In which we leave for vacances

We will be travelling over the next week or so, and I am unsure as to how much Internet access we will have during that time. I plan to bring my computer with me so that I can write blog posts while we're gone, but I may not be able to post them until we return.

In which we go to the Cité

When we visited Paris 3 years ago, we went to the Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie once, and spent somewhere in the neighborhood of 40€ on admission to the main science museum and the children's museum for everyone. Then we realized that for an additional 20€ or so, we could have had unlimited access to the entire museum for a full year (or, at any rate, the remaining 6 weeks or so that we were going to be in Paris).

This time, we were smarter, and bought an annual pass to the Cité shortly after our arrival in Paris. We've gone several times since then, and though we've always been able to get into the main museum (which doesn't have a reservation system), we've had spotty success at making it into the various parts of the museum that require reservations. We'd had a great deal of success the first few times we went with reserving spots upon arrival at the Cité, but no success whatsoever since Christmas or so. Although there is an online system for reserving spots ahead of time, it is, naturally, in French, and I had become frustrated with figuring out how to make it work. (In case you were wondering, it's very easy to use if you want to pay for your reservation spot, and much less easy if you want to use your CitéPass to reserve it. It also requires that you reserve at least a day ahead, which doesn't always work very well with my desire for sponteneity.)

Sunday afternoon though, Ezio said that he wanted to go to the Cité des Enfants over spring break, and Sapphire reminded me that she had wanted to go to Bon Appetit (the new food exhibit) and that we'd been unable to get tickets for either of them the last time we had gone to the Cité, so I decided to take another shot at the online system. If I could make it work, we would know that we had spots, and could skip the interminable lines to buy tickets. After 20 minutes of searching, I discovered that I needed to log in, using my member number and email address, and that I would then be able to use system to put reservations on our passes for Tuesday. (The Cité, like many Paris museums, is closed on Mondays.)

Tuesday morning, after a trip to the grocery store, we set out for the Cité des Sciences. We had a reservation at 11:15 for Bon Appetit, which is a temporary exhibit on food geared toward older kids, so after we had cleared security and dropped our backpack off at the coat check room, we headed up the escalators to the exhibition, and waited in line behind a huge "school" (actually a centre de loisirs) group to get in. After we had assured the woman at the entrance that we had all used the bathroom already (no bathroom inside, and se wouldn't be allowed back inside once we left, we headed into the exhibit.

We started by watching a large mechanical digestive system turn pretend food into pretend poop, which it dutifully pretended to deposit in a pretend toilet. We explored which products come from various substances: lipstick from potatoes? Yup. We learned about what kind of food shoppers we were (though the station might have been more informative if the items we had to choose between had prices attached). We also waited in line for a very long time to play a "game." The idea was that you took a small packet of crackers, and then answered questions on a computer as you explored the food with all of your senses before deciding whether or not you liked it. Unfortunately, the game took about 5 minutes per person, and there were only 2 computer stations, so you can imagine the sort of wait that was involved in order to actually participate. Sapphire stuck out the line. The rest of us ended up sitting on the floor and talking about where we were going to go to eat our lunches.

After we had finished up at the food exhibit, we were all quite hungry and ready for lunch, so I picked up the backpack at the coat check, and we headed outside for a picnic in the Parc de la Villette. Then, back inside to redeposit the backpack, wash our very sticky hands, and wait for our slot at the Cité des Enfants to begin. Since the Cité des Enfants is divided into two parts, one for 2 to 7 year olds, and the other for 5 to 12 year olds, and children are not permitted to be unaccompanied, I had had to make a choice as to which side I wanted to make reservations for. As the food exhibit was geared for older kids, and we had ended up at the older kids part of the children's museum the last time we were there, I made reservations for the little kids side of the museum.

Cherry wanted to start out at the water section, so that's what we did, then headed over to go through obstacle courses, write with light pens, and draw with our fingers on touch screen computers. (Surely there is an iPod application that does this?) Then the kids wanted to go to the construction zone, where, amazingly, they stayed for almost 20 minutes. Normally, Cherry only lasts for a few minutes because it tends to be crowded and somewhat crazy. She doesn't much like that. Finally, we explored scents and sounds and mirrors, and tried to figure out what size we were by trying out bikes, coats, chairs, and handprints of varying sizes. Cherry is medium small, Sapphire, just plain medium, and I think even Shaq might find the largest sizes a bit big.

Once they kicked us out of the children's museum, we headed outside to the Garden of winds and dunes, which is one of these playgrounds that seems like it should be far cooler than my children think it actually is. For one thing, it always seems to be incredibly crowded. For another, it is set up in such a way that if you have kids of different ages, it's easy for them to be sent off to different parts of the playground to play (and the age ranges are not overlapping), which means that the kids in the older sections are typically not very well supervised. At many playgrounds, this wouldn't be a problem, but this one is set up so that only a few entrance points control access to great swaths of the older kids' parts of the playground, and those points can easily be monopolized be only a handful of children, thereby blocking access for everyone else. After 40 minutes or so, Sapphire reiterated her earlier claim that it was the dumbest playground ever, and that she never wanted to go back.

In which we enjoy the lovely weather

For the last several days, the weather here in Paris has been truly
gorgeous: warm and sunny, with blue skies unmarred by vapor trails.
(Notice that the last part is nice only because we have no need to fly
anywhere for many weeks. The flight cancellations, especially in
conjunction with the ongoing rail strike, are wreaking havoc with the
spring break plans of the French.). To celebrate, the kids and I
have been spending a lot of time outside, enjoying the warmth and the
flowers while Blaise enjoys the ensuing quiet, which allows him to "get
something done."

He felt that it was necessary for him to work all day on Saturday, but
suggested that perhaps he was in a position to take part of Sunday
afternoon off, and that, given the weather, it might be a good day to
go back to the Parc Floral.

Accordingly, we set off for the nearest bus stop late Sunday
afternoon, and headed for the Parc Floral. By the time we had ridden
the bus route, walked the three blocks to the entrance to the Parc,
and the half kilometer or so back to the playground, it was past
4:30. It was also quite clear that we were not the only people in
Paris who thought it was a good day for a trip there. (Or, perhaps,
we were joined by everyone who had intended to fly somewhere during
the vacance but had had their vacation plans thwarted by the volcano.).
In any case, the playground was swarming with so many kids that it
almost wasn't fun anymore. The big kids' favorite structure was so
covered with kids that it wasn't clear where one could put any more of
them, and Cherry was shoved out of the way twice when she tried to
go down the octopus slide. Even the little kids' section was
astoundingly busy, though at least the kids were being somewhat better
supervised. Eventually, we all ended up at the mega sandbox, which
was surprisingly calm, and Sapphire and Ezio had a contest to see who
could dig the deepest hole. That contest was abruptly terminated when
Ezio's hole reached his armpit and a wandering toddler got stuck up to his
crotch in Sapphire's hole. Then the big kids had a sand castle contest
and Cherry proceeded to fill her socks with sand, until we decided
that perhaps it was time to head for home. We thought though, that
we might try walking back off the main path to see whether we could
find some of the park's namesake flowers.

We took the first turn off the main path and found that we were in the
middle of a collection raised beds of tulips of every style and color
imaginable: pink, red, yellow, purple, orange, and multicolored;
ordinary, double, parrot, and fringed blooms. After we had passed a few beds, Sapphire decided to see whether or not they smelled as nice as they looked. She decided that they (mostly) did not, but from then on, Cherry felt obligated to smell a sample from each bed we passed. Fortunately, she didn't fall into any flower beds, though I was a bit worried a few times. We wended our way through a wooded garden and over a tiny footbridge, and then found ourselves back on the main thoroughfare through the park, along with hundreds of other people, and headed for the exit.

In which we celebrate the coming of spring

This past Friday marked the last day of school before the 2 week vacances de printemps* (spring break), and Cherry's maternelle celebrated with a costumed parade around the neighborhood. Thursday morning at school they began the process of constructing their couronnes de printemps (spring crowns), with each class making them in a different style. As you might expect, they were all green with some type of flowers on them. The petite section (the 3 year olds) painted plus signs on their crowns in a variety of colors (reddish-orange and blue in Cherry's case). Once the paint had dried, they glued crumpled tissue paper to the center of the plusses to turn them into flowers. The moyenne section (the 4 year olds) glued a variety of cut paper flowers onto their crowns. (Unfortunately I was never close enough to the kids in the grande sections (the 5 year olds, i.e. kindergarteners) had done with theirs.

Friday at lunch time when I went to pick Cherry up from school, her teacher reminded me that if she wanted to be in the parade she would need to be dropped back off at the school at 3:00 so that everyone would be ready to go at 3:15. So, after lunch and a very speedy trip to the grocery store, we put Cherry into her costume (which consisted of a frilly pink tunic of Sapphire's and a fairy wand, since we're a bit short on dress up stuff here) and headed over to the school.

When we got there, we discovered that the all day kids were already in their costumes, and that many of them were substantially more elaborate than Cherry's, but that no one else had an origami magic wand. So I gave Cherry hugs and kisses and assured her that I would be there to pick her up after the parade, and then I headed back over to our apartment to suggest to Blaise that we go down to see them come out of the school complex. Around 3;15 we started to see green crowned children marching across the grounds deux par deux (2 by 2), as always, and toward the gate. The gardien buzzed them out and they headed out for their parade. Blaise smiled and waved at Cherry, who looked quite proud of herself, and headed back to the apartment to work, and I joined the gaggle of milling parents who followed the parade, attempting to get a better picture.

In essence, the kids walked about halfway around the school, reentering the complex through the back gate, and we followed with them as far as the entrance to the playgrounds of the other maternelle. At that point, we had a problem. Cherry, evidently, hadn't realized that she was supposed to go back into the school after the parade, and furthermore, she wasn't used to going into the school through the back way, so she promptly stopped walking and started crying and tried to run to me. Her teacher (who is also the director of the school) took one look at what was happening and told me to go with her, then brought the rest of the parents out of the back gate and re-locked it.

All the kids went into their classrooms long enough to drop their crowns on the tables, and then headed back outside to play on the playground and eat the waffles and crepes that were provided as a celebratory snack. Unfortunately, because of the snacks, all of the kids were on the same playground, instead of the two they are normally divided onto. Cherry took one look at all the unfamiliar 5 year olds on the playground and decided that she would not, for any reason, go more than 6 inches from me, so we sat and watched the other kids playing and accepted compliments on Cherry's beautiful baguette magique. Eventually, I convinced her that we should at least get her a couple of pieces of waffle, and that I wasn't going to pick them up for her, and she managed to do that, though not without some difficulty.

Then, we all went back inside for the last few minutes of the day. The kids who went to aftercare were swiftly changed into their regular clothes by the aide maternelle, and then there was chaos as everybody tried to grab their crowns and their books of work (which come home for our perusal every vacation) and show off their beautiful costumes for the last time. We headed for the exit (I was impressed to see that they had already put up pictures of the parade for those parents who hadn't been able to come and watch it), and then toward Sapphire and Ezio's school, where we met Blaise and the big kids on their way home.

*In case you were wondering, yes, we did just (6 weeks ago) finish our 2 week winter vacation (which came 6 weeks after the end of Christmas vacation), and we also just had Easter Monday off. We also have 4 day school weeks. And although the school day goes from 9:00 to 4:30, they have 2 breaks of 20 minutes and an hour and a half for lunch. Next time someone starts telling you about how much more time kids in other countries spend in class, you will be able to laugh loudly at them.

In which Rebekah had her class in Formation Civique

Tuesday, April 13th was the day that the powers that be decided I should have my class in civic formation. In case you are wondering what the point of such a class is, it's basically to ensure that everyone who is immigrating to France will understand French history and government well enough to become part of French culture. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

As you read yesterday (you did read yesterday, right? If you didn't, you should read the post underneath this one before you read this), I had quite a struggle finding someone who would be able to pick Cherry up from school for me. I was able to avoid finding someone to take her to school only because one of the speakers at Blaise's workshop backed out at the last moment, and so he was able to rearrange the talk schedule so that it didn't begin until 11:00. This was fortunate, because I needed to be in Créteil at 9:00 for the beginning of my class.

On the day of my visite médicale, the woman who scheduled me for the class spent probably half the time I was talking to her emphasizing how very, very, very important it was that I be on time. Very important. So, I spent 20 minutes Monday morning figuring out when exactly I needed to leave in order to ensure that I would be there on time. I was faced with a dilemma: there was a bus which would get me to the building at 8:54, assuming that it was running on time, and that I didn't get lost trying to find the building afterwards. Alternately, I could take a bus that would get me there at 8:29, but of course that would me leaving a half hour earlier. Taking a risk, a chose the later of the two busses. Then, of course, I had to figure out which trains to take. The 8:01 from Val de Fontenay would get me to Vincennes with 8 minutes to catch the 8:16 to Sucy (or 1 minute to catch the 8:07, though that seemed unlikely). Then I would have 5 minutes to get through the (annoyingly large) station at Sucy and catch the bus.

Tuesday morning I left with plenty of time to catch my train, even given that I would need to stop on the way and purchase a daily pass. I made it to Vincennes without incident, and watched the 8:07 pull away just as I made it down the stairs. Of course, that wasn't a problem because I could easily make the bus if I caught the 8:16. Then I looked at the departure moniters. It was now an 8:18. Well, I'd have to hurry at the other end, but I could do it. A few minutes later, it was an 8:19, then an 8:20. At 8:21, the train pulled into the station and I climbed aboard, hoping that I could (somehow) will the train to make up time as we went. I didn't dare check my watch to see how late we were. When we (at last) arrived at my stop, I was out the door before the train had come to a complete stop, and sprinting down the platform toward the exit. (Annoyingly, I had guessed wrong about which end of the platform the exit was on at Sucy, and so I had to run the length of the platform in addition to all the rest of it.) Down a set of stairs, through some hallways, up another set of stairs, put the ticket through the turnstile, and out the door, only to watch the back of bus 393 turning the corner not 10 yards in front of me. Perhaps the bus driver would see me if I chased the bus and tried to flag him down? At least in Fontenay, they will sometimes stop, and the catching the next bus would me that I would be LATE FOR MY CLASS. And then they would probably make me take it a different time, and I would have to go through the whole rigamarole of finding child care for Cherry, and . . . up a block, around one corner, another block, around another corner, and at last the bus slowed to a stop and the driver waved me on, where I collapsed panting into the nearest seat.

As it turned out, when I arrived there were only 7 other people there, and the instructor was allowing people who showed up as late as 9:55 into the room. (In fact, it was at that point that we finally actually got started.) The two people who showed up at 10:20 and 10:43 were turned away, however.

For the first couple of hours, we learned about French history. (The course was taught in French, and there was someone translating in back for those of us who spoke more English than we did French. I was the only native English speaker.) Then, we talked about the symbols of the French Republic: the flag, the national anthem, Bastille Day (which is not what they call it here), and Marianne. After lunch (when I sent my pizza sliding across the table and onto someone's plate, knocking over her water), we returned to the classroom. Then it was on to the French government. Finally, we talked about freedom and equality and secularity (not so much about fraternity and solidarity). In particular, this ended up being about the rights of women as equals to men. For many of the men in the class, the news that their wives could get jobs and birth control without their permission was evidently unwelcome. They were also not very happy to discover that in France, beating one's spouse carries a far greater punishment than beating some random person on the street.

In which we have company for dinner

When I had my visite medicale, back at the beginning of March, I
learned that as the holder of a family titre de séjour, I would have
to take various classes on French life and government. At that time,
they scheduled me to take my civic formation class on the 13th of
April, which seemed like it should be fine. After all, Blaise would be
able to pick Cherry up from school and spend the afternoon with her. Then, of course, I asked Blaise and it turned out that he had a big workshop that day, and that the planning of said workshop had consumed many hours and so, naturally, he couldn't take Cherry. What to do?

Perhaps Elinor or Caroline could pick Cherry up from school? No, both of them had prior commitments for that day (and it would have been inconvenient for them anyway). Maybe she could stay at school for the afternoon? Well, she could (I asked), but Cherry doesn't do particularly well with changes to her schedule, and that would only take care of things until 4:30 or so. At that point, she would either have to go to the Centre de Loisirs (afterschool care), which would mean both a change of venue, and a change of caregivers, or I would have to find someone to pick her up and bring her home. I toyed with the idea of asking Blanche's older sister to pick up Cherry when she picked up Alexandra, but ultimately decided against it. Bringing her with seemed unwise, and I really, really didn't want to try to reschedule the class. Finally, I had an idea. There is a graduate student couple from Notre Dame visiting Paris this spring. The husband is working with the same group here that Blaise is, and the wife is doing research in the history of American religion. We had had them over for dinner previously. Perhaps she would be willing to pick Cherry up and take care of her for the afternoon? I sent an email. A couple of days later, I had my answer: Yes!

The next problem was that Cherry didn't really know Laura all that well, and, as we all know, Cherry doesn't do very well with people she doesn't know. I didn't particularly want this to be a stressful experience for everyone, so Cherry would need a chance to get to know Laura a bit better before she had to pick her up from school. (Cherry went with Blaise to get Chris and Laura from the train station a couple of weeks ago, and promptly started sobbing hysterically upon seeing them.) Perhaps they would like to come over for dinner on Sunday? They would. (I think Laura wanted Cherry to be comfortable with her at least as much as I did.)

So, Chris and Laura came for dinner on Sunday, and while Chris played monkey in the middle with Sapphire and Ezio (and Blaise frantically tried to put his talk for Monday together), Cherry and I showed Laura how to get to Cherry's school, and how you go down the fire pole, and where the climbing tree is, and how to get to Sapphire and Ezio's school to pick them up after school. Cherry assured Laura that she could tell her how to get to the big kids' school. Then, we went inside and Sapphire showed Laura the box of craft supplies that she had put together for Cherry, and Cherry showed her the lacing cards and duplos and books.

After that, it was time for dinner: boeuf bourguignon and buttered steamed potatoes with a tossed salad, and brown sugar cookies for dessert. Then Chris and Laura left and Cherry headed for bed (with some help, of course).

In which we celebrate Blaise's birthday

With apologies for the recent neglect of this blog. . .

Saturday, April 10, was Blaise's birthday (but don't tell him you saw it here. For some reason, he thinks it should be treated as a state secret). Unfortunately, he had a major talk to give Monday (that would be today) and has a workshop that he's organizing on Tuesday (tomorrow) and so all of our ambitious plans had to fall by the wayside. So, in the morning I did the grocery shopping and took the kids to the playground and tidied the house and all of that good stuff, and then, after lunch and the subsequent clean up (which does occasionally happen around the same time as the meal), we took the train into Paris.

One of Blaise's favorite places to walk in Paris is around Montmartre, which is very close to where we lived when we were here almost three years ago. So, we got off at Abbesses, and took the elevator up to ground level. In case you were wondering, you know it's a serious elevator when the listed capacity is 100 people or 1500 kg (that's 3300 lbs). Then we headed to Le Grenier au Pain, our favorite bakery from years past, where Blaise got two fougasses (sort of a Provençal olive bread that's somewhere between pizza and soft pretzel) and the kids and I each picked a Viennoiserie. We ate them in the little park by the metro stop, and then Cherry and Ezio decided that they wanted to play on the playground. Unfortunately, even Cherry was a bit on the old side for the equipment, so we left before Ezio could give the toddlers too many ideas.

We wandered up to Sacre Coeur, and then decided that it would be nice to walk around the church and see the bell tower in the back. We found another park, this one without a playground but with a big sand/gravel area for running and playing and with benches for sitting, so Blaise and I sat and talked and watched the kids running and playing until we almost got hit by an errant soccer ball (not our kids') for the third time. Then we corralled our children and decided to complete our circuit of the church.

As we reached the front of the church, we noticed that there was a huge crowd (not surprising) that didn't seem to be moving at all (more surprising). Blaise was the first one to notice the man holding himself out, perpendicular to the lamppost (and 20 feet above the ground), and spinning a soccer ball on a pin in his mouth. We joined the crowd, and as people kept walking in front of us, we moved further and further up (they were adults, and we had munchkins who couldn't see over the top) until we were only about 10 feet from where he was performing. Among other tricks, he removed both a shirt and a t-shirt while the ball was balanced on his back, climbed the lamppost with the ball balanced on his head, and of course did various juggling (soccer style) tricks while balanced on a 2x2 foot piling. Unfortunately, we forgot the camera, and so I won't be able to impress you with photos. After 15-20 minutes, Sapphire dropped some (well earned) money into his hat, and we headed down the hill.

Once we were home, I started dinner. As per Blaise's request, we had confit de canard (confit duck), pommes sarladaises (pototoes fried in duck (or goose) fat), and salad, with pâtisseries (pastries) for dessert.

In which Disney is busier

In which Disney is busier

When we wnt to the fête de la cité the last weekend in March, the
kids were very disappointed that we wouldn't let them ride anything,
so I promised that we could go to Disney instead. Sunday was forecast
to be cool and wet though, so that wasn't a good day. Besides, we had
ambitious plans to go to the Palm Sunday service at Saint Sulpice and
then visit several other churches. (You'll observe that I haven't
written about this. The best laid plans and all that.). This past
Saturday was also rainy, and Easter Sunday was a blackout date for
holders of our pass (not to mention a free museum day), but Monday
promised to be gorgeous and sunny. Since Easter Monday is a national
holiday in France, it was also a no school day.

So, Monday morning after the kids were up, I asked them whether it
sounded like a good day to go to Disney. They were enthusiastic, so
after breakfast I set them to work folding laundry, making beds, and
unloading the dishwasher while I made a quick run to the Auchan for
lunch stuff. (Fortunately, there was plenty of soup left over from Easter dinner, so I didn't need to worry about supper.) Then I threw together sandwiches, tossed everything in Sapphire's backpack (which is substantially lighter than mine is), and we were off to the train.

After a non-eventful ride (in the front car of the train), we discovered that half of Paris seemed to have decided to go to Disney that day. It appeared from the congestion on the train platform that the other train cars had been packed (which is why we were in the front car), so we followed the flow of people up the steps and over to the bag screening station at the entrance. Then on to the actual entrance to the park proper.

Once we were inside, the kids wanted to go straight to Buzz Lightyear, but we discovered that the line (at 10:30, half an hour after the park had opened) was already 45 minutes long. Fortunately, it's a fastpass ride, and so we stood in line for the fastpass machines (which was still several minutes) and then headed off to do something else while we waited for our time slot to come.

Sapphire's second choice of rides was the Phantom Manor, so we headed over there, only to see that the line for it was halfway down the street. We were about to turn away and go do something else (while I rued my decision to come to Disney, since even on Saturday in the summer the lines weren't anything like that long), when the gates to the ride opened and everyone started going into the queueing line. Evidently, that ride didn't open until 11:00. We ended up waiting for about 20 minutes to get inside, then waited in the line "downstairs" for our carriages to take us through the manor. As we were waiting, we got to see, for the first time that day, a group of people being escorted off a ride. (As they were older, I'm not entirely sure that it was a behavioral thing. It's possible that someone fell ill or something like that.)

We climbed the Swiss Family Robinson's treehouse (which also had a line) on our way back to Discoveryland, then stopped and ate our sandwiches and pretzels before we used our fastpass tickets to get into Buzz Lightyear. (We didn't manage to get any other fastpasses. By the time we were out of Buzz Lightyear, most of the fastpasses at the other rides were already gone.) Then we headed to Small World (Cherry's choice), the Tea Cups, and the Carrousel before we walked over to the Pirates of the Caribbean.

Then, Sapphire suggested that we ride Phantom Manor again, so we did (and watched a group get kicked off a ride for the second time that day. This time at the very beginning, and definitely because of behavioral stuff). We went through the Wild West exhibit walk through (where they had actual working telescopes that you didn't even need to put money in). At that point, it was almost time to go, but when we started for the entrance to the park, we discovered that Main Street was closed off for a parade, and so we couldn't easily get out. So, we headed back to Fantasyland where we took advantage of the short lines to ride Pinocchio, Snow White, the Carrousel (again) and the Tea Cups (again). By that time the parade was over and the crowds were beginning to come back into the park's various zones, so we headed over to the train station.

In which we celebrate Easter

As I assume all of you realize, Easter was this Sunday. Also, the first Sunday of April was this Sunday. That meant that we had two important things to take care of.

Easter things started showing up at the Auchan a few weeks ago (not the day after Valentine's Day), and naturally the kids were interested in checking out what was there. Easter clothing, of course, though they weren't particularly interested in that. Toys for Easter
baskets, which were more interesting, but which they weren't going to be getting. And, of course, candy. Mostly chocolate (I have now survived an Easter without jellybeans), much of it in the form of bunnies and foil wrapped eggs, but also large decorated eggs, molded bells (which evidently are responsible for delivering the Easter chocolate here in France), chocolate puppies, kittens, and bears, and last but not least, chocolate fish.

Sapphire, in her wisdom, decided that it would be a good idea to remind me to buy Easter candy several times a day, starting weeks before Easter. (In case you were wondering, none of my kids think that Easter candy is delivered by a bunny (or a bell), which makes Easter egg hunts that much easier. "Go in the kitchen and close the door. I have to hide the Easter eggs."). Since this continued well past the point at which the candy was safely hidden in my bedroom, I was forced to tell her that if she persisted in nagging me, I would have to start eating her candy.

Easter morning dawned grey and drizzly. Once everybody was up, and we had eaten breakfast, it was time to hide the chocolate eggs and bunnies. Ezio's eggs were hidden in the kids' bedroom, Cherry's were hidden in the grown-ups' bedroom, and Sapphire got the living
room. (In the States, each kids gets their own colors of plastic eggs to search for to keep things even. Since there don't seem to be any plastic Easter eggs here, I had to divide things up some other way.) Once the eggs were all hidden, the kids emerged from the kitchen and searched for their eggs. Cherry found hers first, then Ezio, and Sapphire at last managed to find the last two hidden on the bottom shelf of the corner table.

Next, everyone had to do a bit of house straightening, and then we were off to the city. We had decided that it would be a good day to go to the Orsay, at least in part because we happened to know that they had strollers available in case Cherry pooped out early. (Since she had finally deigned to fall asleep at 12:45 Saturday night, I was a big concerned about that.)

We arrived at the RER stop and climbed the steps to see a huge line waiting to clear security and enter the museum. So we followed the line back and back and back some more, until we finally reached the end. Then we watched groups of excited looking people carrying tour books rush past heading for the entrance to the Orsay, only to return later, looking far less excited about standing in line for a hour and a half or so. (The line was moving fairly well, but I would guess that if it we stretched out it would probably have been close to a half mile long.) Along the edge of the line, chestnuts sellers had set up with their shopping carts, and after we'd been in line for 30 minutes or so, (and covered perhaps a third of the distance to the entrance), one of them told us, in heavily accented English, that we didn't need to be standing in line. Because we had children, we were permitted to use the much quicker handicapped entrance. We vaguely remembered that something like that had been true 3 years ago, so I walked up to the other entrance to check. The security guard confirmed what the chestnut seller had told us, so I returned to get Blaise and the big kids (we hadn't wanted to risk losing our place in line if he had been wrong) and we all headed in through the handicapped entrance.

Once inside, we headed straight for the bookstore because we thought that we might buy a children's guide book for the Orsay. (We've already got one for the Louvre.) After perusing the selection, Blaise decided to pass on what they had (I was trying to keep Cherry occupied), and we headed out into the galleries. ( I won't bore you with a long list of the paintings that we saw. You can look at many of them on the museum's website. If you don't know anything about the museum, I'll just say that it houses Impressionist works of art, chiefly (though not exclusively) French.)

Not unexpectedly, given the length of the line outside, the museum was packed. At one point I found myself near a group of American high school students who were evidently in Paris on some sort of spring break art appreciation trip. The students were trying to convince their (art) teacher that they had already "sort of looked around a little bit" and that she should let them leave and go shopping. She was not happy about it. As we walked around the museum and ran into them several more times, the students looked mopier and mopier and the teacher looked more and more annoyed.

What else. . .

• As we were leaving, one of the security people stopped us, apparently because he wanted to tell us that we had beautiful children. He didn't seem to believe that they spoke French, but eventually Sapphire managed to convince him that they went to a proper French school.
• Some weird man kept following me around one of the galleries, ranting in French about Napoleon and socialism and hatred of the people and juries. We were very glad to escape to the next room (where we found the whiny high school students).
• Cherry really liked the room with the pink trees.
• Ezio liked the painting of the fight between humans and demons that used to hang on the wall of the French Senate.
• Sapphire seemed to like just about everything, and she decided that she was going to try all of the represented techniques when she got home.
• On the way home, I got to listen to another man tell me that his mother always said, "You get more kids, you get more problems." Since Cherry was bouncing all over the (fortunately almost empty) train car at that point, I'm not sure whether he was trying to be sympathetic or judgmental.

In which Rebekah actually obtains her Titre de Séjour

From nearly the beginning of our stay in France, we've been in the process of obtaining our Cartes de Séjour. Many of you are somewhat aware of the frustration we've experienced in obtaining this critical piece of identification. (If you aren't, and you want to be, you can read here, here, here, here, and here.)

In any case, I received a letter from the sous-préfecture in Nogent-sur-Marne the day that Blaise left for Spain, telling me that my Titre de Séjour was waiting there, and requesting that I bring an assortment of paperwork with me to come and pick it up. Since one of the things that I needed to bring was 300€ to pay for the card (sort of, more on that later), and Blaise had brought our bank card with him to Spain, I couldn't get in until he got back, but it was a relief to know that it was, at last, there.

Blaise came home on a Wednesday evening, and I decided that I had too much to get done on Thursday to take the time out to go to the sous-préfecture that day, but that I would go on Friday afternoon and take Cherry with me. We could ride the bus, so I wouldn't have to worry about her legs wearing out and it would be sort of an adventure. So, Friday after lunch, I sat down and gathered the paperwork that I needed. Passport? Check. Receipt from applying for the carte de séjour? Check. Letter from the sous-préfecture, telling me that my card was ready? Check. Letter from OFII (the immigration people) telling me exactly what stamps† I needed to purchase with my 300€ in order to pay for my card? Not check. It wasn't in the backpack where I thought I had left it. It wasn't in any of the piles of papers lying around the house. It hadn't somehow been filed where it should have been filed in the first place. Perhaps it wasn't that important, or I could use a copy of Blaise's? (He'd gotten his letter via e-mail, and we'd printed it out, so it was on the computer.) He looked at his letter. It was important, and it had his dossier number on it. I wouldn't be able to use his letter.

Finally, I called the sous-préfecture, and explained that I couldn't find the letter about the stamps. (At least, I think I told them that I'd lost the letter. I'm not always entirely sure that I say what I intend to say in French.) The woman on the phone told me to come in between 9 and 11 on Monday morning. (By this time it was 4:00, and they were going to be closing in half an hour.) So, for the rest of the weekend I got to imagine what was going to happen because I had lost this paper. Would they make me wait until the OFII mailed me another copy? Require me to go through the entire application process again? Deport me?

Monday morning I dropped Cherry off at school, and headed straight for the sous-préfecture (on foot, since the bus takes just as long). I got there around 9:30 and stood in a line to explain what had happened. When I got to the front and explained what had happened, the woman took my paper away and brought it into the back room. She returned a few minutes later, told me it wasn't a big deal, and wrote "300€" on the letter, then told me to go upstairs to buy the stamps. When I got down afterwards, she waved me to the front of the line, and handed me a place ticket. Twenty minutes later, I was out the door, fees paid, card in hand (well, in moneybelt).

†When you pay the fees for your titre de séjour, you don't actually give the money to the people working at the department for foreigners. Instead, you have to buy special stamps from the cash desk and provide those at the department. My understanding is that this is because the money is divided between two different pieces of the bureaucracy, but I could be wrong about that.

†

In which we go to the Fête de la Cité (somewhat abbreviated)

Several weeks ago, as Cherry and I were walking to pick Sapphire and Ezio up from school, Cherry pointed to the sidewalk and wanted to know why there was an "E" painted there. After ascertaining that she had, in fact, misidentified an upside down 3 as an E, I noticed that someone had painted numbered spaces all along the sidewalk, from the parking lot for the Auchan to where we turned to pick Sapphire and Ezio up, and, it appeared, perhaps past there to the next major intersection. I didn't have much time to puzzle over it though, since we were (as usual) running late, and Cherry had moved on to asking about something else.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, we noticed that all of the cars parked along the road had photocopied notices stuck under their wiper blades, and that furthermore, the city had hung enormous cardboard "No Parking" signs from all the light poles along the street. Also, all of the bus stops along the route (and there are a surprisingly large number) had yellow change of route signs hanging from them. Perhaps, I thought, there actually was something going on, though I had no idea what.

Fast forward to last week Monday (a week and a half ago), when Sapphire and Ezio came home from school with yellow cards labelled demi-tarif sur touts les mènages de la fête (half price on all the rides of the fair). Then I was able to put two and two together. I knew that there was supposed to be some sort of city wide festival the last weekend in March, but had assumed that it, like everything else around here, it would be held on the other end of town.

For the rest of the week, we commented on the rides and game stalls going up along the road: a merry-go-round, bumper cars, a little roller coaster, a fun house; and were puzzled by the fact that they all seemed to be going up in a one block stretch. The painted numbers stretched for half a kilometer. What were the rest of the numbers for? Had the economy led to a decrease in the number of carnival rides?

Late Saturday afternoon we headed over to the fair, the kids with their yellow cards clutched tightly in their hands. (We had told them that they likely wouldn't get to ride any rides, since carnival rides tend (even at half price) to be really expensive. Sapphire got it. Ezio sort of got it. Cherry didn't get it, and so we had some tears at the end.) Then we figured out what all of the other numbered slots were for. It appeared that half the population of Fontenay had set of sales tables to get ride of their unwanted stuff. I suspect that if you liked garage sales (I don't) and had gotten their early (we hadn't) it would have been awesome, since there were well over a hundred vendors. In any case, we walked down to the fairway and watched some of the rides, but didn't ride any.

Then I remembered that there was a (free) ice dancing competition at the skating rink, so we walked over there, only to discover that they were between sessions, and that the only thing to watch was the Zamboni. Cherry and Ezio thought that was worth sticking around for, so we did, until Cherry announced that she desperately needed to use the bathroom. So Blaise and the kids went home, and Cherry and I headed to the bathroom in the mall (which was closer) and then went home ourselves.

In which Rebekah spends a hour typing a post and has it eaten by Blogger

Maybe I'll have time to retype it later.