In which we deal with more camp stuff

If you've been reading this blog regularly, you're probably aware that Sapphire has decided that she wants to go to camp this summer here in France. Several weeks ago, around the middle of February, I dutifully sent off her preenrollment forms, and then waited patiently for them to get back to us. Things were made somewhat more tense by the fact that the town in which her first choice was located sustained substantial damage from Tempête Xynthia, and so we were unsure as to whether that camp would even be able to operate.

A couple of weeks ago we received a brown envelope in the mail from the Caisse d'Écoles, which operates the summer camp program (and most of the other children's programs in town). I opened it with some trepidation for fear that Sapphire wouldn't have gotten in, but it turned out that she had in fact gotten a space in her first choice. (An enclosed letter explained that somehow the camp itself had been spared any damage from the storm.). We were directed to report for an appointment on the morning of March 24 to provide them with paperwork and pick up copies of things like packing lists.

Now there were some problems. Filling out and returning the permission to photograph form was fairly straightforward, as was the form for the swimming test (even if it did mean that Sapphire had to redo the test). And although Sapphire didn't have a Carnet de Santé (French health record), I was at least relatively certain that all they wanted from that was her immunization record, which I did have. No, the problem was with all of the proofs of insurance that they wanted, and which I couldn't provide, at least not easily.

The easiest of them was the proof of civil liability, which was included in our rental insurance. I just needed to get our agent to send us the proof for Sapphire's dossier, and that would be taken care of. More problematic was the health insurance, because although we have insurance through the French national system, which we can apply retroactively to our arrival in France, Sapphire is, due to bureaucratic snafus, not actually in the system yet. A phone call to CPAM revealed that it would be the middle of April before her file was dealt with. At that point they would be able to provide us with the proof that we needed from them. We would then need to provide one copy for Sapphire's dossier, and a second copy to our mutuelle (think top up or gap health insurance) so that the mutuelle could provide us with proof that she was also covered by them.

Naturally, I panicked, and rushed up to the Mairie (town hall) to attempt to delay the meeting as much as I could in the hope that I would somehow be able to obtain the necessary proofs by then. They assured me that I didn't need to worry. I should bring the documentation that I had, but that the dossier didn't need to be complete until it was time to leave for the camp.

Wednesday morning, the 3 kids and I headed off to the Mairie for our appointment, taking along our paperwork (vaccination record, permission to photograph, swimming certificate), a book for Ezio, and my ipod for Cherry (who likes to play Peggle™). Sapphire's job was to help with anything I couldn't figure out. Of course, when we got there and I tried to park the two younger kids outside the door to the office, Cherry got clingy and Ezio decided that the girls who were waiting outside for their mom were annoying, and so they both ended up in the office with us. Cherry sat on my lap, and Ezio sat in a chair along the wall and read his book.

After a brief wait, they called on us and I bravely brought forth all of my paperwork. The woman asked first for Sapphire's Carnet de Santé, and I, fingers crossed, handed over her immunization record, which she inspected carefully and copied a couple of dates from. (Evidently the list of required immunizations is a bit shorter here than in the States.) Then she handed me a health form to fill in, which required that I tell them whether or not Sapphire had had, among other things, measles, mumps, rubella, whooping cough, and chicken pox. I dutifully checked "no" next to all of them, but found myself wondering whether or not French children are generally immunized against those things. Perhaps not.

Next I provided the swimming certificate, and the permission slip. She asked about the proofs of insurance, and when I explained that we were (still) waiting for Sapphire's paperwork to be processed by the CPAM, told us (as we had been told before) that she would need copies of them in her dossier before she would be allowed to go to camp, but I could bring them at any point until then. She then handed me a schedule of payments, (1/3 now, then 1/6 at the end of April, May, June, and July) and I headed over to the cash desk to pay the first installment.

I had promised the kids that if they were cooperative (and they had been), we would head over to the playground behind the Mairie and they could play for a while. So we headed over there. Much to the annoyance of my kids, there were lots of other kids there, but they played for 40 minutes or so, and then we headed home to straighten up the house for Blaise's return from Spain that evening.

In which there is a strike (again)

Perhaps you think of France as the land of the strike. Certainly, in our experience, there are a lot of them, though they seem to be fairly well publicized in advance, and to generally be of predetermined length. (The December strike on the RER A [which messed up our Christmas trip to Disney] was an exception.) In other words, you find out a few days ahead of time that (for example) the Metro will be on strike, how the various lines are involved (2 trains out of 3, 1 out of 2, for example), and how long the strike is supposed to go on.

While our lives are somewhat affected when there is a transport strike, they are affected far more when there is a more general public strike, which typically involves, among other things, public transportation, and the schools to a greater or lesser degree depending on where exactly you live. Since we live in a fairly left leaning suburb, ours seem to generally be affected to a greater degree, so when we heard about the general strike scheduled for Tuesday, we figured that it was only a matter of time until we found out that the schools would be closed. Sure enough, all three kids came home from school on Friday with notes (to be signed and returned) stating that their schools would be closed Tuesday, and that none of the school accompagniments (cafeteria, before/aftercare, study hall) would be running either.

Monday was an ordinary school day, so I did some straightening and was sitting at the computer trying to get some things done, when someone buzzed our interphone. This was somewhat surprising, as normally Blanche is the only person who buzzes (other than Blaise, who was in Spain, and the kids, who were in school). I dutifully got up and answered the phone and had the following conversation (in French, of course).

-- Hello?

-- Hello. It's Blanche. Can Sapphire have lunch with me today?

-- Umm, no. (Why aren't you in school? It's 11:00.)

-- Why not?

-- Because she's at school right now.

-- But there's a strike today.

-- No. The strike is tomorrow.

-- Really?

-- Yes, really.

-- Oh. Goodbye.

Evidently someone's parent didn't read the note very well (or perhaps at all) before signing it and sending it back, so Blanche and her little sister Alexandra (who is Cherry's age) ended up having a extra day off, since, of course, there actually wasn't school on Tuesday. On the plus side, it was gorgeous out and Cherry spent almost a hour and a half playing outside with Alexandra that afternoon while I watched.

Tuesday actually was a strike day, and Blanche rang our buzzer around 10:30, and Sapphire went off to play. She ended up eating lunch at Blanche's house (which sounded like it was probably much better than what we ended up eating here). After lunch, Cherry and Ezio wanted to go outside and play, so we headed outside, where we were quickly joined by Sapphire, Blanche, and Alexandra. At some point, Alexandra decided that she needed to use the bathroom, and so she and Blanche headed back to their apartment, only to discover that their older sister, Rébéca, had left, and that Blanche hadn't thought to bring keys with her. So Sapphire and Blanche took Alexandra upstairs to use the bathroom in our apartment, and then came back down.

It then occurred to Blanche that her sister had said that she would be gone until 7:00, and that her parents were both at work until around then, and so they were locked out of their apartment until then. So I agreed that they could come up to our apartment and stay there until 7, and that I would somehow manage to feed them something for dinner. (I hadn't made it to the grocery store on Monday, and had planned to go Tuesday afternoon. I wasn't going to bring all 5 kids with me though, nor did I feel comfortable leaving some of them home alone [Sapphire and Ezio together I'll do, but not anyone else's kids], so my pantry was pretty sparse.)

In the meantime, Blanche and Sapphire headed back to the kids' room, and Alexandra played with the Duplos and Cherry played with PlayDoh. Ezio sort of moped and felt left out, since Blanche and Sapphire didn't want to play with him, and he didn't want to play with the little girls. At the same time, I was going through the cupboards, hoping I had something I could make to feed 6 people. I had a big can of chickpeas, half a box of whole wheat pasta, most of a kilogram of tomatoes, a bit a feta, half a red onion, some lemons, olive oil, and a lot of red bell peppers. The peppers went into the oven for roasting. Everything else went into a saladish sort of thing. And it was pretty good too, even if Blanche and her sister weren't at all sure that they liked it. (On the other hand, I suspect that they were given a second dinner when they got home, so they probably weren't hungry, and my kids did eat it.)

In which we see fish

By the time I had cleaned up the paint on Sunday morning it was pretty clear that unless I wanted to spend the whole day undoing disasters, we would have to get out of the house. What to do though? We had toyed with the idea of going to the Parc Floral, but somehow that didn't seem ambitious enough. On the other hand, a Parisien museum by myself seemed a bit too ambitious. Perhaps there was more to the Bois de Vincennes than the Parc Floral?

I perused our Michelin Paris Guide (which I highly recommend if you're going to be visiting Paris) to see what else there might be. I discovered that there is a huge zoo, which is currently in the middle of a five year total reconstruction project, during which time it is closed to the public. I discovered that there is a museum dealing with the history of immigration in France. And I discovered that there is an aquarium, the aquarium de la Porte Dorée, which had been around since 1931. And that, in exchange for forgoing the fancy glitz at Cineaqua, we could go, using the family rate and the fact the Cherry is still free, for the whopping price of 8€. I could pack a lunch, and we could still, if we wished, have a picnic and play at the Parc Floral afterward.

So I packed a lunch and found train and bus tickets (train out to the aquarium, bus home from the Parc Floral) and the kids took care of their shoes and jackets. Then it was off to the RER for the ride to the aquarium.

We arrived and waited in line to buy tckets, and I noticed that the sign claimed that they could ask for identification for anyone attempting to use the discounted rates. Surely they wouldn't though. Fortunately, as I hadn't brought copies of my children's translated birth certificates, they didn't.

The aquarium was definitely old-style. No dolphin shows or massive tanks holding beluga whales here, but lots of tanks of brightly colored tropical fish, most with benches in front of them for the little ones to stand on. We saw an African blowfish with a bad case of buck teeth, and thought that perhaps it should be called a rabbit fish. We saw an entire tankful of "Memos" (pronounced MEE moh) as my kids call them. (Yes, even Sapphire still calls them that). We saw lots of transparent skeleton fish. We saw a tank full of turtles. And we saw crocodiles from the Nile, and alligators from---are you ready?---Mississippi. (Perhaps the Florida Gators need to change their name.)

By that point, we were all pretty tired of the aquarium, so we went outside and found some benches to sit on while we ate lunch, then decided to walk to the Parc Floral, which was, after all, just on the other side of the Bois de Vincennes. This ended up being a clear case of a time when I should have looked at a map with a scale, since I realized when we got home that that walk had, by itself, been almost 2.5 miles. No wonder Cherry was whining by the end!

In any case, we did eventually make it to the playground, where Sapphire and Ezio headed for the monkey bars and Cherry and I found something a bit more appropriate for a preschooler. Eventually all three kids ended up on the bouncy sled in the toddler section of the playground. Once they got bored of that, we headed back to the exit and found the first of the two buses that we needed to get home.

in which there is grey paint

At the beginning of each school break, Cherry's teacher sends home with each of the students a large notebook, filled with the work that they have been doing at school. At the end of the break, we return it so that she can continue to fill it with more things over the next weeks. Normally, everything is glued into the notebook, but occasionally there is something that doesn't fit that way, and I typically end up removing that and hanging it up in our apartment when we send the book back.

Last time, I ended up taking out a painting of swirling snow, done in grey and white, with a photo of Cherry wearing a hat and scarf (ironically, they aren't permitted to wear scarves at school for fear of strangulation) in the middle. For a while, the painting lived on our refrigerator, and then at some point it disappeared, and, evidently, ended up in the kids' bedroom.

I discovered this on Sunday morning, when Sapphire burst into the living room to tell me that Cherry was sprinkling water from her sippy cup onto the painting. This didn't strike me as too much of a problem, since I was pretty sure that she was just experimenting based on a Big Backyard story we'd read a few days earlier, but I thought that maybe I would go and put the painting somewhere where it could dry out again, since wet paper rips pretty easily.

Of course, the paint that they use at maternelle is water based, and so when Cherry sprinkled water on it, it had gotten wet again. Apparently, while Sapphire was getting me, Ramona, I mean Cherry, had placed the painting on the (carpeted, in beige) floor of the bedroom and then proceeded to walk through the painting and across the floor, repeatedly. Of course, that meant that she left small grey footprints all over the carpet. What to do? First, I had Ezio move the painting to the table in the kitchen. Then, Sapphire was directed to get a washcloth and clean the bottoms of Cherry's feet before she could do any more damage.

Fortunately, there was a bottle of carpet cleaner for big carpet cleaning machines in the closet, so I diluted that and poured it into a pitcher. Sapphire and Ezio collected all the dry towels in the house, and I began to carefully pour some cleaning solution on each footprint, gently agitate with my fingers, and blot with the towels to soak up as much of the paint (and cleaning solution) as possible. Twenty minutes later, we had a (mostly) paint free floor, a contrite Cherry, and a full load of wet towels which we tossed into the washing machine.

In which we visit a friend

Sapphire has three sorts of friends: those who, like Blanche, live in our complex and who she can play with if she wants by simply ringing their buzzer; those who have parents who are friends of ours, and who she therefore sees when their parents decide that they would like to get together; and those she sees at school, either in class or on the playground. It is the third group of friends that has proved to pose the greatest problem as far as playing outside of school goes, because organizing things requires parental involvement (beyond "be home by 6:30 please"), and because her friends' parents speak French, and in the case of many of her classmates, not much of that. (I would have to be at least hexalingual to communicate with all of the parents in her class effectively.)

To make things more complicated, one of her friends, Houaria (pronounced Wahr-ee-uh), (the one she has most wanted to set up a playdate with), moved to the southern suburbs (we're in the eastern suburbs) over winter break, and so it is likely only a matter of time before she changes schools. (For the time being, there is no space in the CLIN program in her current suburb, and they don't think that she is yet ready for full immersion, so they have chosen to leave her in school here.) Last Monday after school, Sapphire and Houaria begged their respective mothers to please, please, let them have a playdate together, and so on Wednesday afternoon, the kids and I headed into Paris, and then back out on the southward RER line.

Things were a little complicated here. Normally, what people seem to do when someone new is coming to their home is to have them go to the nearest RER station (or bus stop) and then phone so that the hosts can go meet them. We, however, don't have a cell phone, so calling them wasn't going to work very well. Instead, we had agreed that they would simply meet us at the RER station at 1:30, and we would go from there. We got there a few minutes early, and figured that they would show up any minute. By 1:40, the kids were getting antsy. By 1:45 I was wondering whether I ought to go to the Tabac across the road, buy a phone card, use a pay phone to call Blaise and get Houaria's mom's phone number (which I had, but foolishly didn't think to bring with me) and then call her. Just as I was getting ready to go buy the card, Sapphire spotted Houaria's little brother, Riyadh (that's probably not how it's spelled, but it's how it sounds, so I'll go with it) coming up the street, so we all went over to meet them.

We walked perhaps a half mile back to their apartment, and rode the elevator up to their floor. (They're on the 7th, so none of us really wanted to climb steps.) Sapphire thought their elevator was really cool, because you have to pull open a metal door to get in, and she'd never seen one like that. In her experience, elevators have doors that slide out of the way. Houaria, Sapphire, Ezio, and Riyadh played in the kids' bedroom, the girls with paper and colored pencils, the boys with cars and motorcycles, Houaria's mom and I chatted (sort of) in the living room, and Cherry clung to me, limpet-like. Eventually I ended up with Cherry in the bedroom, hoping to convince her that she could stay in there and play all by herself. It didn't work, so we ended up kind of bouncing back and forth between the living room and the bedroom.

At some point the kids decided that they wanted to play outside, so we all headed out to the complex playground, where Sapphire and Ezio spun themselves in a tiny little cup shaped merry-go-round until they could hardly stand up, much less walk. Cherry bounced back and forth between the climber and the bouncy horses until she decided to climb into the merry-go-round, pulled her arms and legs inside, and found herself spinning so fast her head was jerked around. (And no, nobody was pushing it. She must have managed to get in just right to get it started, and she wasn't able to stop it by herself.) By the time I stopped it, she was sobbing hysterically, and refused to have anything to do with anything else on the playground. Fortunately, it was almost time for us to go anyway since I still needed to make dinner. We headed inside for a few minutes so that Sapphire and Houaria could do one last thing together, so that we could collect our coats (which we hadn't needed on the playground), and so that everyone (read Cherry) could use the bathroom.

On the way out, Houaria's mom pressed boxes of granola bars into the kids' hands, and so we got to have a discussion about cultural differences on our way back to the train station. (Houaria's family is Algerian.) Then Cherry pointed out that they didn't have any toilet paper in the bathroom, so we got to talk about some other cultural differences, which Sapphire thought were somewhat less nice.

In which we entertain, again!

Many of the people that Blaise knows professionally as philosophers of mathematics are spending at least part of the year in Paris. (Many others are just Parisian, but we'll exclude them from the former group as they're here all the time.) Since there are all these people here, and we are, in various senses more established than at least some of them, Blaise thought it would be nice to have some of them over for dinner. To that end, he invited one (Dirk) of them to come to Sunday dinner with his wife (Brigitte) about 3 weeks ago. And then Cherry spent the whole of Saturday night throwing up, and I managed to convince him that he would not improve his relationship with anyone by exposing them to stomach flu. So he cancelled the invitation and we waited for the next good opportunity.

Since Brigitte works in the suburbs (she's a computer scientist), a week day didn't work well for them, particularly given that the kids need to go to bed at a reasonable time, and we had things already planned for some of the intervening Saturdays and Sundays. So we ended up pushing things back until this past Sunday.

And at this point that was so long ago, that I'm really not sure what to write anymore.

They decided that they wanted to be adventurous and find our apartment on their own (Blaise's been meeting everyone else at the RER station), so Blaise sent them very good directions. Promptly at 5:30 (did I mention that they're German?), they rang the buzzer, and Blaise let them in. Evidently they (and we) didn't realize that we'd never told them which floor we were on until after they were inside, and so Blaise decided to send Sapphire down to get them. At that point, the elevator door opened, and they got off. Apparently they had commented to one another in English that they didn't know which floor to go to, at which point someone else entering the building told them to go to the second, which is indeed our floor. Evidently everyone knows where the English speakers live, or perhaps it was someone from our floor, I'm not very sure.

Once they arrived, I put the soup on the stove to reheat. (I made it in the morning because we were hoping to go to the playground in the afternoon, but it kept looking like rain.) We had soup and salad and bread (which Sapphire got at the bakery) for dinner, and ice cream and macarons (scroll to the bottom of the page) for dessert.

In which we go swimming

Last Wednesday, Sapphire and Blanche tried to convince me to let them go to the pool. Now, the rule is that you have to be 10 to be admitted without an adult, and while Blanche is 10 (her birthday is in December), Sapphire won't be 10 for a few months yet. Furthermore, the people working the admissions desk are supposed to demand proof of age for anyone who isn't quite clearly over 10 (and Sapphire definitely doesn't look any older than she is), so even if I decided to let her go, they wouldn't let her in. Then they tried to convince me to take them to the pool. I refused, but agreed that I would be willing to take them on Saturday, if they wanted to go then.

Saturday morning Cherry and I went to the library (because neither Sapphire or Ezio wanted to go) and got books. Fortunately, I was able to find both the 5th and the 7th books in the Harry Potter series for Sapphire. Unfortunately, I inadvertently checked out Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone for Ezio. Why was this unfortunate? Well, because he had just finished reading Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, which is the British version of the same book, and I was supposed to check out the second book in the series. Perhaps this will lead him to a career in linguistics, where he can study the differences between British and American English.

Then we ate lunch and I took Cherry and Ezio to the store (Sapphire still didn't want to go anywhere). I put the groceries away, switched some laundry, put a few things in the dishwasher, and suggested to Cherry and Ezio that they put on shoes and coats so that they could play outside instead of running like a herd of stampeding buffalo through our hallway. At this point, Sapphire lifted her head from her book and said, "But I thought we were going to the pool today." Hmm. It was getting kind of late for the pool. Although there was plenty of time to swim before the pool closed (at 6:45), there was the minor issue of dinner, which was kind of involved. But I had promised.

Sapphire ran to ask Blanche if she wanted to join us. Cherry collected swim caps and goggles. Ezio was in charge of towels and swimsuits. I looked for our Cartes Fontenaysian, without which we wouldn't be going to the pool. Five minutes later, we were out the door to the pool. By the time we had paid our entry fee, changed into swim gear, showered, and headed out to the pool deck, it was 5:07, so I told the kids that we were getting out promptly at 6:07, that I expected no complaints, and that anyone who didn't cooperate would not be coming swimming with us in the future. This was mainly for Blanche's benefit. Whatever other faults my children may have, refusing to leave someplace when asked to do so is not one of them. I have, however, had problems with Blanche refusing to leave in the past. (And since she's 10 and nearly as big as I am, it's not like I can just pick her up like a recalcitrant toddler either.)

In any case, Sapphire and Blanche went off to swim in the "deep" end of the little pool (where Blanche can, fortunately, touch, as she's not much of a swimmer) and Cherry practiced swimming and Ezio sort of swam circles around us. I discovered that Cherry can, in fact, swim a little bit, though the distance she can do is only a couple of body lengths. This is because she can't figure out how to breathe. On the plus side, that means that she's naturally swimming with her face in the water, though it significantly decreases how far she can go. Ezio showed me all the tricks he can do, most of which involve figuring out how to maximize splashing. And I hardly saw Sapphire at all, but I think she had fun. (I did look for her blue swim cap with some frequency. I just didn't have time to actually watch her.)

In which we have dinner guests

As some of you know, the reason that we are in Paris this year is so that Blaise can do research. More specifically, we are here because his dissertation advisor received a huge grant from the French government which is being used largely to (a) promote unity among the various parts of the Parisian philosophy/history of math community, (b) coordinate conferences and workshops in philosophy/history of math, and (c) provide funding for some number of graduate students and professors to spend from a month to a year doing research here and working with the extensive philosophy of math community in Paris.

Right now, there are two current Notre Dame graduate students here as part of this program. The first is here for a year, and we've had him over for dinner a couple of times before. The second arrived with his wife around the beginning of March, and will be here for only a couple of months. We thought that it would be nice to have (all of) them over for dinner while they were here, so Blaise sent the requisite invitations which were promptly accepted.

Thursday morning we brought the kids to their respective schools, and then I set to work. The house was an unholy disaster area due to an unfortunate convergence of factors.

• I'm an indifferent housekeeper under even ideal conditions.
• It's hard to keep up with housework when the kids are out of school, and they had been off for winter break the previous two weeks.
• Wednesday is also a no school day here in France.
• I spent Tuesday morning running (OK, walking) between the radiologist and the doctor's office.
• Back pain (and no, I haven't been carrying Cherry, so you don't need to lecture me!)

So, Thursday morning I cleaned (and in between cleaning I worked on translations and editing), and by the time I needed to pick Cherry up from school the kitchen counter was clean and the floors were (mostly) swept. The first load of laundry was folded and the second was in the dryer. The bathroom, well, perhaps no one would need to use it? And we could, fortunately, close the door to the part of the apartment where the bedrooms were (which was good, since they were trashed.

After I picked Cherry up, we headed to the Auchan for dinner things (and to get something for lunch, since there was nothing in the house), and then back to the apartment. After a late lunch, and a bit more cleaning, and a few books read to Cherry, and some "let's play that I'm the mommy and you're the baby," I set to work in the kitchen. The tabbouleh needed time for the flavors to blend, so I wanted to make that before we went to get Sapphire and Ezio.

We got home around 5, with half an hour until Blaise left to meet our guests at the train station. Ezio was given the job of straightening the front hallway. Cherry and Sapphire the jobs of looking for anything else that was out of place. I made hummus. Then Cherry and Blaise left to meet our guests (an experience which was evidently very traumatic for Cherry) and Sapphire peeled oranges while Ezio sectioned them and dumped them into a bowl and I chopped onion and drained olives. I mixed the dressing, dumped it on, and the orange salad was ready. By this point, everyone was back. I reheated (shh) the lentils and rice, and scooped it into a bowl. By six the table was set and we were ready to eat dinner.

We had a very pleasant dinner, finished off with black forest cake and profiteroles (I can hardly believe I asked someone to bring dessert!) provided by some of our guests, and accompanied by wine provided by another of our guests.

In which we make caramel corn

When I took the kids to Disney by myself over winter break, I caved in to Cherry's pleadings for popcorn. Evidently she ate popcorn with her grandma (I'm not sure which grandma, as both of them have serious popcorn addictions. Perhaps it should be treated as a controlled substance?). In any case, she had been talking for weeks about how there is popcorn at Disney and how she really, really, really wanted to buy some. I had been stonewalling and maybe-ing and perhaps-ing in my turn. In any case, we ended up getting popcorn at Disney, and, much to my surprise, it was sweet, not salty/buttery. So of course Sapphire and Ezio decided that we should start eating lots of sweet popcorn. Perhaps we could start making it at home?

Well, I decided to up the ante. Instead of making sweet popcorn (basically kettle corn, though not quite as sweet as most of the American kettle corn that I've had), we would make caramel corn. I just needed to find a recipe.

An Epicurious.com search later, I settled on Caramel Corn Clusters. All the ingredients seemed pretty straightforward except one. I didn't think that I'd ever noticed corn syrup at the grocery store, and most processed food here uses wheat syrup rather than corn syrup (though I've not seen that for sale either). Perhaps I hadn't looked hard enough though. After all, I'd managed to find powdered sugar (as opposed to sucré en poudre, which is just regular granulated sugar) when I really searched.

Off to the Auchan, where we got popcorn (in a teeny-tiny little bag. I've since discovered it in the bulk or "hard discount" section), brown sugar, and a few other things. I scoured the baking aisle for corn syrup. No luck. Perhaps it was on the breakfast aisle? After all, that's where it is in some American grocery stores. No. Grasping at straws, I tried the Bio (organic) aisle. (Organic corn syrup? Seems a stretch, but I've been able to find some other things there that I haven't found anywhere else in the store.) No. Well, there was only one thing left to do (other than attempting to substitute for the corn syrup). I would check to see if they had any in the tiny British/American section of the world foods aisle. I wasn't at all confident, since I've scoured that section pretty thoroughly more than once, but I would try anyway. As it turned out, they didn't have corn syrup there, but they did have Lyle's Golden Syrup, which I've seen several cookbook authors recommend as being superior to corn syrup if you can get it. I've never actually managed to find it in Kansas, but I thought I'd give it a try.

After lunch, Ezio, Cherry, and I set out to make caramel corn. (Sapphire spent the whole day playing with Blanche and then whined about it being unfair that we had made caramel corn without her. Sometimes you just can't win.) First step was popping the popcorn, which ended up taking far longer than I remembered it taking to pop corn. On the other hand, since I don't seem to have the popcorn addict gene, I hadn't made popcorn in close to a year.

Next, we needed to make the syrup. Ezio weighed out 4 oz. of butter, and dumped it into the big pot. It was Cherry's responsibility to let me know when the butter was all melted. Once it was, Cherry and Ezio dumped in the brown sugar, and I poured in the syrup. Then we (OK, I) stirred until the mixture boiled. Since I didn't have a candy thermometer, I waited a few minutes, then started dropping spoonfuls of hot sugar syrup into ice water to test the temperature. On the second test, the syrup behaved as desired. (Some of the comments on the recipe led me to believe that perhaps I didn't actually want to heat the mixture to the 300º recommended in the recipe. I decided to stop at 250º, which is the generally recommended temperature for caramels.) Cherry dumped in the baking soda and salt, and then Ezio dumped in the popcorn and I stirred to coat it with the caramel. We decided to bake it for an hour at very low heat (as per a different recipe that I'd read).

Afterwards we pulled it out of the oven, let it cool briefly, and dug in. Come to think of it, perhaps that was the part Sapphire was upset about. We did leave most of it for after dinner and an after school snack on Thursday though.

In which we experience socialized medicine

If you have been reading this blog regularly, you know that the doctor at my medical visit decided that I was suffering from an abdominal anuerysm and that I needed to get it checked out pronto. Fortunately, we had already made the acquaintence of a kind, English-speaking doctor, so at least I knew where to go.

Last Thursday morning I set out for the doctor's office, first checking to ensure that the office would be open.
Point: While specialists in France generally require appointments, as well as referrals from your primary doctor if you want it to be covered under the French insurance system, general practice doctors seem to operate primarily on a first come, first served model. I suppose that could result in having to sit for hours in theory. In practice, I ended up waiting for somewhere in the neighborhood of fifteen minutes, less time than I often waited at home even with an appointment. Since there are ample numbers of primary care doctors (two in our complex, though neither speaks English), I suspect that anyone who was forced to wait for hours would end up switching doctors, a relatively trivial task.

In any case,I waited for 15 minutes or so for the person ahead of me, and then handed the doctor my very official looking letter from the OFII, which explained that I needed an ultrasound. The doctor read it and started laughing, then expained that it was extremely common to be able to feel an abdominal pulse in thin women. However, he said he would send me for an ultrasound anyway, not because of would show anything out of the ordinary, but because it was better not to annoy the bureaucrats. So he made out a referral for me, and recommended the radiology center across from the RER station.

I decided that it would probably be simpler, all things being equal, to stop in at the radiologist to set up an appointment rather than phoning. After all, as a worst case scenario I would be able to hand them the papers and they could figure out what I wanted from that. They were able to schedule me for an appointment Tuesday morning, and after admonishing me not to eat, drink, or smoke the morning of the ultrasound, sent me on my way.

Tuesday morning once I had gotten all three kids to school (Blaise had meeting starting at 9:00), I boarded the RER for the next suburb over. The receptionist took my information, and told me that, as I had expected, since I am still waiting for my carte vitale (insurance card), I would have to pay the entire cost out of pocket and be reimbursed. That cost? 86€, of which 75€ will be covered by the national insurance plan, and the rest by our mutuelle, or top up plan. (If you are sufficiently poor, the national plan covers everything. Otherwise it covers 70% to 90% of most expenses, and 100% of the most serious and of pregnancy.)

After ten minutes in the upstairs waiting room, I got my ultrasound, which was performed by a doctor rather than an ultrasound tech. As a result he was able to verbally give me the results of the test as he performed it. When I was done, he told me to go to the downstairs waiting room. Ten miutes later I left with pictures from the ultrasound (useful if I want to see what my left kidney looks like), and two signed copies of the doctor's report.

I walked over to the doctor's office to let him know the official results of the scan (not that he'd had any doubts) and then headed back home, stopping for a snack enroute.

in which we see architecture

Sunday was the first Sunday in March. This is important because:

(1) Many French museums and monuments are free on the first Sunday of the month, and

(2) Even more of them are free on the first Sundays of November, December, January, February, and March.

That means that we've been working very hard for the last few months to make sure that we get to all the winter freebies while their free. So we went to Sainte-Chapelle, the Conciergerie, and the Towers of Notre Dame in January. We went to the top of the Arc de Triomphe in February, along with the Louvre (first Sundays year round). And we went to the Pantheon as part of the French Patrimony celebration, so we didn't need to go there again. That meant that we'd been to all of the free winter museums in the city of Paris itself. Of course, we could have gone to some of the museums that are free all year, but that seemed a bit obvious. After all, there is a lot to see in the Paris region that isn't actually in Paris proper, and there were 5 sites in the Paris region that we could go to for free, if we so chose.

Two of them, Saint Denis (where the kings of France are, in some sense, buried) and the Château de Vincennes, we visited when we were here two years ago, so those were off the list of possibilities. A third site, the Château de Pierrefonds, looked really cool, but wasn't accessible by public transportation, and so had to be eliminated. (Renting a car to spend an hour looking around a castle just didn't seem to make much sense.) The other two sites were accessible by public transportation, and, better yet, were on the same RER branch on the other side of the line that runs through our station.

So Sunday morning we bought our Mobilises (daily transportation passes) and Cartes Jeunes (the same thing, but half price for under 26s) and hopped a train headed through Paris. We got off at Maisons Laffitte, and waited at the bus stop for the bus to appear. 15 minutes after its scheduled appearance, we decided that perhaps it wasn't going to show up at all, and that since it wasn't supposed to be that long a walk, we might be better off just walking. So we did, and it ended up taking about 10 minutes. (In other words, it would have been much quicker to just walk in the first place.)

We arrived at the Château de Maisons (built in the first half of the 17th century) from the front, and got a very nice view of the building. The windows were perfectly lined up, which made the whole thing look like a stage front, since we could see the light shining straight through the house. Once inside, we walked through a mostly unfinished downstairs, admiring the moldings and statuary on the ceilings, walls, and fireplaces.

Then up the grand staircase to the ballroom, which was also mostly unfurnished, but I suppose it was probably that way 300 years ago too, since furniture would get in the way of the dancers. Off the ballroom was the king's bedroom. Cherry and Ezio both decided that if the house were ours, that was the bedroom they would choose. (I'm not clear on whether or not a reigning monarch ever actually slept in that room. I do know that Louis XIV went to the inaugural feast with his mother, and that it was owned at one point by the brother of Louis XVI, who would later become King Charles X.)

We had to walk back through the stairs area to get to the other side of the upstairs, right past some very, erm, elegant 17th century ball costumes. The dresses weren't half bad, and I suppose I could see wearing them. We all got a giggle out of picturing Blaise in satin breeches with pictures of birds on them though. The other side of the upstairs was mostly taken up by the bedroom of one of Napoleon's field marshals. It was quite a lovely room, in lots of lavender and pale yellow. Somehow, the decor didn't exactly seem to fit the room of a decorated war hero, and Sapphire decided that she would like it as her bedroom.

Our final stop was down in the basement, which was set up as a sort of shrine to horse racing, which owes its existence in France largely to the efforts of the mid-nineteenth century owners of the château. Blaise wasn't particularly interested, and the museum was about to close for lunch, so we checked out the kitchen (also downstairs) and headed for the door.

After a quick (and very cold) lunch eaten outside looking at the château, we headed back for the train station. I put a pull up on Cherry (who announced that she desperately needed to poop with no bathrooms in sight) standing out on the train platform. It was a good think she was wearing a dress, and we could do so with minimal exposure.

Our next destination was the Villa Savoye in Poissy, which was designed by the architect Le Corbusier during the period between the World Wars. This one, however, required that we catch a bus, since it was quite a bit further from the RER station. Unfortunately, there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 bus lines that go to the Poissy RER station, split into two different bus station groupings. After spending 10 minutes wandering through the northern grouping, and panicking because the bus we were supposed to catch didn't seem to have a stop there, we noticed a sign indicating that there were more buses on the other side of the RER station. We successfully found the other bus station after walking all the way around the block, and walked through the whole thing looking for the correct shelter. Then we waited 20 minutes for the bus to show up. Fortunately, it did. And we rode it right past our bus stop. (A good reminder of why it is that I like riding the metro better than the bus. I've yet to miss a subway stop, because the train stops at all of them. The bus only stops if either there is someone waiting for a pick up or someone buzzes the driver.

The Villa Savoye was about as different from the Château de Maisons as possible (though they both had servants' quarters--the attic in the Château de Maisons and the ground floor in the Villa Savoye). It was very minimalist, although I assume that there was furniture in in when it was actually being used as a home. There was a daybed made of tile and concrete in the master bathroom, which didn't strike me as a particular comfortable piece of furniture. The kids all tried it out though, and claimed that it was really comfy. (We went to a rest stop with giant concrete recliners a couple of years ago. They were surprisingly comfortable also.) The house is built around a rooftop garden, which we got to walk through (or run through in Cherry's case). Then Ezio needed to go to the bathroom, so Blaise took Sapphire and Cherry out to run through the grounds while I guarded the bathroom door so no one would walk in on him. (And figured out how to flush the rather bizarre toilet. Evidently the modern movement had strange ideas on bathroom fixtures as well.)

We headed out to the bus stop when we saw a big group heading over, thinking that perhaps they knew something about the bus schedule. (We had tried to see what it looked like, but couldn't find any time tables on the return shelters.) Unfortunately, they didn't, so we ended up waiting 30 minutes for the bus along with 20 other people instead of by ourselves. It did show up, eventually, and we all piled on to begin the trip home.

In which we go to the Cité des Sciences

Sapphire, Ezio, and Cherry all thought that it would be fun to go to the Cité des Sciences at some point during the break, and Thursday seemed like a good day to go. First, though, I went to the doctor, who assured me that there was nothing wrong with me, but referred me for an abdominal ultrasound because he didn't want to make the people in the bureaucracy angry. (Also, because though I don't have a tendency toward hypochondria, having a doctor tell me that I probably have a ticking time bomb in my stomach that's likely to rupture at any moment is not particularly good for my mental health.) I have that coming up on Tuesday morning while the kids are in school.

So, after I got back from the doctor and packed a lunch and tossed some clothes in the washing machine and started the dishwasher, we set out. Our original plan was to go to the Cité des Enfants, and maybe to the submarine (which we haven't been to yet), and then to see how much time there was left. Unfortunately, when we got there it appeared that everyone else in the Paris metro area had had the same idea. The only open spaces for the Cité des Enfants were for the 5:00 session (too late) and the submarine reservations were completely sold out. Furthermore, both the automatic ticket machines and the ticket desks had what looked to be 30+ minute lines, and I'm just not that patient, so we went downstairs and found a bench to eat our lunches on, then headed back upstairs to the science museum (which we have passes for, and which doesn't require reservations).

There is a new exhibit there on food which Sapphire and I were excited about getting to see (Cherry and Ezio less so), but we discovered once we got up there that it was another exhibit that required a reservation (to ease overcrowding) and since I was not about to wait in the ticket lines, we decided to skip it. Instead, we went across the hallway to an exhibit called jeux et lumière, or games and light, which I had somehow never noticed before. We spent over an hour breaking light up with prisms of various shapes, using lenses and mirrors to display pictures on screens, and multiplying ourselves with mirrors.

After that we headed for an exhibit showing how protective clothing (for athletes, motorcyclists, astronauts, etc) is designed and made. Cherry was very excited because there were motorcycles for her to look at, and videos of crashes to watch. Sometimes I'm not sure about this kid.

Next, we headed over to the mathematics section, because Sapphire and Ezio wanted to go in the big spinning room that is used to demonstrate the Coriolis effect. We parked the stroller outside (Cherry had insisted that she needed one when we dropped our things off at the coat check) and waited in line for our turn on the ride. Once we were inside, and the attendant had delivered the safety lecture, they started the room spinning. We spent our 5 minutes or so inside watching what happened when we threw balls (provided) or tried to walk in a straight line. By the time we left Sapphire had figured out how to adjust for the effect and was hitting the targets with her throws.

Before we left, the kids wanted to watch a 3D movie, so we headed down to the theatre. We managed to snag the last 4 seats for the showing, and watched a film on the Apollo landing. I wonder if I was the only one who found it ironic that the astronauts in the film were wearing suits with American flags on them and speaking French. (And yes, I realize that we're in France and all that.)

On the way out we played for a little while at the jardin des vents et des dunes, which came very highly recommended. We, unfortunately, were not particularly impressed, so I think we probably won't be going back. It's the sort of playground where it's fairly easy for a small group to block access to a large part of the playground, thereby making it not much fun for anyone else.

In which we spend the day in Paris

Tuesday morning after breakfast (and a bit of housekeeping) the kids and I set off for the American Library, intending to switch our library books and then head back home to read. Sapphire is in the middle of the Harry Potter series and was eager to read the next book (I had to wait years for that privilege) and Ezio had decided that he wanted to start reading Harry Potter as well.

As we were walking from the metro station to the library though, I realized that it was really quite pleasant out, almost balmy, and thought that perhaps we should stick around Paris for a little bit. What to do though? We could, obviously, head for a museum, but that wouldn't exactly take advantage of the weather. We could go for a walk along the Seine, except that I would be hauling 20 pounds of books on my back, and that starts to get heavy after a while. (Most museums have cloakrooms where I could leave the backpack. I use them regularly when we're out.) A third possibility would be to buy lunch at a grocery store and then head to the playground at the Eiffel Tower for a picnic lunch and some playtime. That would put us outside, and give me the opportunity to put the backpack down instead of carrying it. There was only one problem: I didn't know where there was a grocery store in the area. (The density of grocery stores inside Paris is typically very high. When we lived near Montmartre 2.5 years ago there were 6 supermarkets within 3 blocks, plus a couple of corner groceries. However, we don't pass a single grocery store on the 4 block walk from the metro to the library.) Perhaps one of the people working at the library would be able to direct me to the nearest supermarket.

We got to the library, switched our books, checked out, and asked for directions to the grocery store. Evidently, there was one on Rue Saint-Dominique, about 2 blocks away, so we headed over there. I had forgotten how small Parisian supermarkets can be (the hypermarché we typically shop at is enormous), but we managed to find cheese, sausage, fruit, bread, cookies, and juice boxes without too much difficulty. Then we paid, and headed over toward the Eiffel Tower, a couple of blocks away.

The playground was swarming with little kids, and so we ate lunch first, hoping that many of them would be heading home for lunch and naps soon. By the time we were finished eating, the playground was much less busy, and so the kids headed to the play structure while I watched. It wasn't too long before Sapphire was back, complaining that she felt out of place because she was too old, and asking if she could please read Harry Potter instead. So she read and Cherry and Ezio played on the playground for a while. We ate the cookies, and they played some more. Eventually an oddly dressed man (who was, admittedly, probably completely harmless) walked onto the playground and started staring at Sapphire, so I packed up our stuff and we headed out.

We went under the Eiffel Tower, across the river, and through the Palais de Chaillot to the Trocadéro metro stop, bypassing innumerable trinket sellers ("Three for one euro, madame") and gypsy fortune tellers ("Speak English?") on the way. We stopped at Cinéaqua, the Paris aquarium, thinking that it might be a fun thing to do. It might have been if it hadn't cost 20€ a person to get in (the kids would have been 14€ apiece), which isn't really out of line with aquarium prices generally, but was a lot more than I wanted to spend. We decided to take the 6 line from Trocadéro to Nation, because part of the 6 is above ground (almost all of the Metro is subway, parts of the 2 and the 6 are above ground) and I thought it would be more interesting than our other options. As it turns out, we were above ground for almost the entire length of the trip, and the big kids and I enjoyed the view. Cherry, who had been a screaming mess by the time we got to the train station, slept, though only after I assured her that I wouldn't leave her on the train if she was asleep when we got to our stop. She slept as we walked through Nation as well, and so Sapphire was stuck carrying the backpack, and then most of the way to Val de Fontenay. Fortunately she woke up before we got off the train, so she was able to walk back to our apartment and I could carry the backpack.

Sapphire and Ezio dove straight into their books, and Cherry handed me her stack and demanded that I read them to her as well. Then Cherry and I left Sapphire and Ezio to their reading while we headed to the Auchan so that we could eat dinner when Blaise got home from his meetings.

In which Rebekah has her Visite Médicale

If you've been reading this blog for long enough, you probably know this already. Otherwise, here's a brief synopsis of what one needs to do to be a resident in France for longer than 3 months or so. First, one needs a visa. There are several different long stay visas available, depending on whether or not you have a job in France and on which type of job it is. Since Blaise is here as a researcher, we are all here on scientist visas (scientist family visas in the case of the kids and I). In order to get these visas, Blaise and I had to fly to Chicago and visit the French consulate last spring, armed with various pieces of paperwork and, of course, our credit card since the visas are expensive.

The visas, however, only entitle us to remain in France for 3 months from the date of entry. In order to remain in France for longer we need something called a titre de séjour or carte de séjour which is essentially a residency card. In order to begin the process for obtaining these cards, Blaise and I went to the sous-préfecture back in August, where we again submitted lots of paperwork and filled out lots of forms and where, once they had gone through all our papers, we were given pieces of paper with our photographs to indicate that we had begun the process of obtaining our titres de séjour. We were also told that we would be receiving a letter in the mail sometime in the next 4-6 weeks scheduling us for a medical visit, and that once that visit was over we would be given our actual titres de séjour.

Our temporary papers were only good for 3 months, so when we didn't yet have our cartes de séjour at the beginning of November, we headed back to the sous-préfecture, where we were given new temporary paperwork. Blaise had his medical visit at the end of November, and received his titre de séjour around Christmas. I went back to the sous préfecture at the beginning of February for another set of temporary paperwork. Then, finally, I got my letter telling my to show up for my medical visit on the first of March.

I needed to be at the OFII (Office Français de l'Iimmigration et de l'Integration) at 8:30 Monday morning. Step one was figuring out how to get there. Evidently the fastest option was to take the RER A to Vincennes, then switch to a train going back out the A line on the other branch line. (The RERs all branch outside of Paris. The A has 2 branches to the east (our) side and 3 branches to the west side.) I would have to ride that most of the way to the end of the line, then take a 15 minute bus ride, and finally walk a bit. The whole process would take about 75 minutes.

I left our apartment Monday morning at about 7:10, stopped at the ticket machines to buy a Mobilus (daily all you can ride pass) for the relevant zones, and headed down to a packed train platform. It appeared that several trains had gotten cancelled or delayed since the A typically runs every 2-3 minutes during rush hour, and there wasn't a train coming in for another 10 minutes. Somehow I managed to shoehorn my way onto that train. I didn't have anything to hold onto, but that didn't matter since I couldn't possibly have fallen over anyway--there was nowhere to fall. The transfer at Vincennes went without incident, as did the transfer to the bus at the end. I found the building without incident and waited to be called. Then the "fun" started.

When Blaise had his visite médicale it was just a brief checkup, evidently because he is employed in France. For those of us who are unemployed things are a bit more complex. First they led a group of us to a big room and said a bunch of stuff to us in rather rapid-fire French. I managed to catch the jist of what was going on, which was that we should be prepared to spend a good long time that morning, and a few more days as well. Then we all got to watch a movie on being French (in French, of course).

After the movie, we were called out individually to meet with auditors, whose job was to schedule us for a couple of classes/workshops and to determine what our level of French fluency was. So I am now scheduled for a full day class on civic life in France on April 13 (complicated by the fact that Blaise is leading a full day workshop in Paris on that day--anyone want to fly out to Paris and take care of getting kids to and from school for me?). She wanted to schedule me for another full day class on April 30th, but we'll be out of town so I'm currently on the waiting list for the following English language session, whenever that is. I somehow managed to convince her (aided by the fact that we're permanently leaving France in 5 months) that I spoke good enough French so that I didn't need to take courses in French (which would have been free, but nearly impossible to schedule).

By then it was nearly 11:00 and time for the actual medical visit part of the day. First, I met with a nurse who weighed and measured me and checked to make sure that my glasses were sufficiently strong. That was relatively quick and straightforward. Next, I went downstairs and out into the parking lot where I waited in a 45 minute line for the opportunity to go into a trailer and have a chest x-ray. Fortunately it was reasonably nice out. Eventually I got to go into the trailer and strip to the waist so they could take the x-ray, then redress and wait for the technician to hand me the envelope with the film in it to bring up to the doctor.

After another 30 minute wait to see a doctor, I got called in to one of the offices, where I got to take off my shirt again. He checked my mouth to see if I needed a referral to a dentist (evidently not), took my blood pressure (normal), listened to my heart and lungs (good), felt my abdomen, and decided that I needed to see my GP for a referral for an ultrasound of my stomach. Evidently it isn't normal to be able to feel one's pulse in one's stomach, though it generally isn't anything serious. In any case, I'm seeing a doctor today and I expect that he will send me for an ultrasound. Hopefully that will show that there isn't anything actually wrong and that will be the end of that. (I've known about this for years but never thought anything of it, and no doctor I've seen in the US has ever said anything about it either. I'm not yet sure whether that's incompetence on their parts or an overabundance of caution here. We'll see what the ultrasound turns up.)

Then he signed the papers to show that I'd passed the medical exam, and I got to hunt for someone to stamp them with the date. (Not easy because it was lunch time, and most of the people in the building were gone.) Finally, around 12:30 I managed to head out to the bus stop and begin the trip home. After lunch, Cherry and I went to the sous-préfecture to drop off a photocopy of my medical visit paperwork and to hopefully increase the speed with which I get my residency card. (Which will make a very nice souvenir, since I won't have it for very long before we leave the country.)

Edited to add: I saw the doctor this morning, and he thought that I needn't worry. However, in order to keep the powers that be in the administration happy, he's sending me for an ultrasound. Hopefully the worst news will be that I'm not allowed to eat or drink (or smoke, though that's not an issue) before the ultrasound on Tuesday morning.

In which we go to the Parc Floral

(As a note, in case you're wondering what we did Friday and Sunday, I took the kids to the swimming pool, but there are limits to how many times one can write about the swimming pool unless something rather unusual occurs. Cherry jumping off the side of the pool and Sapphire and Ezio having splashing wars don't exactly count. Also, although we had some fierce winds on Sunday morning, so far as I can tell the Paris area was spared any real damage from the storm that came through Europe.)

Saturday was a beautiful day--mostly sunny and in the mid 50s, a perfect day to go to the park. We'd been wanting to go to the Parc Floral for a long time (ever since our aborted attempt back in the fall), but things never seemed to line up properly, so when Blaise suggested that we go there on Saturday afternoon, I thought that it sounded like a great idea. First though, we needed to do some housework, since our apartment was a disaster. Each of the kids put in 45 minutes of work, and I put in an hour, and the house was, if not gleaming, at least respectable. (It's amazing to me both how quickly an apartment this size turns into a disaster area when all 3 kids are home all day, and how quickly it can be straightened out. It takes our house in Manhattan a week to reach that level of disaster, and a full day to clean up if it does.) I went to the grocery store (unaccompanied by any children, who were busy playing Harry Potter) and we ate lunch. By about 2:00 we were ready to head for the park.

At this point it's important to realize a couple of things. The first is that (in case you hadn't figured it out) we don't have a car, and so depend on public transportation to get anywhere. The second is that neither of the train options for accessing the park is particularly convenient. Basically there are 2 choices: (1) Ride the RER one stop to Vincennes, and walk 15- 20 minutes to the entrance to the park (plus another 15 back to the playground) or (2) Take the RER into Paris, switch to the metro line, and then take that out to Chateau de Vincennes, which shaves 10 minutes or so off the walk, but easily adds 20 minutes to the train ride. In light of this, Blaise suggested that we might try taking the bus, which would take us straight to the Chateau de Vincennes metro stop without the inconvenience of going into Paris and switching trains.

We headed for the bus (first checking the time table of course, so that we wouldn't have to stand outside for forever) with tickets in hand, only to discover when we got there that we couldn't use RER tickets to ride the bus. (We had assumed that since we needed zone 2-3 tickets to ride the train to Vincennes, we would also need them to ride a bus to Vincennes. I discovered yesterday that all busses take standard t+ tickets, which are what you use to ride the Metro and busses inside the city of Paris.) Since our tickets wouldn't work, we headed to the RER station in the hopes of figuring out via the ticket machines which tickets we needed to ride the bus. No such luck. We were stuck figuring out whether or not it was worth it to deal with the hassle of the Vincennes RER stop (I hadn't brought tickets that were valid all the way into Paris, so that was out), and whether there would be enough time for the kids to play on the playground before the park closed.

After a great deal of hemming and hawing we decided that it was, and caught the next train toward Paris. We reached the playground around 3:35 (so it took us 40 minutes from the time we caught the train, and only 4 minutes of that was train time) and the kids headed straight for the giant octupus slide. Once they had climbed that and gone down all of the slides on it, they headed for a double helix slide (which Sapphire correctly identified as such) with Blaise and I following close behind. Cherry got up to the top and panicked because the slides were dark inside and because there were kids pushing and shoving to get on, so Sapphire walked back down the steps with her, and then up again to go down herself.

Then all 3 kids headed over to a giant wooden play structure with lots of mesh nets to cross and slides to slide down and ladders to climb up, and Blaise and I, fortunately, found a bench nearby where we could sit and watch them climb. At one point Cherry almost fell off a ladder that was too big for her to climb down (she'd been going up it without difficulty) and a dad who was standing nearby got ready to catch her. She freaked out, and I boosted her down (I told you the bench was nearby). Soon after we headed over to another large structure; this one aimed at kids more Cherry's age, but after we had been there for a few minutes the park people came riding by on their bicycles, blowing whistles and telling us that the park was closing and that we had to leave. So we packed up our kids and headed for the entrance, along with everybody else, and with complaining commentary by Cherry each time we passed somebody who didn't seem to be headed for the exit.