I haven't asked what his alternative diagnoses are. Also, he was gone for the worst of it, so I'm not sure he can talk.), so they stayed home from school Thursday and Friday. By this morning, however, Sapphire was completely fever free, and Ezio was feeling much better, though he was still running a bit of a fever.

We were in desperate need of a trip to the library, and since Ezio was still a bit ill, I decided that I would take Sapphire, who needed to get out of the house, and Cherry, who would keep Blaise from getting any work done otherwise, with me. The trip into the city was fairly uneventful. We had to stand on the RER going in, because we ended up smack in the middle of the train, due to our arrival on the platform just as the train was pulling in to the station. (Normally we go to one end or the other, but that would have meant waiting for the next train, which is a sizable wait on weekends.) We transfered to the Metro, got off at our regular stop and walked to the library.

We dropped off our books, and went back to the children's room to get new ones. (One of these days I'm going to keep my vow to check out a few grown up books too. I've got to get over thinking about how far I've got to carry them.) Ezio wanted Asterix comics (in English), so we picked up a couple of those, as well as a couple of Geronimo Stilton books for him. Cherry once again selected 5 Christmas books, though I was able to dissuade her from picking two different versions of The Night Before Christmas. Sapphire got the next two books in the Anne of Green Gables series, and then explained to the librarian that the reason she likes them so much is that she's basically just like Anne. She has an amazing imagination, and she never stops talking, all of which is of course true. I'm not sure how she'd do with 3 sets of twins though.

I signed the kids up for the Halloween party next Saturday afternoon while the librarian checked out our books, loaded them into the backpack, and headed out. Cherry made it about halfway back to the Metro station (it's about a half mile all told) before she started whining that she couldn't walk any more. I really didn't want to, since my back hurt and I was carrying books, but I picked her up, and noticed that she felt a bit warm. Surely it was my imagination, and even if it wasn't, we had to get home, so down into the Metro we went.

The first ride went without incident. We discovered on arriving at the Gare St. Lazare that we'd just missed a train running in our direction, and that we would need to wait about 15 minutes for the next one. Fortunately, it's the end of the line, and so the trains get there and just sit for 10+ minutes, which meant that we could go and grab seats instead of standing on the platform and waiting for the train to arrive. By this point, I was forced to admit that Cherry was probably actually sick, so I started trying to figure out what hurt. Her ear, evidently, and her butt. What about her stomach? Her denial of stomach pain was interrupted by its contents flying out of her mouth. We cleaned up as best we could, wrapped things well, and stuffed them into the backpack (separately from the books of course). Cherry slept the rest of the way home. Fortunately the train wasn't particularly crowded, and so there wasn't any issue with her keeping her seat. I pity the poor soul who sits in it accidentally however. There's only so much you can do with a couple of windbreakers.

Flashback: In which we arrive in Paris (Part 2)

For the first part, go to flashback: in which we arrive in Paris.

We landed safely in Paris, and discovered, much to our surprise that we didn't need to ride a bus from the plane to the terminal building. Instead we were able to actually walk from the plane directly into the building. Off we went to passport control, where we got in line and watched the people with European Union passports go flying past. We were behind a large group of Africans (tourists or immigrants, I'm not sure which) and the passport people were taking forever to screen their passports. Eventually we reached the official, who checked our passports and let us through.

The next step was to find our luggage carrousel and wait. And wait and wait. At last one of our bags came through, and shortly afterward the "no more bags" sign started flashing. So we were short one large bag, one carseat, and two boosters. Well, there was nothing to do for it but go stand in the line for people who were missing luggage. After all, we had been on 3 flights on 2 airlines involving 4 airports and 3 countries. It was hardly shocking that something would have been misplaced. Once we had cleared about half of the waiting line, the light on top of the carrousel began to flash again, and we rushed over to check what might be coming off. Our carseat and booster seats showed up and we pulled them off, but though we waited for another 10 minutes our second bag never showed up. Back to the line, which was somewhat shorter at this point. Blaise filled out the paperwork while I attempted to entertain the kids, something I don't do particularly well when tired.

Then we loaded up our luggage cart (free, at least in the international terminals, in Paris) and headed out the door to the train station. We were pleasantly surprised to discover that this time the train station entrance was basically right where we were. (Last time we had to walk a really, really long way to get to the trains.) We dragged our stuff down the escalators. I took Cherry and the bag. Blaise took the carseat. Sapphire and Ezio each carried their own booster seat. And of course we all had carry ons. We took the train to the Gard du Nord, and transfered to the Metro. On the way we noticed a bakery shop, and stopped to grab some pains aux chocolats.

We took the metro a few stops, then unloaded. I needed to take Cherry with me to go pay the second half of the rent for the apartment we were living in for our first few days in France, and to pick up the key and the passcode to the building. Blaise and the big kids stayed in the train station with all of our luggage, because it turned out that we needed to get a different train from the same station to get to our apartment. That way we didn't have to worry about dragging the luggage the 3 blocks to the rental office.

Cherry and I found the office successfully, though not without a few mishaps, and I dutifully put my money into the lockbox and removed my key. We then headed back out to the Metro station, where I had to buy a ticket (actually, I bought 10 of them because it's cheaper that way) in order to get back into the train station. By the time I got back, Sapphire and Ezio were both panicking about how long I'd been gone, and convinced that I'd gotten lost somehow. We grabbed our luggage and dragged it to the platform for our departing train. By now we were approaching rush hour, and the trains were beginning to get crowded. Somehow, Cherry and I, with the big duffle bag, managed to get on a different train than Blaise and the big kids and the rest of the luggage. To make matters worse, Blaise wasn't completely sure where to get off, and I had told him we only needed to ride a couple of stops. (It was more like 10.) Cherry and I got off at the proper stop, and tried to stay right where we were, hoping that at least they would be able to see us when the next train pulled in. Fortunately, they were on it, and saw us, and promptly gave me a 3 person scolding for providing Blaise with incomplete information and getting on a different train. (Honestly, given the amount of luggage we had, I'm not sure we could all have managed to get on the same train.)

We hoisted our luggage up the steps, and began the miserable trek to the apartment. By the time we'd gone halfway we'd stopped to rest at least thrice, and were beginning to wish that the airline had managed to lose all of the luggage. We found the building at last, and discovered upon entry that in order to get to our apartment we would have to drag our luggage up an incredibly steep and very narrow set of stairs to a tiny platform that was made smaller by the child's potty sitting on it. I went up alone and opened the door. Then everyone else followed, one at a time, so that if someone fell down the stairs at least they wouldn't knock over all of the people around them.

Once we had settled in a bit, and Blaise had gotten the wireless router running, I headed out to the supermarket and picked up something for dinner. Afterwards, we visited a playground around the corner for a bit, then headed home and to bed.