In which there are floods

One hundred years ago, the center of Paris flooded (Interactive site with lots of photos. In French, but that shouldn't matter much.) after months of snow and rain. Streets and sidewalks were impassable. Tens of thousands of buildings sustained damage, and hundreds of thousands of people were temporarily homeless. It took nearly three months for water levels to go down enough so that they could resume use of the 10 year old metro system.

To commemorate the anniversary of the flood, the city of Paris currently has a couple of exhibitions. The first addresses the question of what would happen today under similar circumstances. The flood walls along the Seine have be built up considerably, so the river would have to be higher in order for there to be significant flooding. On the other hand, the entire length of the Seine is more developed, so there are fewer places for overflow to go if the river does get very high. (And I shudder to think what would happen if the entire Paris Metro system were out of service for 3+ months.)

The second exhibition showcases photos, paintings, news stories, and public service announcements from the flood of 1910. Last Thursday, a friend of ours emailed and suggested that we do something together on Saturday afternoon because his wife was in New York on a job interview, and he was looking for something to do with his kids. That sounded good to us, so we agreed, and asked whether or not he had any suggestions for things that we might do. He suggested the second flood exhibition, which had been on my short list of things to do before it closed (in March).

After an early (and rather rushed) lunch, we set out for the Marais, which is where the flood exhibit is located. As it turned out, we were late, but the Gelmans were even later. We spent about 90 minutes in the exhibition, along with a lot of other people. Many of the photos were available online (see the link above), and Cherry and I had looked at them together yesterday morning. That meant that she had specific photos that she wanted to look for, which helped to keep her somewhat interested. We talked about what happens to streets paved with wooden pavers when they flood (the pavers float up and go everywhere) and about how high the water was going under the Pont d'Alma, a bridge that we cross each time we go to the library. We laughed at a photo titled "Transport d'un Académicien" which depicted a well dressed middle aged man being carried through the water on the back of a younger (and less well dressed) man. "Hey young Smith, I'm willing to overlook the little matter of the plagiarism on the last paper if you'll carry me through the water there." "You will? Really? Hop on!" The photo that Cherry most wanted to find though was one of a man scrubbing the inside of the Hôtel de Ville after the water had retreated.

Afterwards we talked about going to the Musée de la Magie, and decided that it cost quite a bit more than we wanted to spend. I suggested that we go to the Place des Vosges, since it has a playground that the kids could play on (they were getting antsy) and then head to the Musée de Carnavalet (free) and look around a little bit. The other grown ups agreed, and Andrew (Gelman) and I walked the kids over to the park while Blaise went off in search of falafel, which he had decided that he desperately needed.

Upon arrival at the Place des Vosges, we discovered that all of the play equipment had been blocked off with tape (perhaps it's going to be replaced?). Fortunately the sandboxes were still open, and so all 5 kids played there for 20 minutes, while the grown ups stood around and talked and shivered. (Blaise arrived shortly after we did, without finding falafel. Evidently Shabbat is not a good day to try to find falafel in the Marais [Jewish quarter].) Once we were all thoroughly chilled, and the kids were bored with the sandbox we headed for the Musée. Since Cherry needed the bathroom (sound familiar?) and the younger of the two Gelman kids likes to, shall we say, enjoy the scenery, I went ahead with Cherry and left the two men to wrangle the other 4 kids.

We only lasted about 30 minutes at Carnavalet, then headed back for the metro. En route, I noticed the Église Saint Paul Saint Louis (not a great link, but OK), and so of course we had to go in. Afterwards we headed home.

In which we go ice skating

Saturday at the library we ran into both the Avigads and the Gelmans, who had also come for the magic show. Elinor mentioned that their youngest daughter had been invited to a birthday party at the ice skating rink on Wednesday, and that she and her two older daughters were going to stay and skate because they were all going to have to go there anyway. She wanted to know whether or not I would be interested in bringing my kids to go skating with them.

Now ice skating isn't a hugely big thing in Kansas, and so my kids had never been ice skating, and I wasn't at all sure how they would fare out on the ice. On the other hand, Sapphire had been begging to go ice skating ever since she discovered that Fontenay has an ice skating rink, and I'd been putting her off on the grounds that it's expensive and I wasn't sure how I could get three kids started on skates all at the same time, particularly since I've yet to go skating and not come back with purple knees afterwards.

When I asked Sapphire whether or not she would like to go, she was ecstatic, and so on Tuesday afternoon I called Elinor and said we would go. Fortunately, her kids all knew how to ice skate, and she was sure they would be willing to help my kids out, at least a little bit.

The ice skating rink that was hosting the birthday party was in a suburb on the other side of Paris, so it took us the better part of an hour to get there. Then we got to wait in line to pay our admission fee and to rent our skates: size 25 for Cherry, 31 for Ezio, 34 for Sapphire, and 38 for me. (Maybe now that I've written them down I'll be able to remember what they are!) Putting them all on and making sure they were properly (tightly) laced up took another 15 minutes, since none of the kids could do their own, and they we tottered out to the rink.

Sapphire and Ezio immediately headed out onto the ice with Jordana, and promptly landed on their butts. And stood up and landed on their butts. And stood up and landed on their knees. You get the picture. I think Sapphire was about ready to give up and go home right then. (I don't think that she believed me when I told her that learning to ice skate was hard, and that she would fall a lot at first.) Meanwhile I was trying to keep Cherry upright without falling over myself, and so I wasn't in a very good position to help them (and Jordana isn't really big enough to pull kids up). Eventually Ezio managed to crawl over to the wall and pulled himself up and somehow managed to make it to the nearest exit and off the ice. Sapphire followed him.

Now that they were off the ice (and off their butts) we needed a better way to proceed. What if they got onto the ice at one door, and then off at the next and walked back around to the first door and repeated that, at least until they felt more comfortable on their skates? That way they wouldn't have to commit to going all the way around the rink, and they could stay along a part of the wall that was easy to hold onto. Eventually they got braver and first Ezio and then Sapphire ventured to attempt to circle the whole rink.

By the end, Ezio was sort of skate walking around the entire rink without falling down. Sapphire was falling down more, but she was also doing something a bit closer to regular skating. And Cherry was skating for short distances without holding my hand. (She was a big hit with the watching grandparents, especially when she started skating without holding my hand. There were lots of primary school kids there, but not so many preschoolers.) The kids were also soaked from all their falls onto the ice, and sporting bruises in many places. Sapphire was getting a blister on one heel. It was time to take off the skates and get our shoes back on and head back to the train station.

In which we have adventures with Baby Jr.

Baby Jr, in case you were wondering, is the name that Cherry has given to the doll that she received for Christmas.

Yesterday, Cherry decided that she wanted to bring Baby Jr, and the baby's stroller, and a sack with all of the baby's things with her when we went to the Auchan. In a fit of idiocy, I let her. Before we could go the the grocery store though, I needed to get cash, and the ATM for our bank is located at the farthest reaches of the mall. Cherry pushed the stroller with Baby Jr, and I pulled the shopping caddy and, not surprisingly, carried the sack with all of the baby's stuff.

Midway down the mall, Cherry stopped abruptly. "That baby is looking at me." Sure enough, there was a baby (maybe 15 months old) standing at the entrance to a shop and staring, not at Cherry, but at Baby Jr. "Pick me up." I assure her that the baby's mommy is taking care of her, and that she's fine and we should just keep walking. The baby starts to toddle out of the shop, straight for the stroller. Cherry picks up the stroller, and asks again for me to pick her up. I refuse, since I can see that the baby's mom is coming. She picks up the little one and carries her back into the store, and we continue to the ATM.

On the way back up the mall, we're passing the same store, and the same baby sees Cherry, and comes toddling/running out, straight for the stroller. Again, Cherry shrieks and tries to pick up the stroller and the baby and hold them both over her head. Eventually the mom corrals the baby, and we head down toward the Auchan again.

At this point, Cherry, concerned for the welfare of Baby Jr, decides that contrary to what she wanted to do earlier, she really would like to ride in a shopping cart so that she can keep her baby safely out of the reach of the rabble who want to steal her. We get on the moving rampway going down into the underground parking garage to get a shopping cart. Now, the rampway has grooves all over it (like those in escalator steps) and the wheels on the shopping carts are designed with little ridges on them that wedge perfectly into those grooves. That means that you can't actually push a shopping cart on the rampway (you have to let it carry you up), but it also means that you don't have to worry about the shopping cart getting away from you on the ramp. In fact, you can let go of a shopping cart on the ramp without fear that it's going to go flying.

Cherry pushed her baby onto the rampway, and then let go, taking advantage of the grooves and ridges, so that she could take off her mittens. Of course, the stroller wheels didn't have the little ridges that fit into the rampway, and so the stroller went careening down the ramp while she looked on in horror. Fortunately the woman in front of us heard it coming and turned around and stopped it before it smashed into her, and before I figured out how to yell, "Look out, runaway stroller!" in French. (Also fortunately, the whole thing probably weighs 3 pounds, so it's not like it can do too much damage.) Cherry promptly burst into tears and the woman tried to assure her that it was OK, nothing had happened to the baby, etc. I finally got her calmed down, and showed her the difference between the shopping cart wheels and those on her stroller, and assured her that nobody was upset with her. She tucked her baby safely beside her in the shopping cart seat, and we headed up the ramp to the store, wheels safely locked in place.

In which we Cherry and I spend the afternoon together

Yesterday, Blaise had to give a talk in Paris. Normally that would mean that he catches the train immediately after dropping the big kids off at school. Yesterday though, his talk was at 9:00, which meant that he wanted to catch an 8:00 train. Since the kids don't start school until 9, it didn't make much sense for him to take them to school, so I was stuck with that job.

We left the house shortly after 8:20, which is substantially earlier than they normally leave, but I wanted to make sure that I had time to walk them to school and get back to drop Cherry off by 9. I also wanted to make sure that I could do this without resorting to putting Cherry in the Ergo, which I wouldn't mind so much if it didn't result in her insisting that she needed to ride in in for the next 2 weeks. By 8:40 we had dropped off the big kids, and were headed back toward Cherry's school.

"I don't want to go to school today."

"Oh? Why not?"

"Umm, my head hurts?"

"Oh dear. Can you show me where your head hurts?" Maybe she's actually coming down with something, though she did run the entire way to drop off Sapphire and Ezio.

She points to the tip of her nose, looks at my face, decides that perhaps that's not the right answer, and points to her cheek, then her eyebrow on the other side. Somehow, I'm not buying it.

"Sapphire and Ezio got to have special time with you a couple of weeks ago (her standard for anything longer than an hour or so) and I never get to have special time with you." (Their school was on strike last Thursday. Her class met, so I sent her anyway, but hardly any kids were there.)

"You go to school this morning, and we'll have special time this afternoon. I'll give you some ice cream."

"I. Don't. Want. To. Go. To. School."

"If you don't go to school I'm going to be very grumpy because I won't be able to finish my jobs. I can't have special time with you in the morning anyway."

"I. Don't. Want. To. Go. To. School."

I dropped her off, sobbing, just before 9, and left, feeling horribly guilty.

I went home and broke my bread, brushed my teeth, and went to bed. Hold it, no I didn't. That was Madeline. I went home and made the beds, swept the floors, and washed dishes instead. And did a bunch of other housework.

By the time I picked Cherry up at noon, the house was cleanish, and she was smiling. She proudly showed me that she could now zip her coat up all by herself, at least so long as Mommy is patient. We had leftover ravioli for lunch, followed by slices of ice cream Christmas cake (50% off at the Auchan). Next, to find out what she wanted to do. Did she want to do something inside, or outside? Inside. Did she want to do something at home, or not at home? At home. Did she want to do something cuddly or not cuddly? Not cuddly. Did she want to make something? No. So, I needed something inside that was not cuddly or making something and that was not too noisy.

What if we took turns hiding something, or set of things, and then the other person had to find them? It sounded good to her, so I grabbed the spatulas, sent her into the bathroom, and hid them. She searched and found, then sent me into the bathroom so that she could hide them. (Why the bathroom? There aren't really any workable hiding places in there, and it eliminates peaking.) After a few more rounds, Cherry was beginning to get loud, so I suggested we bring the spatulas outside and play the game on the playground, where she could (as she reminded me) be as loud as she wanted to be. I discovered that Cherry is quite good at finding creative hiding places, and quite bad at keeping still long enough to let me discover them.

Next, I sat on the floor by the bathroom and read to her while she pooped. (On the list of habits she has, this has got to be among my least favorites. Promising to read to her as soon as she's done doesn't work. Neither does being too busy--she'll hold it.) And we played that she was the little kid and I was the mommy. (Talk about fiction imitating life.) Then I suggested that if we went to the store right now, we would have time to play on the train playground for 30 minutes or so before we went to pick up Sapphire and Ezio. (It's about midway between our house and their school.)

Off we went to pick up a few things for dinner (sausage and potatoes, not much cooking happens when Blaise's out for dinner) and a liter of milk. Cherry voted for returning the shopping cart on the top of the building, so we went up the ramp, and then had to search for a way down. Of course, one can always go out the car exit, but it's narrow and full of blind corners, thus a bit nerve-wracking. We found a set of steps over on the edge of the parking deck, but they only led to a fire door halfway down. The next set of steps were dark and gloomy (and smelly) and I ended up having to carry Cherry down them, but they did in fact offer a way off the top of the building. Then on to the train playground where we spent 25 minutes hopping among various swing sets, the slide, the train, and the bouncy thingies (which probably have a name. Those turtles and rabbits on the giant springs that wobble around when you bounce on them.)

We picked up Sapphire and Ezio, and Cherry had to show them how she could zip her coat all by herself. And tell them that she had ice cream, which of course led to hurt feelings. (They got some after dinner, by which point Cherry was fast asleep in her bed.)

In which we go the the Musée de la Marine and see a magic show

The American Library in Paris offers a fairly significant amount of children's programming for its size. There are story times for toddlers a couple of times a month, a weekly story hour for preschoolers (actually there are two of them, but they're the same) and Saturday afternoon activities for elementary aged kids. Three weeks of the month are typically games or read-alouds or something like that, and I generally end up deciding that it's really not worth the hassle of going into the city for it. Once a month though, they do something bigger. In September, they brought in a children's entertainer. In October, it was a Halloween Party. This month they had a magician come and do a magic show for the kids.

Backtracking a bit, I found out about the magic show at the beginning of the month, and had completely forgotten about it when I decided to take the kids to the library on Wednesday. (I normally try not to go twice in a week, since the train gets expensive and it's fairly time consuming.) When I remembered on Saturday morning, I decided that we would only go to the magic show (which the kids didn't know about) if I could figure out a way to combine it with a trip to do something else in the city.

After doing a little bit of thinking and poking through tour books, I remembered that the Musée National de la Marine is located right across the river from the Eiffel Tower, which means that it's only about a 15 minute walk from the library, even at Cherry speed. (And even when being accosted every 10 steps by people who want to sell you key chain replicas of the Eiffel Tower (3 for 1€).) I told the kids my plan, and they immediately announced that it sounded boring and they wanted to go to a playground instead. I observed that it was raining, so all of the play equipment would be wet, and sent them to different rooms armed with tour books so that they could read about the museum. Five minutes later, they emerged. They now wanted to go the museum. (It probably helped that I told them that we wouldn't be going to the magic show if we didn't. There are, unfortunately, no good playgrounds near the American Library, at least so far as I know.)

We rushed a little bit to catch the train (and ended up missing in anyway), and it wasn't until I we were seated on the following train that I realized that I had forgotten to bring my ipod, which meant that we would have no idea what time it was in the museum. Oh well, the magic show was scheduled for an hour, so perhaps it wouldn't be the end of the world if we were a few minutes late? Sapphire quickly disabused me of that notion. We would have to be on time for the magic show.

We got to the museum and headed inside, and then back outside because the vigipirate (security) guy didn't approve of Cherry's stick. Back inside, buy tickets, and into the museum. According to the time on the tickets, we have about 50 minutes in the museum if we're to make it to the magic show on time. Cherry liked the paintings of sinking boats. (She also wants to look at pictures of burned cars on the internet.) Sapphire and Ezio liked looking at the ship models and the figure heads. Our time felt very rushed, because we really didn't have any idea how long we were spending, and we ended up leaving before anyone was really ready. (Except Sapphire, but that was only because she was so worried that we were going to be late for the magic show.)

We ended up getting to the library 10 minutes before the show was supposed to start (should have remembered the ipod) and found seats where we could see. Well, Sapphire and Ezio found seats where they could see. I found a chair in the back, and Cherry sat on my lap. She didn't want to go up to the front unless I went with her, and I couldn't go without blocking the view of the kids, so we sat in the back. She wasn't really in the target age range for the show anyway. Ezio "won" a DVD of the magician because he was the kid with the closest birthday, and then the show began. Sapphire watched the whole thing (though she was bummed at the end because she hadn't been chosen to help with any of the tricks, and some of the kids in the front had been chosen multiple times). Ezio watched about half, then found an Asterix book and came and read by us. And Cherry and I pulled books from the bin of board books that we were sitting next to and read for the entire time. (I am extremely glad that she's past the board book stage. Generally speaking, they are really dull.)

Somehow, all of the kids ended up picking out books to check out, despite having been told that they weren't allowed to, and so we ended up toting books home with us. Fortunately I was able to borrow a bag from a friend.

In which we travel indirectly. . .

. . . and Rebekah struggles for blog material.

Wednesday was a no school day, as it is every week, and therefore a day when I needed to plan something to do with the kids. Sapphire wanted to play with Blanche at least some of the day, but she was happy to do something with us as well. I wanted to do at least a little housework, and of course there was dinner to plan and shop for.

Both Sapphire and Ezio had been complaining that they didn't have anything to read, so a trip to the library seemed like a natural fit. We planned to leave right after lunch. Of course, Blanche rang our doorbell just as we were sitting down to eat, and so I agreed that Sapphire could go play for an hour before we headed to the library. At the agreed time, I stopped by Blanche's apartment to pick up Sapphire and we headed out to the library.

The forecast on Wednesday was for rain all day, and so we brought our umbrellas with us even though it wasn't raining when we left our apartment. By the time we got off the train at Alma-Marceau it was raining quite hard, and so we were glad to have them. Sapphire and Ezio wanted very much to spin their umbrellas around, spraying the water off of the umbrellas and into the faces of the hapless passersby. Eventually I told them that if they continued to spin the umbrellas that I would take them away and they would have to get wet. That helped. Sort of. When we were most of the way to the library, Cherry tumbled headlong crossing the street and scraped both knees. She also snapped two of the ribs on her umbrella, rendering it useless. Since it was still pouring, I picked her up to keep her dry under my umbrella, and vowed that if it was still raining when we left we would take the longer but drier route home.

We arrived at the library, unfortunately, just in time for storytime (I know, I know, we could have gone to storytime, but it lasts for an hour, which would have meant dealing with much heavier traffic on the train coming home). So we snuck around the children's room picking books and trying not to disturb anyone.

It was still raining when we left the library, so I decided that we would take the drier route home. (A bit of an aside: There are two RER lines, the A and the E, that go through our local RER station. Typically when we go to the library, we take whichever of the two lines has the next available train into Paris, and then switch to the metro line 9, which we ride to Alma-Marceau, and then walk the half mile or so to the library. There is a closer stop, Pont d'Alma, which is directly across the river from our normal stop. Unfortunately, getting there requires 2 transfers, which means it takes a bit longer. Usually we decide that walking the extra quarter kilometer outside is worth it.)

We got to our RER station (not a metro this time) and headed down to wait for the RER C to pick us up. As we were riding the train, it occurred to me that we had taken the RER E going to the library, and that our current route back involved taking the RER C to the RER B to the RER A. That meant that the only one of the RER lines that we wouldn't be taking that day was the D. Now, there are very few stations outside of Paris proper that are served by more than one RER line (in fact, ours may be the only one), but there are lots of stations in Paris that are served by two, or even three, lines. Perhaps there was a way to add a leg on the D line without going out of our way? We got off the C line and headed down to the B, getting there just in time to see our train pull away. That meant we had 5 minutes, plenty of time to locate a transport map, and determine that if we transferred from the B to the D (instead of to the A) at Chatelet, we could then transfer from the D to the A at Gare de Lyon, thereby riding all 5 RER lines in a single day, and without even going out of our way, since the A and D run together between Chatelet and Gare de Lyon.

Observations: The C line is very nice, and at least through the middle of the city very uncrowded. The B line was sardine-like. I'm glad we weren't trying to ride during rush hour. Fortunately we were only going one stop. The D was moderately busy (we were able to get seats together), but has rotten info signs. I'm fairly certain that we missed a train that we could have taken because it wasn't clear whether or not the train was taking passengers.

In which we get a letter from the CPAM

The CPAM is the social security program in France, in case you were wondering. And, unfortunately, it was not a letter telling us that we had successfully subscribed. No, that would be much too convenient. Instead, it was an envelope containing all of the papers that we had previously provided and a list of all the papers that we evidently still have to provide.

1) Copies of our cartes de séjour, for the adults. That's easy enough for Blaise, since he has his. (He didn't when we filled out the original application.) I have yet to be scheduled for my visite medicale, which is a prerequisite for actually obtaining the card. Furthermore, according to my contact, who was able to get Blaise an appointment, the OFII (office for immigration and integration) is far more backed up than it was in November. I'll merely observe that if part of the reason for the visite medicale is to prevent the transmission of tuberculosis and other illnesses of public health concern, they might be better off trying to get people in quicker than the 6+ months they're doing now.

2) A copy of Blaise's birth certificate that lists his parents' names. We now have such a certificate. Of course, it hasn't been translated yet, so that's in process.

3) Copies of birth certificates for the children that list their genders. Actually, Cherry's and Ezio's already do. (Evidently they weren't read very carefully. There is, admittedly, a lot of information on them, mostly irrelevant to what the French need. Like our address in Palo Alto when Ezio was born. And the name of the doctor who supposedly delivered Cherry but who didn't actually show up until 30 minutes after she was born.) Sapphire's does not. A call to the St. Joseph County Health Department determined that federal law did not require them to put gender on official birth certificates until May 2008, so they didn't. Color me unimpressed. The request for a new copy is in process, and hopefully we'll have a translation within the next couple of weeks.

4) A letter from Cherry's headmistress proving that she is in school, I suspect to prove that she is actually in France. (Alternately, I could bring her to the CPAM office and turn her loose, as a means of proving that she was, indeed, in France. Do you think that would speed things up?) I could also provide a French health record for her, but of course I don't have one. Her vaccination record is American. This, at any rate, was relatively easy to get. I've added it to the file already.

So, of the 7 things they want us to provide, 2 they actually already had, if they would have bothered to read a bit more carefully, 2 are easy to provide, 2 will be a pain in the rear, but are at least under our control, and 1 is totally and completely up in the air. I'm hoping that once we have the (new) translated birth certificates, that we will be able to get the kids attached to Blaise's record without me, so at least their health coverage will be simpler to deal with. In the meantime, I'll try to be the squeaky wheel, in the hopes that it will get me scheduled for a visite medicale sooner rather than later. Once I have that, there's a one month wait to actually get the carte de séjour. (Unfortunately, that means that I'm going to need to go to the sous-préfecture next week to get yet another 3 month receipt proving that I've applied for the carte de séjour. Ugh. At least I'll know enough to bring passport sized photos with me this time.)

In which Sapphire makes dinner

The kids' school doesn't have a library. Instead, there is a Mediabus (library bus) that visits the school from time to time. When it comes, the kids are allowed to pick out a couple of books apiece, and their teacher selects a box of books from which they "check out" books for the next month or so. Last Friday, the mediabus came to the school, and Sapphire checked out two kids' cookbooks. She came home begging to be allowed to pick recipes and make us a proper 4 course meal for Saturday. Since Saturday was Ezio's birthday, that didn't work, but we agreed that she could make dinner on Sunday, so long as she picked out her dishes early enough so that I could get the ingredients when I went to the store on Saturday morning.

Menu (as planned)

Entrée

Flammeküche d'Alsace

Plat

Porc au Caramel

Carottes Vichy

Fromage

Dessert

Gâteau Basque

Sunday Sapphire and I sat down with her cookbook and began the (rather complex) process of figuring out when everything needed to be started in order to eat her planned meal. The Gâteau Basque was easy, since I didn't need to be served out of the oven. So we decided to start it in the morning. The flammeküche (kind of like a pizza) would need to be started at 5:00 in order to go in the oven at 5:30 so that we could eat it at 6:00. If we cut up the carrots before we started the flammeküche, then we could start cooking them at 5:35, and they would be ready for the main course at 6:20 or thereabouts. The pork needed to marinate for a couple of hours, and then go into the oven at 5:20. A problem: the pork cooked at 180ºC, the flammeküche at 220ºC (350 vs. 425 in Fahrenheit). In order to not eat one or the other cold, we would have to have a full hour between courses. We scrapped the flammeküche. Perhaps Sapphire would be willing to serve a simple tossed salad for the entrée? She would. Also, after having fondue for dinner Saturday night and lunch Sunday, I wasn't sure than anyone would be very excited about a cheese course. She concurred. And perhaps we should have rice with the pork, since we weren't having any other grains anymore? The new menu:

Menu (as served)

Entrée

Salade Verte

Plat

Porc au Caramel

Carottes Vichy

Riz

Dessert

Gâteau Basque

On to the cooking. Sapphire mixed the batter for the cake before lunch, then put it into the refrigerator to chill, per the instructions. After lunch, Sapphire mixed together the honey and soy sauce for the pork marinade, then turned the chops several times in the mixture so they would be well coated. (And then she washed her hands really really well. Several times.) After a trip to the ice rink to watch figure skating*, Blaise took the little kids to the playground and Sapphire assembled the gâteau basque, discovering that her dough had, unfortunately, not actually stiffened up enough to be rollable, so we kind of smooshed half of it into the bottom of the pan, spread the cherry jam over the top, and then glopped on the second layer of dough. I slid it into the oven and we joined Blaise and the little kids on the playground for 20 minutes while it baked.

Once the cake was out of the oven and cooling on a rack, Sapphire arranged the pork chops in a pan (and washed her hands multiple times) and I slid the pan into the oven. Then I peeled the carrots while Sapphire sliced them and put them into a pot. She added the rest of the ingredients, covered the pot, and turned the stove on. Then she cut the veggies for the salad, tore the lettuce, made the dressing, and tossed. I asked her if she wanted to make the rice. "Only if there isn't any stirring. My arm hurts." There was, so I started the rice.

Sapphire set the table and called all of us for our entrée. Then she cleared the plates and brought out clean ones. She served the food (though I transferred it into serving containers so she wouldn't get burned). She also cut and served the cake at the end. All in all, it was a very nice meal, and I hardly had to do any of the work (other than the shopping and clean up, of course). Afterwards, Sapphire requested that she be allowed to make dinner any Sunday she wants, assuming that she lets me know on Friday so that I can plan for it.

*There was an amateur ice skating competition all day Saturday and Sunday at the Fontenay sous Bois ice rink, about a 5 minute walk from our house. Since it was free, we decided to go for an hour. We saw 7 skaters (and one Zamboni), 3 boys, probably middle school aged, who were really very good (as in, I've seen worse performances on television), and 4 women, probably in their 20s and 30s, who were less good.

In which we celebrate Ezio's birthday

Yesterday was Ezio's birthday. He is now seven years old. For his birthday, he got a package of Kinder Surprise Eggs and a bar of chocolate. Lest you feel too sorry for him, he also got a Disney annual pass from Grandma Arana as an early birthday present (we all did) and he has a big box of Meccano coming by post, but we had to order it from the UK since we couldn't find it here. It should arrive midweek.

Once everyone was awake and Ezio had "opened" his presents, I headed to the bakery to buy viennoiserie for breakfast: pain au chocolat for Cherry, a toursade (filled with cream and chocolate chips) for Ezio, a specialité Bréton (flakey pastry with caramelized sugar glaze) for Sapphire, and pains chocolats amandes (flaky pastries filled with a mixture of almond paste and chocolate chips) for Blaise and me. Oh, and a baguette in case anyone still had spaces to fill. Then thirty minutes of frantic housework, and a desperate attempt to get together a shopping list for the Auchan. (It's closed on Sunday, so I needed to get together two days worth of meals (and bring home the food for them).)

Off to the Auchan with Cherry, her baby, and her baby's doudou, a small pink bear. I manage to locate a shopping cart with surprisingly little difficulty, though it is the last cart in the rack, and we head into the store. I've managed to get shampoo and deodorant and am heading up the dairy aisle when Cherry says, "Where is the pink bear?" It's not in the shopping cart seat, and a quick check establishes that it hasn't fallen into the bottom of the cart. There's nothing to do but retrace our steps, Cherry sobbing the whole time. We haven't found it when we reach the entrance to the store, so I put the cart to the side, and we retrace our steps through the mall and out to the shopping cart rack. Unsuccessfully. Cherry wants to go all the way back to the apartment, but I refuse, and return to the store with a still sobbing Cherry. Perhaps we'll find it on the way home, I tell her, which seems to cheer her up somewhat. The store is crazy busy, but I manage to find what I need without running anyone down (though I come close when a toddler darts in front of my cart while I'm searching for the lettuce, which has been moved), and go check out.

We get home (without finding the bear) and I'm greeted by Sapphire and Ezio, both wearing coats and shoes, demanding to know what's taken so long, and saying that we need to leave right now. In fact, I need to put at least the perishables away first, and then everyone needs to use the bathroom, and then we can leave. We go first to Moussa l'Africain for a 3 course meal. Sapphire and Ezio split a menu, I share with Cherry, and Blaise has his own menu. (A menu, by the way, is not the piece of paper that you use to decide what to order. That is the carte. A menu is sort of a pre-selected collection of dishes, that is usually more limited than the full carte, and generally comes at a lower price. It also generally doesn't include the pricier dishes as options.) For the appetizer, or entrée, the kids had salad with corn and hearts of palm and some itty-bitty shrimp. I had a piece of chevre wrapped in phyllo, and Blaise had marinated salmon, all served over lettuce, of course. We all tried some of everything, though I'm not sure how much of my cheese I actually managed to eat. For our main course (plat), we all inadvertently ordered Mafe Boeuf, which is beef with a peanut sauce and carrots and cabbage, served with rice. (When I say that we all inadvertently ordered it, I mean simply that we had intended to get an assortment of different main dishes so that we could sample each others, but evidently weren't paying enough attention to what earlier people had ordered.) We finished with Crème Brulée au Citron Vert (crème brulée with lime) for Blaise and the kids and Tarte Tatin aux Bananes (typically it's a sort of apple pie type of dish) for me (and Cherry).

After lunch we headed for the Cité des Sciences across the street, with the goal of going to the submarine. Unfortunately, that seemed to have been the goal of many other people as well, and so we couldn't get tickets. Instead, we headed upstairs to a temporary exhibition on using earth as a construction material, where we spent a lot of time watching grains of various sizes run through hourglasses. Sapphire and I watched part of a movie on medical imaging technology. We went back to the room with the green lighting and the mirrors on the ceiling and the floor. And we called it a day and headed for home.

After a stop at the bakery on the way back (Ezio wanted everyone to pick their own little patisserie), we made it to our apartment. (We had a bit of a disagreement over the pastries. Blaise wasn't sure that Cherry should have one, since she'd eating pretty much only the dessert at lunch time, and then been a holy terror at the museum and on the train. We ended up agreeing that I'd buy her an eclair, but that she'd only get a little bit of it unless she calmed down and ate a decent dinner.) By then it was past 6:00, and time to fix dinner.

The first night that we were in the Jura last summer, we were served fondue for dinner (and a cheese course afterwards!), and evidently it made a big impression on Ezio, because that's what he most wanted for his birthday dinner. Sapphire offered to cut up the bread, and I sliced the cheeses (Comte, Tomme de Savoie, and Beaufort, plus Reblochon) and started heating the wine. Twenty minutes later we were ready to eat. Unfortunately we don't have a fondue pot, so we ate as much as we could before the cheese solidified, then moved on to dessert. (Cherry got the whole eclair, which she had nearly finished by the time I'd even had a chance to sit down with my dessert.) We sang Happy Birthday in English and French, and Ezio blew out a tea light since I'd forgotten to buy birthday candles. Then it was bedtime for Cherry and reading time for the big kids and soon they were off to bed too.

In which we go to the Soldes

Soldes are sales. Big, nationwide ones that seem to include virtually every shop in country, though some more thoroughly than others. For example, many clothing stores have 90 percent of their inventory at anywhere from 20 to 80 percent off, but the toy pickings at the Galaries Lafayette were pretty slim, unless you wanted to pay full price or buy floor models. They happen twice a year, once in January and once in July, and last for somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 weeks. (Some stores end sooner than that, others stretch things out even longer. In July, we didn't do any shopping, primarily because we were still figuring out how we were going to live on half a month's paycheck for 6 weeks, and didn't feel that we had any excess money lying around.)

The January soldes started on Epiphany. Blaise started nagging me to go use my birthday money two days later (something about my ripped jeans not looking good), but I didn't want to take Cherry clothes shopping with me, and I really feel like if I don't make maximally good use of the time that she's at school then I don't get done any of the things that need to happen in the course of the day. Going to the mall didn't count.

Finally he convinced me to take the kids to get new outfits on Wednesday, by observing that virtually all of Ezio's pants had ripped knees. So Wednesday afternoon I headed to the mall (which is all of a 5 minute walk from our apartment) with all three kids to buy clothes. In addition to the Auchan, which sells clothes in all sizes, there are two children's clothing stores in the mall: Okaidi and Z. We headed into the former (the latter sells clothes up to a size 14, but 80 percent of the store is baby sizes), and started looking through the racks. I had agreed to buy one outfit for each kid. Ezio was first, and we started off by looking for pants. There seemed to be vast number of them in size 6 (too small), size 8 (too big), and every other size not in between them. (Does this happen to anyone else?) Finally we found a pair of jeans in a size 7, which Ezio deemed acceptable, and which had an adjustable waist, a necessity. Next we needed a shirt, which was not much easier. He didn't want a plaid button down, and we eventually ended up with red and white stripes.

We went to the other side of the store, clothes in hand, to look for something for the girls. I directed Sapphire to the 10-12 rack, and took Cherry over to look at the size 4s. Cherry and I picked out a pink ribbed turtleneck right away, and then we spent a long time trying to find something to go with it. Almost everything we saw and liked was either a size 3, or a size 5 (sound familiar?) or wouldn't go at all. Eventually I found a pair of black leggings in a size 4. Meanwhile, Sapphire had found a very pretty floral bubble skirt, that was unfortunately only available in a size 10. When we bought school clothes in the late summer, Sapphire had been unable to wear a 10 because it was just too tight in the waist, so I was not feeling particularly optimistic about the skirt, but decided to let her try it on anyway. We found a shirt to match (which was, incidentally, identical to the one we picked out for Cherry), and we all headed back to the dressing rooms. After a long wait to try things on (only one large dressing room) we made it to the front of the line and into the dressing room. Cherry promptly stripped to her skin, and had to be told to put her underpants back on. Her clothes fit. Ezio's fit, or at least would fit once we properly adjusted the waist of his jeans. And, much to my amazement, Sapphire's clothes fit. In fact, she could get the skirt on without even unzipping it the whole way. Evidently all the walking she's had to do here has caused her to slim down considerably, which isn't a bad thing.

The whole experience was such a success, that I decided that I would go back Thursday morning while Cherry was at school and find clothes for myself, and I would work on editing that evening so that I didn't have to feel guilty about not putting in my hour while Cherry was away. Since this is really the first time that I've gone clothes shopping for myself in Paris (and grown up sizing isn't done by age anymore), I started out by using the 'net to figure out what size I ought to wear in French clothing, based on my size in American clothing. Easy enough, just add 30 to the number, so if you wear an 8 American, you wear a 38 European. If you wear a 14 American, you wear a 44 European.

My first order of business was to buy shoes. I found 3 pairs I liked, tried my size, decided that black pair slipped to much in the heel, picked a pair of brown leather lace up shoes, and was out of the store in 15 minutes. So far, so good. Now for clothes. Store number one: I find 3 pairs of pants in my size that I like, and spend some time picking out coordinating tops, since there's not much point in buying pants that you can't wear anything with. The dressing room limit is 5 items, but no-one is checking, so I bring in all six. And I can't get the pants over my butt. Store number two: Nothing really strikes my fancy. Store number three: ditto. Store number four: Again, I find 3 pairs of pants, this time one size bigger, and don't bother with coordinating tops. I'll worry about that if the pants fit. This time, I can get them over my butt, but I can't button them. And they appear to have 3 inch rises. I think even Cherry's butt crack would be showing. Stores numbers five, six, and seven: nothing. Store number eight; I find a pair of jeans that is yet a size bigger, and bring them back. They still don't fit. By this point it's 11:50, and I need to go get Cherry.

That evening, Sapphire and I go to the Auchan to buy an ice cream bûche de Noël, which is half off. On the way, I grab pants in several sizes and try them all on in the dressing room, just to try to figure out what size I wear. Conclusion, I need something 2-3 sizes bigger than I thought I did, depending on the style.

Friday morning I run around frantically until 10:30, trying to get 2 mornings worth of work done in an hour and a half, then head back to the mall, armed with more information about sizing. Back to my first store from Thursday, where I was at least able to find things that I liked, even if I was looking at the wrong size. This time I pick 5 pairs of pants in 2 different sizes and head for the dressing room. (There's someone checking to make sure you don't bring too much back this time. Do they do this to try to keep one person from hogging the dressing room? There were several "rooms," and I only saw about half of them being used. I really don't think it would have been the end of the world if I'd taken 6 pairs of pants back.) One pair of pants fit relatively well, two were too big, and two suffered from "wanna see my butt crack?" syndrome. But I did notice that there were tags on them showing how high the rise was supposed to be, and that one of the pairs of jeans that was too big were low, rather than ultra-low, rise. (Honestly, I'm relatively high waisted, and would prefer something even higher than that, but, I digress.) Back to dig through the piles of jeans and look for one that was higher waisted and in my size. Then off to find some tops to go with. One more trip to the dressing room to try on tops and the new pair of jeans. They fit fortunately, since it was nearly time to go get Cherry again. Then to the check out, and home.

In which there are photos--Part 5

I have removed the photos because this is a publicly searchable blog, and I think everyone who reads regularly has had a chance to see them. If you haven't gotten to see them and would like to, send me an email or a facebook message or leave a note in the comments section.

In which there are photos--Part 4

I have removed the photos because this is a publicly searchable blog, and I think everyone who reads regularly has had a chance to see them. If you haven't gotten to see them and would like to, send me an email or a facebook message or leave a note in the comments section.

In which we deal with bullying

Monday afternoon Ezio came home from school and announced that one of the new kids in his class had been picking on him repeatedly. After determining that he had, indeed, been telling his teacher about it when it happened (he had), we decided that we had better get involved. First, we had to figure out what exactly was going on.

There is a new student, who will remain unnamed, in Ezio and Sapphire's class as of the end of Christmas break. (Actually there are two, but the second one doesn't seem to be a problem.) Evidently he was taking advantage of recess to hit, kick, bite, and shove Ezio, and to kick him repeatedly in the balls. Why was Ezio the one being picked on? I suspect because he is the smallest child in the class (generally CP (1st grade) kids are integrated straight off; he's in CLIN because they wanted Sapphire in CLIN and didn't want to separate kids from the same family) and also because he doesn't fight back. What had the teacher been doing about it? Chewing the kid out when it happened, which is probably not very effective when the person being chewed out speaks Arabic and you're doing the chewing out in French.

So, I wrote a letter to the teacher, outlining what had been happening to Ezio, and stating that I realized that Ezio had been telling him about it as it happened, but that things didn't seem to be improving, and asking that further measures be taken. We also told Ezio and Sapphire that it was very important that they stick together when they weren't in class, since it's a lot harder to pick on a kid who is surrounded by a bunch of other kids. (Sapphire is always playing with bunches of kids at recess. Ezio, not so much.)

Ezio gave the letter to his teacher on Tuesday, and when I went to pick them up after school, the teacher talked to me about what was going on. (Actually, I'm just assuming that. For all I know he was telling me that Ezio had won an all expenses paid trip to Nepal.) In any case, what Sapphire and Ezio told me was that whenever there was an incident, the kid would be losing a recess, but that their teacher had been too busy to write me a note in Ezio's cahier noir (the notebook that is used for all correspondence between home and school.

The last time we had trouble with bullying here (back in October, also with a new student who didn't speak any French and who was just slightly larger than Ezio), the bigger kids got involved in protecting Ezio and the teacher was able to take care of it relatively quickly. Ezio and Emmanuel are now friends, and play together at recess with some regularity. Here's hoping for a similar outcome this time.

In which there are photos--Part 3

I have removed the photos because this is a publicly searchable blog, and I think everyone who reads regularly has had a chance to see them. If you haven't gotten to see them and would like to, send me an email or a facebook message or leave a note in the comments section.

In which we play with shadows

Since Blaise had a conference Friday and Saturday, we decided that we would like to do something as a family on Sunday. (We try to do that anyway, but we aren't always successful, particularly if the weather is iffy.) Since we are still mired in a cold snap (we haven't hit our average high yet this month, and we aren't forecast to do so for at least the next week and a half), it needed to be something inside. I suggested the Cité des Sciences. Blaise agreed, provided that we didn't go to the Cité des Enfants, which he characterized as "deadly dull" (at least for the grown ups).

I packed a lunch, and we set off. First stop, the ticket counter where we used our passes to make reservations for the planetarium and for Ombres et Lumiere or Shadows and Light.

The seats in the planetarium were very nice, and, much to Cherry's consternation, folded up. She wanted hers to stay down even though she was actually sitting on my lap. The films did a nice job of making one feel like one was hurtling through space, which led to Cherry informing me that she was ready to stop going up, and that we should land before we crashed. She kept up a nice stage whisper on the topic through most of the film.

Then we went downstairs, and into the lights and shadows exhibit, which was really cool, and very hands on. We got to try to make our shadows fit into various silhouettes, experiment with how corners bend shadows, and give shows using the shadows of various kitchen implements. We also got to see video of how our bodies filled space when we danced, try to pick our own shadow out of a collection of dancing shadows, and print silhouettes of ourselves. (Ezio's was definitely the best.) We watched clips of films that featured shadows (think Zorro and Peter Pan). We tried to figure out why the shadow of the glass was rotating on the table. (There was another, rotating, glass underneath. We were actually seeing its shadow.)

After lunch and a quick jaunt around the aquarium, we headed up to the earth and space exhibit. High points were:
1) A room with motion sensors that made the projected water on the floor ripple as you "dipped" your foot in it.
2) A room with a mirrored ceiling and a mirrored floor, which led to endless reflections of us going up and down. We got to talk to Sapphire about identifying ∞ and -∞ so that we could fall through the bottom and end up at the top. (Though we didn't exactly use those words. It also had very strange greenish light, so that we all looked like we were suffering from horrible hypothermia.
3) A very cool Rube Goldberg video playing upstairs. We didn't actually watch the entire thing, which is evidently 30 minutes long. Here are a couple of clips from it: playing with fire and plain old mechanics.

We went to a couple of less interesting exhibits, waited in line at the cloakroom for a surprisingly long time, and headed home.

In which we have friends over

Friday and Saturday Blaise had to go into Paris for a 2 day workshop on simplicity, or something like that. (I'm confident about the 2 day workshop part, not so much about the simplicity part.) Friday, of course, was a regular school day for the kids, so it wasn't much different then usual, except that Blaise wasn't home for supper. Saturdays when he has to go in all day are a different animal. For one thing, it means that I have to drag all 3 kids to the grocery store, which they hate, on the most crowded day of the week. Unfortunately, the store is closed on Sundays, so I'm stuck going on Saturday. I told them that afterwards we'd have a snowball fight and then make hot chocolate as a reward.

On the way home from the store yesterday, we ran into Blanche's older sister, who told Sapphire that Blanche had been looking for her earlier, so Sapphire ran to ring Blanche's buzzer while the younger kids and I dragged the groceries upstairs. While I was putting the fridge stuff in the fridge, Sapphire rang our buzzer. Evidently Blanche's mom was out for the afternoon, and Blanche was expected to entertain her younger sister so that her dad could get some stuff done. Was it alright if Alexandra came and played in the snow with us too, and then maybe came up to our apartment? She could play with Cherry. (Cherry and Alexandra are in the same maternelle class. And Cherry regularly tells me that she doesn't like Alexandra, because she speaks French to Cherry (duh) and sometimes she is holding the teacher's hand and so Cherry can't hold the teacher's hand.) It seemed like it would be worth a try, so I agreed, and Cherry, Ezio, and I headed outside to meet Sapphire, Blanche, and Alexandra.

The kids spent 30 minutes or so running and sliding on the playground, throwing snow at each other (I'm not sure it can be quantified as snowballs), and climbing on the equipment. By that point, we were all cold (I know, I know, it's colder in the US), so we headed inside. Sapphire and Blanche made the hot chocolate, Ezio read, and I got out the Duplos for the 3 year olds. So far so good--there are lots of Duplos, and Alexandra was perfectly happy to just stack up towers of them, so it didn't matter that Cherry was being possessive of the "cool" pieces. Once the chocolate was hot, we all sat at the table and drank hot chocolate with marshmallows, then Sapphire and Blanche suggested to Cherry and Alexandra that they should all play Polly Pockets together. Fortunately, there are now a lot of Polly Pockets, and so they were able to divide them in such a way as to allow everyone to have plenty of clothes, and their own doll.

Cherry got sick of that fairly quickly, unfortunately, and then I made a mistake. It occurred to me that we have two babies here in France: Dora and Baby Jr, and that the little girls might like playing with them, so I got Dora for Alexandra to play with, and Cherry found Baby Jr. Then Cherry got out her stroller.
"Je veux la poussette!"
"No, it's my poussette."
"Je veux la poussette!"
"No! It's my poussette!"
Perhaps Alexandra would like to use the sling?
"Non! Je veux la poussette!"
Maybe they can take turns with the stroller? How do you say "share" or "take turns" in French?

Blanche asks if she and Sapphire can play with Sapphire's potter's wheel. Yes, and maybe the little girls (les petites) would like to play with PlayDoh? I bring the PlayDoh to the table. Yes, they would like to play with PlayDoh, and there's plenty of that to go around. For 30 minutes Sapphire and Blanche work on a pot, and Cherry and Alexandra trade little bits of PlayDoh with each other. Then it's 5:30, and time for Blanche and Alexandra to go home so that I can make dinner.

In which there are photos--Part 2

I have removed the photos because this is a publicly searchable blog, and I think everyone who reads regularly has had a chance to see them. If you haven't gotten to see them and would like to, send me an email or a facebook message or leave a note in the comments section.

In which there are photos--Before we move into our Paris apartment

I have removed the photos because this is a publicly searchable blog, and I think everyone who reads regularly has had a chance to see them. If you haven't gotten to see them and would like to, send me an email or a facebook message or leave a note in the comments section.

Flashback: In which we visit the Borromean Islands

Last summer, we spent most of two weeks at a campground in the lakes region of Northern Italy. While we were there, we visited a number of sites in the area, and also spent some time most afternoons down at the beach. As we have slow days in Paris, I will try to fill in some of the things that we did while we were in Italy.

The campground that we stayed at was on Lake Orta, one of the smallest and least popular of the Italian Lakes. That was one of the reasons that we chose it; we wanted something a bit calmer as a place to stay, and it was one the few campgrounds with a private beach instead of a swimming pool.

One of the places that we most wanted to visit while we were in Italy were the Borromean Islands, which are located on Lake Maggiore, the next lake over. So one morning, we loaded up the car and headed out, following the directions given by our handy GPS unit. After about 10 minutes of driving, we arrived at a large barrier, and a road closed sign, so, of course, we turned around. And listened to the GPS direct us, in an extremely polite voice, to "where possible, make a U-turn" which we ignored. Finally, about 20 minutes later the GPS gave up and directed us the rest of the way to Stressa, which was where we could catch a boat to the Borromean Islands.

We took a ferry from Stressa to Isola Bella, where we wandered around until we found the entrance to the villa. Sapphire oohed and aahed. Ezio gamely walked through with us. And Cherry tried to touch everything until I put her into the Ergo, at which point she whined and squirmed. After we had seen the inside of the house, complete with rooms decorated in a shell motif, to suggest Neptune's palace, perhaps, we went out into the gardens. Lots of flowers, and peacocks, which freaked Cherry out because they were so big and loud (and aggressive). The kids walked through the sprinklers they had set up to keep down the dust along the footpaths.

After a pizza lunch eaten along the dock, we boarded the ferry and rode to Isola Madre, where we walked through another villa, this one distinguished in my mind by the rooms of marionettes and puppet theaters. The gardens contained an enormous Cyprus tree that they are trying to nurse back to health after it was uprooted by a tornado several years ago. We continued through the gardens and out to the boat dock, where we waited for the next ferry to pick us up and take us back to Stressa.

In which we climb stairs

Sunday being the first Sunday of the month, it was free museum day in Paris. Of course, not all museums are free on the first Sunday, but many are, and more are free in the winter than are in the summer. With that in mind, I suggested (note who made the suggestion here, since I pretty much never come up with things to do) that we visit the Conciergerie and Sainte Chapelle, both of which are free only in the winter, and that afterwards, if we had time, we could walk over to the Orangerie, which is a small art museum in the Tuileries. Blaise countered by observing that the Orangerie was free on first Sundays year round, but the tower at Notre Dame was only free in the winter, and that there was a special Lutecia (Paris in the Roman era) exhibit at the Archaeological Crypte (sorry, no good links). I acquiesced and we set off.

We started with Sainte Chapelle, which shares an entrance with the Palais de Justice. That meant, of course, full out security screening, complete with x-ray machines and metal detectors. At least we were allowed to leave our shoes on, and they didn't seem to be too bothered by my bottles of water. (They did make me open my backpack and show them the bottles though.) Then we were in the courtyard of the cathedral, where we picked up our free tickets, and guide/activity books for the kids. We spent some time downstairs in the lower chapel, and then headed up the stairs to the upper chapel, where we found seats and looked at all the stained glass. At one point Blaise and I ended up in seats on opposite sides of the chapel, and Cherry trotted back and forth between us, pointing out things as she went.

Next, we went next door (literally) to the Conciergerie, where the security screening involved opening one of the zippers in my backpack and deciding that peanut butter sandwiches were unlikely to be used as a violent weapon. We went down into the basement, and admired all of the gothic arching, then through the gift shop to the jailer's office, and the room used to prepare the condemned for execution. (Wouldn't want long hair interfering with the workings of the guillotine.) Then upstairs, where we saw samples of various types of cells, the type in which one was housed depending on one's ability to pay. If you were poor, you got crammed in a room with straw and a bunch of other people. If you were sufficiently rich, you might have your own room, with a bed and a desk. A room off to the side had a list of all the people that had been guillotined. On the way back down, we saw Marie Antoinette's cell, complete with her own private guards. We stopped at the bathroom (always use the bathroom in Paris, for they are few and far between) which was fittingly labeled with silhouettes of a man and woman that were missing their heads.

Next, we headed over to Notre Dame, and found a spot in the sun to eat our sandwiches and fruit. We headed over to the foot of the north tower, and down the road, almost to the back corner of the cathedral, to get in line to climb the tower. Unfortunately, that side of the church was not in the sun, and it was not a particularly warm day, so we spent a rather chilly 90 minutes inching our way up to the front of the line. At last we reached it, and climbed up and up and up in a circle until we reached the gift shop. Then, up and up and up some more, in a somewhat tighter circle, until we reached the walkway on the top of the cathedral. (If you look at a picture of Notre Dame, the walkway goes along the top of the roof between the two towers, so not quite all the way to the top.) We inched along the walkway, through a couple of rather tight spots, and then up a wooden staircase to see one of the big bells of Notre Dame. Then we waited at the entrance to the south tower while they cleared out all the people who were at the top of the tower. We went through the door and headed down the steps (choosing to skip the trip all the way to the tippy top), down and down and down, then down and down and down some more, and out of the towers.

Finally, we headed over to the Archaeological Crypte of Notre Dame, which wasn't free, to see the ruins there. Halfway through Cherry decided that she needed to go to the bathroom, and I discovered that in order to do so we'd have to leave the museum and use the bathroom outside, and then come back in. (We will have achieved true gender equality when fathers get this job.) There were lots of artists' renditions of what the buildings (especially the arena and baths) might have looked like in Asterix' time. We saw lots of foundations of various ages, from around the second century A.D. up to the 18th century. (The parvis in front of Notre Dame had been undisturbed for centuries, and so the foundations had remained intact in a way that they hadn't in the rest of Paris. Much of what is in that museum was discovered onsite.) By the end, the kids were all pretty worn out, and Cherry was becoming increasing upset that she wasn't allowed to go into the ruins (she kept thinking that the people on the other side of the museum were in there, and wanted to join them), so we headed home.

In which we don't go to the Cité des Sciences

Over the holiday break, it seemed like a good idea to get together with some friends of ours so that our kids would have someone to play with. After some emailing back and forth with Elinor, it was decided that the kids and I would meet her and her kids at the Cité des Sciences around noon on Wednesday. The forecast was for warm (for December) but wet, and we figured that if it rained we could take the kids to the Cité des Enfants, and if it was dry we would go to the (evidently, it had been closed every time we'd tried to go) cool playground in the Parc de la Villette.

The kids and I arrived a little bit early because of train schedules, and watched waves of people pouring into the Cité. By the time Elinor and her kids arrived, the reservations for the Cité des Enfants were completely booked until the 5:15 session, which we decided was too late to bother with. (We wouldn't have gotten home until past 7:30, and I still needed to buy groceries for dinner.) The planetarium had space for the 5:00 showing, which wasn't a whole lot better. So we went downstairs and found a table at which to eat our sandwiches and fruit, then headed outside.

Five minutes later, we had arrived at the playground, which was, of course, closed. The bamboo garden (also supposed to be cool) was also closed, so we wandered around the Parc until Sapphire started complaining that this was the boringest playdate ever, and she thought that the point of a playdate was to play, and . . .. (If you know her, envision pretty standard Sapphire histrionics.) So Elinor pulled her maps of Paris book out of her pocket, and we started looking for something else to do.

We ended up walking the mile or so to Parc Buttes Chamont, which is really a very pretty park, though more so in the spring. We found a sandbox area, complete with sketchy looking guy off in a corner, and the kids played in the sand for a while. (Well, the girls played. Ezio mostly sulked because sandboxes don't involve climbing, or running, or any of the other things he likes doing. Sitting and making Princess Cherry a house out of sand is just not his thing.) Eventually we got up and walked around the lake in the center of the park. Sapphire and Rebecca found a holly tree, and the kids all snagged twigs from it. We went into a grotto (which I suspect was manmade) and watched the (also probably manmade) waterfall cascading down. Eventually we found an exit to the park, and realized that we'd been holding the map upside down. The play area we had found was not at all the one that we thought we had found, and the nearest metro stop was not, as I thought, right at the exit, but several blocks away. Fortunately there was a carousel that was participating in the free carousel program, so the kids all got to ride. (Over Christmas break, there are about 20 carousels in Paris that offer free rides. We had already passed 3 or 4 that weren't.) We headed to the metro station, and hopped our respective trains for home.

In which we see lights

We have made some effort to take advantage of both the fact that kids have been on break for the last two weeks, and that Paris has some special things going on during the Christmas season. We've been to Christmas markets, gone to see the lights, and various other things.

Last weekend, Blaise made a couple of discoveries about special things that were going on in Paris during the school break. The first was that several of the carousels in Paris are free during the break. Unfortunately, he discovered this Sunday evening, and we'd been to both the Hôtel de Ville (two free carousels) and the Place Madeleine (one free carousel) over the weekend. The second is that during the break, the exhibition hall at the Grand Palais is turned into a giant indoor fairway, complete with a ferris wheel, carousel, thrill rides, junky food stands, games, etc.

Tuesday evening we ate an early dinner, and headed into the city to the Grand Palais. After trying a couple of different entrances (there are a bunch of permanent exhibits in there), we found the entrance to the fair, paid our 19€, and went inside. We started by wandering around to see what was there. Cherry discovered a small toddler area with lots of bikes and cars and other ride on toys. We watched the Salto Mortale flip riders upside down. We looked at the exhibit of antique carousel animals, which included a fish and lots of pigs. And we tried to figure out what ride we should go on, given that we'd promised the kids we would ride something, and that all of the rides were a lot more expensive than we'd been led to believe they would be.

We ended up deciding that the ferris wheel was really the only ride which would be interesting and accessible for all of us, and got in line to buy our tickets. Fifteen minutes later, we were on the ferris wheel, and headed up to the top. I had my arm firmly around Cherry, since I didn't trust her not to stand up at the top of the ride. (Since we were, perhaps, 6 or 7 stories up, that would have been a bit of a problem.) Then, as we were stopped near the top for them to begin to unloading process, Blaise noticed that he could see the lights on the Eiffel Tower out the roof of the building, and that there was a light show going on. Of course he said something, and of course Cherry tried to stand up and turn around so that she could see it as well. I didn't let her.

As we continued to slowly move downwards while waiting our turn to dismount, I reminded Blaise that we had wanted to see the 125 anniversary light show at the Eiffel Tower, and that it was only going to run for 3 more nights. He suggested that we come back the next night for the show, and I pointed out that we were only 2 metro stops from the Eiffel tower, and that there was another show at nine o'clock. So we walked the mile or so along the Seine to the Trocadéro, and waited for the light show to begin. We were disappointed to discover that it was just the flashing lights that are shown hourly all year long, and headed back along the river for the nearest metro stop. After about a block I noticed that people were staring at the tower, and looked back to discover that it was a changing rainbow of colors, which was definitely not standard, so we stopped and watched the show for the remaining 15 minutes before catching the train home.

In which we go to the market

The weather on Sunday promised to be pleasant, at least for late December, so we headed into Paris for the day. Blaise (who is the planner of (almost) all trips into the city) thought that we should start by visiting the street market at the Bastille, and that we would probably be able to get something for lunch there. We wanted bread of some sort, cheese, fruit, and olives. I packed a couple of bottles of water. We found the market without incident, and after walking past dozens and dozens of stands, we bought
1) Cantal
2) A mixture of black and green olives and kumquats. Unfortunately, our 200 grams didn't include and kumquats.
3) Fig bread
4) Elstar apples from one of the few produce stands that appeared to be selling their own fruit.
We found a playground, and the kids spent a few minutes climbing, then we headed over to the. . .

Place des Vosges, the oldest planned square in Paris, and, according to Babar, the most beautiful square in the world, outside of Celesteville. According to his younger daughter, there are no swings there, which is true. There are, however, slides and teeter totters. There are also two sandboxes, sunk into the walkways in such a way as to be almost unnoticeable unless you are right on top of them, and arranged so as to avoid destroying the symmetry of the square. (The slides and teeter totters are both noticeable and asymmetrical. I guess you can't win them all.) We ate lunch there, and the kids spent some time digging in the sandbox.

Then we walked a few short blocks to the Musée Carnavalet, which is a free museum that focuses on the history of Paris. Blaise had read that they had special guides for kids, so we spent our euro to get a copy. It was a very well spent euro, since it gave Sapphire and Ezio things to search for and think about in each of the rooms. Blaise and I both observed that it would be a far less interesting museum if you didn't know Paris very well, because you wouldn't have much context for the things in it. We made it through somewhat less than half of the collection before the kids wore out, and we headed back outside.

Since the museum was on the edge of the Marais, we decided to walk through the Marais to the Hôtel de Ville, because Blaise wanted to check out the outdoor ice skating rink that was set up there. Enroute, we stopped at a Jewish bakery, and I bought a big challah to have with dinner, and a little challah for Cherry to eat immediately since she hadn't eaten much lunch and was getting hungry and cranky and demanding to be carried. Food made everything much better. We watched the skaters at the Hôtel de Ville for a few minutes, then headed home on the train (though not until after I had vetoed walking to the nearest RER station instead of just taking the Metro).

In which we pretend to be high class

Saturday morning, Blaise suggested that we get out of the apartment for a bit, and see what there was to see in Paris. He bought a Navigo (monthly pass) for December because he figured he'd be doing a lot of things when his parents were here, and was eager to get his money's worth out of it. Next, we needed to figure out what to do. He suggested that since none of us had ever been inside the church at La Madeleine, that we might go there. Also in the neighborhood were two fancy food stores, Fauchon (Unfortunately the site doesn't work if you use Safari as your browser. I was able to get it to work in Firefox though.) and Hediard. Fortunately, the best access to the neighborhood was via the RER E, which meant that we didn't need to deal with the strike on the RER A.

We started by going to the church, which has rather an interesting history. It wasn't originally conceived as a church at all, but rather as a monument to the French Army. Then, it was going to be a church for a while, before someone decided that it would be a good rail terminal. It was ultimately consecrated as a church in 1842. It is now considered one of the more fashionable churches in Paris.

A few impressions:
1) The inside is big, and kind of cavernous feeling. It lacks the cozy side chapels found in many Paris cathedrals.
2) There are a half a dozen large statues along the side walls.
3) There was a very strange nativity set up along one side that included Joseph sporting a Fu Manchu mustache. I've never pictured him looking quite like that before.
4) The statues and columns all around the outside of the church were more interesting.

Next, we headed to Hediard, which sells, among other things, very fancy produce. It was here that I saw my first fresh cranberries in France. (According to Blaise's friends and various websites, they are a critical part of Christmas Eve dinner. I hadn't been able to find them before though.) A bag of Ocean Spray fresh cranberries was 15€ (about $22). I didn't buy them. They also had beautiful confits fruits (the fruit is preserved by replacing all of the natural fruit sugars with table sugar) and chocolates. Evidently they have quite a good wine selection also, but it was all more than then 5€ we'll spend, so I didn't bother to check it out.

Next, we went to Fauchon, which had two shops. The first was candies and cookies and jams and things like that. The second was cheeses and baked goods and prepared foods. And Iranian caviar. If I ever go to Iran, I'm going to go fishing, because clearly if I manage to find a fish with roe in it I'll be set for life.