Tuesday, September 29, 2009

In which Rebekah blathers on. . .

The problem with having a slow weekend is that it does not provide any material for blogging the following week. But certain members of my family are expecting a blog post today, so I'll have to put something together.

It appears that I may have a couple of opportunities for some very part time work while we're here. I've had a couple of people approach me about either tutoring their child in English, or in having a one on one conversation class. Unfortunately, I doubt that I would be able to do that in the morning while Cherry was at school, but it would likely only be a few hours a month commitment, so not too bad. Also, there is some chance that I might have the opportunity to do some translation work with the team that Blaise is working with this year. That would be something I could do in the mornings, which would certainly be more convenient. In any case, neither of these things is definite, so I'll have to see what happens.

Ezio had some issues at the end of last week with being picked on by one of the other kids in his class. Evidently Emmanuel decided that it was lots of fun to pick Ezio up and carry him around the playground, which Ezio absolutely hated. I sent a note in to the teacher on Friday, and things seem to have gotten better. Also, Ezio has begun to take matters into his own hands. Emmanuel picked him up once yesterday, and got slapped. He hasn't tried it since.

Cherry has gone from being the kid in her class who cries the entire morning to being the kid in her class who doesn't cry at all, even at drop off. Apparently she just needed a little bit of time to get accustomed to the whole school thing. I'm still working on getting her to leave her stuffed bunny at home, since I think that it's really just sitting in the "doudou" (lovey) basket all day at school. She's still not sure she likes recess very much, but perhaps she'll come around to that as well. At this point her expressive French vocabulary is around 30 words, including most of the social niceties (please, thank you, hello, goodbye), several action words (jump, stop, run, climb, etc), yes and no, a bunch of colors, and most of the numbers up to 10. Bizarrely, in English she skips five and six, and in French she skips cinq and six (5 and 6).

Sapphire is being very social at school, which ought to be good for her French. I suspect that she will be the child that has to work the hardest to learn French, since she is the oldest, so additional incentive for her to master French is only a good thing. I did meet a family at the grocery store yesterday whose oldest child went through CLIN (French as a second language) when he was 8, and who now, at 10, speaks English with a French(!) accent, so I have high hopes. I noticed that when she and Blanche were playing on Sunday that I didn't get called upon for translation, so that's definitely a good sign.

Blaise is writing and researching and all the other stuff that he's here to do. On Saturday he met with the daughter of a friend of a friend who wants to go to the US to do a college/masters degree, and stopped at the bakery that I went to every day we were in France two years ago. So we had fruit and nut bread with breakfast on Sunday, which was delicious. Although the bakery here makes very nice baguettes in several varieties, they don't make much else in the way of bread, and I kind of miss some of the other options. Not enough, of course, to make a regular habit of a 45 minute train ride each direction, but it was nice to have special bread for once.

Monday, September 28, 2009

In which we make a lot of noise at the library

This summer, Sapphire and Ezio participated in a reading program at the Manhattan Public Library. And, when we arrived in Paris and bought our membership in the American Library in Paris (ALP), they participated in the one there as well. For the last 7 weeks or so of the summer, the wrote down every book they read in a little blue booklet, and took it in to the library where they received kudos and stickers for their reading.

On Saturday, the ALP held their annual open house, with tours and other such things, and the kids celebrated the end of the summer and a successful summer reading program with a party. They started out by filling out leaves with their names, ages, a really great book they had read that summer, and a one or two word description of it. Then they turned it in to the children's librarian, who gave them a reading certificate, a bookmark to decorate, and let them pick a new book to keep. After all of the leaves had been handed in and all the bookmarks had been decorated, she cleaned up the markers and everyone sat down and faced front.

The librarian then introduced the afternoon's entertainment, a singer who lead the kids through an hour of silly songs, some at extremely high volume. The kids thought it was a riot. Even Cherry wanted to contribute when he asked for animals to put in the songs, until of course he called on her at which point she clammed up. After he was done, we picked some books (since most of the picture books had been moved out for the party, that was all Christmas books in Cherry's case) and headed home on the train.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

In which we take advantage of the Journeés du Patrimoine (Part 4)

After lunch, we headed over to the Sorbonne, arguably the oldest university in Europe. (Oxford is the other candidate.) We saw academic robes and a gigantic and beautiful auditorium. Then I sat in the courtyard with Cherry, who insisted on removing her shoes and socks, while Blaise and the big kids went to see another wing of the building. I'm frequently amazed at just how compactly massive buildings are in Paris. We stopped near some nearby fountains to look at the outside of the chapel for the Sorbonne (it's closed for renovations right now) and to eat some cookies.

Next, we walked to the Bibliotheque Sainte-Genevieve, which was beautiful. Cherry was beginning to be a bit cranky by now, so I spent less time in the library itself than did Blaise, Sapphire, and Ezio. The big kids found bookmarks upstairs, which upset Cherry, until we discovered that they had the same bookmarks downstairs. Then she tried to bargain with me.
"Cherry, you may pick 2 bookmarks."
"But Sapphire has 3 bookmarks."
"Sapphire needs more bookmarks because she uses them in her books."
"I can use them in my books."
"But you only read one book at a time."
"It's OK Mommy. I can read 3 or 4 books at a time."
We compromised on 3 bookmarks for Cherry, which gave her something to chew on for the rest of the day.

Afterwards, we went across the street to the Pantheon, which is normally 8 euros. It is definitely not worth 8 euros, unless you are desperate for something to spend money on in Paris, or you really like looking at naked people fighting in battle. All three kids commented on that one.

We were hoping to go through a school afterward, but the line to get in was absolutely enormous, and not moving at all, so we passed. Instead, we went to what used to be the École Polytechnique, which was not particularly impressive. Now it's just another government building, and if there were vestiges of former beauty in the building we certainly weren't given the opportunity to see them.

We headed for the RER station via the Jardin des Plantes and took the train home.

In which we take advantage of the Journeés du Patrimoine (Part 3)

Sunday morning we set out again for Paris. There were several things that we wanted to see that hadn't been open on Saturday, and so we left early. This time, I had the sense to make sure that Cherry was out of the room when I put the Ergo into the backpack, and so she didn't realize that I brought it with me.

We rode the RER down to Chatelet (not all that far from where we had started the previous day) and headed along the Seine to an old pedestrian footbridge, the Pont des Artes. It seemed a bit odd to be crossing the river on a bridge with plank flooring. The handrails were made of chain link fencing, and all along the length of the bridge were locks with couples' names painted or etched on them. We theorized that perhaps the bridge is a popular place for proposals, and that afterwards the couple would lock their padlock through the fencing and toss the key into the river.

On the other side of the Seine we entered the Institut de France. (There's a very cool virtual tour here.)Typically the Institut is open for only one day a month, so we felt fortunate to be able to see it. It's perhaps best known as the place where they make decisions about what words belong in the French language. Sometimes they're successful in preventing words from other languages from invading, other times, not so much. (For example, the official French word for email is courriel, but even official publications refer to it as email.)

We started out by going to the library, or bibliotheque, which was beautiful. Even better, when the greeters gave the adults brochures about the library, they also gave the kids sheets with 9 photographs of objects to look for inside the library. Even Cherry thought it was fun to find the statues, illuminated letters, hidden doors, and other things pictured on her sheet. Ezio had fun identifying all the people who looked like the Romans in the much loved Asterix comics. He was also able to identify who Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates were, though he didn't know who Benjamin Franklin was.

Afterward, we went back out into the courtyard, and across to the big room (the dome) where the delegates meet to make decisions about all things French. We got to sit in the cushy green seats (one of the few places this weekend where they let people use the chairs), and listen to music and pretend we were making important decisions about the French language. Afterward Cherry and I spent 20 minutes waiting to use the single stalled women's restroom (much to Blaise's annoyance) and then we headed out.

Our next planned stop was the Ecole des Beaux Artes, but unfortunately the entrance that they claimed we were supposed to use was blocked by heavy equipment and an enormous Chantier Interdit (worksite forbidden) sign. Since we couldn't figure out where we were supposed to go instead, we headed off in the direction of the Sorbonne. By this time everyone was pretty hungry though, so we decided to stop at a park and eat our sandwiches and apples before we went on.

We stopped at the Église de Saint-Germain-des-Prés, which is (in part) the oldest standing church in Paris. Also, it is where Descartes remains are kept, so of course Blaise wanted to see it. Then we went into the public garden alongside the church and ate our lunch.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

In which we take advantage of the Journeés du Patrimoine (Part 2)

After lunch we headed over to the Banque de France, which is the central bank of France and plays some of the same roles as the Fed. (It's a bit more complicated because of the Eurozone and the European Union.) Fortunately there was no wait to get in, so we were able to pass through the metal detectors and x-rays fairly quickly. The building is quite old and very beautiful. One room in particular was, we agreed, more beautiful than the hall of mirrors at Versailles. The walls and ceiling were covered with murals, and secret doors abounded in the walls. (For photos, see here.) (Keep in mind that Cherry was whining the entire time, so I didn't really get a chance to appreciate things as much as I might have.) Eventually we headed downstairs and out into a courtyard with a glass roof. Then back inside where we got a chance to see a 10 kg gold bar, well guarded of course.

Afterwards, we went to la Bourse de Commerce, which was at one point built to house grains. (A previous building on the same location was used to house repentant prostitutes.) It's a big circular building, and we were only able to enter the big round room in the center with its domed glass roof.

Once we had looked around a bit, we headed over to the Jardin des Halles, hoping to give Cherry a chance to run around, and hopefully become more cheerful and cooperative. We made an epic bathroom trip and ate some cookies. Afterwards we set off for the Opéra, but Cherry was so awful that I gave Blaise the backpack and Cherry and I headed home while the others went to the Opéra. She napped. I drank wine and ate chocolate.

Monday, September 21, 2009

In which we take advantage of the Journeés du Patrimoine (Part 1)

We had an extremely busy weekend, so the blog about it will probably be split into 3 or 4 posts.

In the United States, many important governmental buildings are generally open to the public. You may need tickets and reservations and a willingness to stand in a long line in order to get in, but they're generally open. So, for instance, if you want to visit the Mint or the Congress or any number of other things during your visit to Washington, you can do so.

In France, this isn't true. While you're welcome to look at the outside of these buildings, you can't go in unless you have a legitimate reason, a meeting or something like that. There are, however, two days a year when these buildings are open to the public. They're called the Journées du Patrimoine, and in addition, many schools, churches, libraries, and museums are open and free. This year, the Journées du Patrimoine were the 19th and 20th of September, and Blaise spent many hours over the previous week putting together an itinerary for us.

Saturday morning after breakfast I quickly made a picnic lunch while the kids frantically tidied the house a bit. By 9:45 we were out the door on the way to the train station. Cherry whined the whole way that her legs were tired and she needed to be in the Ergo, which I had made the mistake of letting her see me put into the backpack. Unfortunately, that would set her mood for the entire day. Once we were in the city, we headed to the Palais Royale, which houses the council of state, the constitutional council, and the department of culture. There was quite a long line to get in, so we queued, and waited for the line to move. An hour later, we had made it through the metal detectors and x-ray machines, and I had dropped the backpack at the coat check. (I'm always amazed at how few people bother to check their stuff. If you don't have to carry it, why would you bother?)

We started out in a large, opulently decorated room which is used for meetings, evidently. Then we went into a series of offices for the minister of culture and his more highly ranked underlings. It was a bit incongruous to see beautifully ornamented baroque era walls and ceilings juxtaposed with very modern desks, complete with computers, fax machines, and lots of brightly colored notebooks. From there we went through a series of very beautiful courtrooms. Then along a balcony and into the meeting rooms of the constitutional council. (More juxtaposition of the very old and ornate with the very modern and stripped down.) Finally, we headed down a last staircase, found a bathroom for Cherry, and headed out. I walked back around to the front of the building and picked up my backpack from the coat check. (Fortunately I didn't have to wait in line again.) Then, since everyone was hungry, we walked into Le Jardin du Palais Royale and found a bench to sit on and eat our lunch.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

In which we search for a bathroom

Note: This properly belongs in the posts about this weekend, but it was enough of a ridiculous adventure so that I'm giving it its own post.

At one point Saturday afternoon we found ourselves at the Jardin des Halles, a large Parisian park, hoping that Cherry would be more cooperative if we gave her an opportunity to blow off some steam. Naturally, after the kids had played on the playground for a little while, Cherry came running over and announced, loudly, that she needed to pee. Now, had I been in Fontenay I would have taken her over onto the grass, maybe behind a bush or something, pulled down her pants, and told her to go to it, but there were an awfully lot of people around, and most big parks have public restrooms, so I decided to find a bathroom. This turned out to be a mistake.

On the way into the park, I had noticed one of the freestanding toilet kiosks that one sees scattered throughout Paris. Unfortunately, I hadn't noticed whether or not it was actually in order, and it seems that many of them are not. (Supposedly they're in the process of upgrading them.) Since it was a couple of blocks back, I didn't know whether it was actually operational, and the kiosks always reek, I decided against that option. I would find a bathroom actually in the park. Surely there would be one. . ..

As we exited the playground, I saw a sign: Toilettes Publiques. Porte Berger. 300 m, and an arrow pointing to the left. A bit later there was another sign, identical except that the distance was now decreased to 200 m. And further still, a sign announcing that the toilets were now only 100 m away. By this point we were virtually to the other end of the park, and since porte means door or entry, I came to the (wrong) conclusion that the signs had been telling me that the bathrooms were located at that entrance to the park. Cherry and I spent several minutes looking around that end of the park, punctuated by yelps of "Mommy, I need to pee now. I'm going to pee in my pants."

Since we couldn't find the bathroom the fall back was to find some grass, preferably not right in the middle of everything, that she could pee on. (Grass doesn't end up smelling as bad as concrete. Don't ask how I know this.) Of course this was a formal Parisian park, and except for the grass in the playground area all of the lawns were properly fenced off to prevent people from walking or sitting (or, OK, peeing) on them. About a third of the way back to the playground, I noticed an escalator going down under ground, and saw that the sign above it read "Porte Berger". Hmm, well that matched the signs we were seeing earlier, even if I had no idea what Porte Berger was. We headed down the escalator.

In case you were wondering, Porte Berger was the entrance to a massive underground shopping mall. And there were no toilettes anywhere in sight. Finally I found a small green sign, which directed me to another escalator. And another. And yet another. Then, way back in the corner we found the toilets. And of course, had to pay 40 cents for the privilege of using them. On the plus side, they were clean and definitely didn't smell like stale pee. On the minus side, by the time we'd gotten back to the playground the bathroom trip had taken almost half an hour.

(While I know that Paris (and Europe more generally) have a reputation for charging for bathroom use, this is the first time I've had to pay to use a public toilet since Sapphire was a baby, and I've used many Parisian public bathrooms during that time.)

Thursday, September 17, 2009

In which Cherry adjusts to school

All 3 kids have begun school, and they are all attending French public schools, though not the same one. Sapphire and Ezio are attending school together on the other side of town because that's where the Classe d'Initiation meets. (Essentially, that's the French version of English as a Second Language. They refer to it as CLIN.) They have adjusted very well. Sapphire has made oodles of friends, and while Ezio has not, he is playing soccer with the other boys from his class most recesses. Things are a bit more complicated for him because all of the other boys in his class are 5th graders, so quite a lot older, and all of them are from either Portugal or Brazil, which means that they can talk together in a language that he doesn't understand.

Cherry is going to the Groupe Scolaire (that's what they call the collection of an elementary school, or ecole primaire, and a preschool, or maternelle) across the street from us. And since she is only 3, there is no CLIN, she's just in a regular preschool classroom with other kids (and adults) speaking French. She is having a more difficult time adjusting, which I suppose isn't surprising given that this is her first exposure to a school or daycare setting. While I taught last spring, she stayed either with Blaise, or with a babysitter, but there weren't lots of other kids around. She isn't entirely sure that she likes other small children, and the class is quite big, with 21 kids, and 2 adults.

Her first full day of school (which is really only a half day. She doesn't go back to school after lunch.), she cried more or less the entire time, and so her teacher asked me to stay for a little while the next day. She was OK as long as I was there, but once I left she cried the rest of the time. The 3rd day, she cried a bit less. Then, fortunately, there was a weekend and an opportunity to recover a little bit. Monday she cried a lot, but was distractable, at least some of the time. Tuesday she was actually smiling when I picked her up. Yesterday was a Wednesday, so no school, and we spent an hour with a couple of the kids from her class and their mother. I'm hoping that if she becomes more comfortable with some of the kids, then school will be a bit less scary for her.

She cried when I dropped her off this morning. We'll see how she is when I pick her up.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

In which we return to the Magic Kingdom

If you have been following my blog, you know that we bought annual passes to Parc Disneyland last month, on the grounds that they would pay for themselves if we went a couple of times.

The weather here has been absolutely gorgeous lately, and last week, one of Blaise's colleagues commented that we should enjoy the nice weather while we could, because it would soon be less pleasant. Friday we talked briefly about going to Disney this weekend, but weren't sure. Then Elinor and Jeremy (friends that we met at the Jardin de Luxembourg) called to say that they were going on Saturday because they had gotten free passes that were going to expire in a week, and since we had annual passes would we like to join them?

Saturday morning I quickly planned two days of food (the grocery store is closed on Sunday, so I couldn't go shopping then) and after breakfast I ran to the ATM (at the far end of the mall) and to the Auchan. We packed PBJ and apples, plus a box of cookies and water bottles for lunch, stuffed it in a back pack, grabbed our passes and RER tickets, and headed off to the park. This time, the kids knew we were going, so they were excited too.

Once we had cleared security (which took a while, because we arrived right when the park opened) we headed for the Sword in the Stone, which was where we had agreed to meet the Avigads. Interestingly, despite the fact that they had left an hour or more before we had, we beat them there, partly because they had a longer train ride, and partly because they didn't have enough free passes for everyone, and needed to pick up a couple of actual tickets. Jeremy had gone to pick up fast passes for one of the rides, and so Blaise and I took all 6 kids over to ride Dumbo while Elinor waited for Jeremy to get back. Afterwards, they used their fast passes, while we went and picked up passes to Star Tours for everyone. (We later discovered that Cherry was too short to ride, and so Cherry and I gave our passes away to a couple who seemed to be trying to decide if they could afford to spend 2 hours(!) waiting in line.)

After lunch (they bought theirs, we packed ours), we rode Small World enroute to Star Tours. Then took the train over to Pirates of the Caribbean (which terrified Sapphire and Cherry again) and finished off by with the Haunted House (which didn't terrify anyone). Cherry was much doted on, which she loved. She's spent most of the last 3 days talking about how "hooper dooper nite Eyinoh and Dewamee's kids were to her. Wiwee wiwee nite, eden." (In case you were wondering, that translates as how super duper nice Elinor and Jeremy's kids were to her. Really, really nice, even.)

Monday, September 14, 2009

In which we visit the Musee des Arts et Metiers

Note: I'm very far behind in this blog, so I'm committing to writing at least one post each morning that Cherry has school (MTTF). Hopefully that will catch me up relatively quickly.

Last weekend was the first weekend in September, so many of the national museums were free on Sunday. Since I am of Dutch heritage, this meant that, of course, we had to take advantage of this. Unfortunately, most of the museums that were free were art museums, which we just weren't in the mood for, and the one on the list that we really wanted to go to is in the process of being moved to a new building, in Marseilles, 800 km away. We started poking around on the websites of various museums that we wanted to go to at some point, hoping that we'd find one that was free that day. Finally, Blaise discovered that the Musee des Arts et Metiers was free.

Though arts et metiers translates roughly as arts and crafts, a more accurate translation might be as invention and industry. When we arrived, there was no sign telling us that the museum was free that day (generally there is) and so we had to confirm that it was at the information desk. I'm not sure whether they would have sent us in for free had we not known that it was free or not, since they bothered to give us tickets which were then scanned by the ticket taker on the way upstairs.

We saw balances, weights, telescopes, ancient calculators. Models of looms for making jacquard silk and paper mills. A 20 year old Cray super computer. (That one was a bit odd. There was all this really old stuff, and then a Cray, circa 1985.) A scale model of demonstrating the Bessemer process for making steel. The skeletons of model buildings. More types of gears than I realized there were in existence, and many of them could be watched in action by holding down a button. Bleriot's airplane. And a big collection of animated toys, which, unfortunately, are only turned on a few times a month.

Friday, September 11, 2009

In which we meet some Americans

Blaise knows many philosophers and historians of mathematics who are in France right now. Many (in fact, most) of them are here because they are French, or because they have permanent positions in France. Others are Americans who are working here as post docs or graduate students with money from his graduate advisor, who has a substantial 4 year grant from the French government. At least one is spending a sabbatical year working with Microsoft just outside of Paris.

This particular friend lives in Pittsburgh, and so I had never met him before. He and his wife have 3 daughters, ages 10, 8, and 5. Last week they proposed that we meet them at the playground in the Jardin de Luxembourg. They had met another American couple, also here for a year with their children, the previous weekend at the playground, and so all three families met up at the playground Saturday afternoon.

The eight kids mostly played together. Sapphire and Ezio joined up with the Avigads' two older daughters, and their youngest played with another 5 year old. The two 3 year olds kind of did their own things, not too surprisingly I suppose. Cherry is often not particularly interested in other kids her own age; she prefers kids Sapphire's age. And I got to talk to other grown ups, in English, without feeling like I was putting some sort of an unfair burden on them. Normally I either feel guilty about other people having to speak English, or I muddle through in French, neither of which leads to particularly fulfilling conversations.

As seems to be the norm at large playgrounds here, the bathroom had two stalls with normal sized facilities, and one with a pint sized toilet. Of course, once Cherry discovered the little potty, we had to wait for it to be free every time she needed to use the bathroom. This lead to a great deal of standing around and waiting, since she was not the only small child who wanted to use the little potty.

Friday, September 4, 2009

In which the children begin school

Wednesday was the first day of school in France, unless of course you happen to be in one of the many districts that doesn't have school on Wednesdays (that's right folks, no school on Wednesdays), in which case the first day of school was Thursday. We live in one of the districts that doesn't have Wednesday school, so Sapphire and Ezio started school yesterday.

I wasn't sure how much time it would take me to get them situated in their classes, so I left Cherry with Blaise and we headed out around 8:30 to make sure we got their in plenty of time for school to start at 9:00. We got there around 8:45 and waited in a huge crowd of parents and kids for them to open the gates to the school grounds. Finally, around 8:50 they opened the gates and everyone streamed in. We followed along until I realized that I had no clue where everyone else was going, and we retreated back to the headmistress' office. Once she had handled the registrations of a couple of late enrollees, she walked us over to where the kids' teacher was, and we waited while everyone else was collected by their teachers. Then we all trooped up to the classroom together.

Sapphire and Ezio are in the same class, along with 4 other students. Ezio is the youngest. The oldest is a boy who should be at the middle school across the street but needs the French instruction. There is a girl from Romania and a boy from Brazil. Sapphire and Ezio haven't figured out where the other two kids are from, but both have mothers who wear headscarves. Evidently they will be in this class full time initially, and then will gradually join the regular French school classes, first for math and then for other subjects as their French improves. The teacher assured me that by the end of the year they would be ready to go to the school across the street next year. Of course, next year they'll be going to school in the States, so that's kind of a moot point.

Evidently they were tested in math yesterday to see what level they were working at. Today they were tested in reading (in English). Amusingly, they had to read a passage from Chrysanthemum, which is a wonderful book, but one that I've read aloud so many times that I think Cherry can recite the entire thing. I'm not sure how accurate a test of reading skills it was! Then they had to follow some directions to draw a pictures. Evidently they were supposed to include a picture of a lorry. Naturally, neither of them had any idea what that was, so on the way home we talked about differences between British and American English.

Evidently the school lunch was pretty good. They had trays, but their food was on plates on the trays, and they had "real silverware" and water pitchers on the table, and they could take as much bread as they wanted. There are 4 courses and they're all served at once, but Sapphire and Ezio are trying to eat the food in the proper order: appetizer, main course, cheese course, dessert. Mostly the dessert seems to be fruit, but once a week or so it's chocolate mousse or an eclair or something.

Ezio lost his very first tooth during one of their 5(!) recesses. (They only had 4 today, which I think will be standard: morning, afternoon, and before and after lunch.) Then Sapphire had to go find someone who spoke English so that Ezio would have something to put his tooth in! Evidently that was a bit of a challenge as most of the teachers were on break.

Cherry started school today, with a half of her normal half day. I stayed for the first 20 minutes, and then left. She said she had fun, but she was crying when I went to pick her up at lunchtime. I think the teacher said that she had just started crying, but I'm not exactly sure. She was very disappointed that she didn't get recess, though she was excited that she got to go pee in the little potties and wash her hands afterwards in the little sinks. Also she had some sort of a blue book but she didn't get to bring it home. Maybe a workbook of some sort? Oh, and a little girl walked up to her but she ran away because she didn't know the girls name. I suggested that maybe the little girl had wanted to play with her. "But I didn't know her name." "Oh." Maybe I'll have to mention to the teacher that my daughter requires formal introductions in order to play with somebody.

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

In which we visit the Magic Kingdom

What is an American who grew up in Florida to do when he goes to Paris? Take his family to Disney, of course!

When we were in France two years ago we discussed going to Parc Disneyland, but were never bold enough to actually pull the trigger. It was expensive. And far away. And Cherry was a baby. And there were so many other things to do actually in Paris. And Blaise was busy. You get the picture.

This year we were determined to actually go to Disney. But it was still expensive, so Blaise spent months haunting the special deals pages on the Disneyland website. Various offers came and went, but the timing was always wrong. There was, for example, a 29 Euro deal, and the tickets could be reused for a second admission, but you had to order them a week in advance and then you could only use them on Tuesdays and Thursdays and there had to be a week (or more) between visits.

Blaise's Mom (thanks Mom) had agreed to pay for a trip to Disney for Sapphire and Cherry's birthday, and we got the idea of asking her to pay for annual passes for them instead, and maybe for Ezio as well since birthdays here are definitely going to be about experiences rather than stuff, which we don't have much space for anyway. She countered with an offer to get each of us an annual pass as our (early) birthday present for the birthdays which we have in Paris. Better yet, Parc Disneyland had a special "large family" offer for families of 5 or more which brought the cost of their midlevel membership (only 30 blackout days and free parking for our nonexistant car) down to the same price as their low level membership (60 blackout days, including large swathes of the school holidays and many weekends).

Last Saturday night at about 11:30 Blaise says to me, "Want to go to Disney tomorrow?" "Um, sure."

So the next day we went about our business as usual, and told the kids that we were going to a park in the afternoon. (We wanted to stay for the fireworks, and we were worried that if we started our day at Disney too early the kids would be exhausted long before the parade and fireworks at 10:00.) Sapphire and Ezio kept asking which park we were going to, and we just kept telling them that we'd heard it had some really cool things for kids.

After lunch we got jackets together and headed out for the train station. I went ahead to buy tickets, since we were going the opposite direction from the way we normally do; away from rather than into Paris. We headed down the "wrong" set of stairs and waited for train. At one point, a train going into the city came past and Ezio looked at it and asked if we might be on the wrong side of the station. (The train going into Paris enters a tunnel as it leaves the station. The train going away from Paris does not.) We assured him that we knew what we were doing, and that he should just be patient.

Once we were on the train, Sapphire and Ezio had seats together, and Cherry was sitting on my lap across the aisle from them. I could see them whispering together and trying to figure out what was going on because there were no tunnels, the housing was getting less rather than more dense, and the names of the stations were unfamiliar. I just smiled and kept my mouth shut. Once we got to the Parc Disneyland station and got off the train, Sapphire looked around, and asked if we were lost. She knew we weren't in Paris, but she also wasn't quite sure where we were. It wasn't until we had cleared security and were heading over to buy passes that she and Ezio figured out where we were.

It turned out when we went to get passes that we were supposed to have brought identification with us for the kids. Fortunately, Blaise and I had our passports with us and so they were willing to allow us to buy the passes for all of us with just those pieces of identification. After we had filled out all of the stuff, and they had printed us ID cards, we were ready to head into the park.

Let's see, what did we do. . ..

1) We walked around a lot. And I made Cherry walk, for the most part. I carried her some, and we sat when she got really worn out. I think the Disney here is more compact than the ones in the States, so that made it somewhat better.
2) We rode rides, though not as many as we probably would have if we hadn't know we would be returning. Sapphire and Cherry though the Pirates of the Caribbean ride was terrifying. Ezio thought it was the coolest thing ever. We wandered through the mazes on Adventure Island. We rode the carousel. We rode other things too, but I'm too lazy to list them all, and I suspect you don't feel like reading about them anyway.
3) We had mango ice cream bars for a snack, and pizza shaped like Mickey Mouse heads for dinner.
4) We crammed in along Main Street and watched the Fantillusion parade and the fireworks. And Cherry fell asleep, as did both of my feet.

Then we headed home on a very crowded train. We finally got home around midnight and the kids crashed more or less immediately.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

In which the school situation is resolved

I'm sure that all of you have been checking my blog with bated breath several times daily, hoping for an update on our school situation. (You haven't? Humor me, OK?) Well, to make a long story short, I was finally able to get hold of the headmistress of the school across the street on Monday, and she categorically refused to even consider having Sapphire and Ezio go there. She also spent 10 minutes explaining to me why I ought to be thrilled that they had gotten in at the French as a second language school; that they would love it; that it would be much better for them; they would be less frustrated; etc. (At least, I think that's what she was saying. Since I only caught about half of what she was saying, I could be completely wrong here.)

We looked briefly into the private schools here last week, and decided that they are only really tenable options if we're willing to buy a car, which we aren't. So we were left with two options: the French as a second language school, and homeschooling. The homeschooling option would likely mean that Sapphire and Ezio wouldn't learn very much French, so I went yesterday afternoon to meet with the headmistress at the FaaSL school, and had a very nice chat with the custodian because the headmistress wasn't there. We went back this morning and I spoke with her briefly. It's about a 15 minute walk from here, which means, unfortunately, that there's no real way for the kids to come home for lunch. (By the time I picked Cherry up, walked out there, and the walked them back home, they'd have only about half an hour to eat before we needed to turn around and head back to school.)

So, this afternoon I walked to the Mairie (town hall) in the rain to register the big kids for school lunches. It took 3 employees plus a father who was there to register his kids for school to manage to fill the gaps in my French and get everything figured out. (For some reason, pay stub was not in the list of words that I learned in my high school French class. Evidently it's also not a word they learn in high school English.) In any case, they now get to eat this for lunch 4 days a week. They go to school MTTF. Wednesday is an off day for them.

Thursday is the first day of school for Sapphire and Ezio. I'm hoping that I'll get their school supply lists at that point. I tried to get them today, but evidently the person to speak to for supply lists is the Master of the school rather than the Headmistress, (Confused yet?) so I couldn't get them. Cherry starts with a half of a half day on Friday, and is then off until Tuesday when she starts going from 9 to 12 each morning. The big kids will go from 9 to 4:30 with a 90 minute break for lunch.