Paris

Paris, je t'aime!

I love Paris in the springtime!

Etc, etc...

Ok, so now I'm just quoting movies, but it's true, I do love Paris and Paris in the springtime is fantastic (even if it is overrun with tourists and it rains the whole time).

What made my second trip to Paris even more wonderful was the fact that my family was there waiting for me. They flew all the way over the ocean to visit me, and for two of them, it was even their first time out of the US.

It was so exciting to get out of the taxi and make my way into the hotel and to hear them from the other side of the elevator door, unaware that I was standing right outside. Then the door opened and there they were, all crammed into the French-sized elevator like sardines. And then they were spilling out, with grins and hugs and stories of the long trip they'd already taken.

So there it began, our three weeks of vacation together.

The first day was spent trying to figure out the metro. I have been told that Paris has the best metro system in the Europe. I disagree. It is my opinion that it is one of the most confusing and obnoxious metro systems in the world. Besides seeing Notre Dame, we didn't do a whole lot that first day, considering we got lost trying to find Montmartre, which we never did get to. And it was raining.

The next day it only rained some of the day so we went to Versailles. It was Easter. Bad idea.

The line was so long that if we hadn't taken an 45 minute train ride to get there and hadn't already bought our tickets, we would have headed right back in the other direction. But we didn't and I'm glad.

I wasn't exceptionally impressed with the palace, probably mostly because I was more concentrated on not getting trampled than seeing the artwork, but the gardens were lovely and enormous.

On the way back, we stopped off at the Eiffel Tower where we took a bizillion pictures and mailed a bunch of postcards from the tower's post office. Then my mom and I road a carousel. It was awesome.

Finally Monday, before taking the train back to Marseille, we visited the Louvre. I cannot even begin to guess how many pictures my brother took there. I think he has a picture of every piece of art I saw and then more.

I had my dad and brother helping me on a relentless pursuit of a statue I had found in the guidebook and had an urge to see. We finally found it and Lyne Burke looked at me incredulously. "We were looking for that?! What the heck is it?"

"It is a gnome riding a snail, obviously." Yes, that is what I wanted to see in the Louvre. And see it I did.

There were many other adventures in the course of the three days with themes like, getting lost, having dinner with friends, getting lost, low blood sugar=grouchy Kaity, getting lost, seeing amazing things, and getting lost, but I won't bore you with details. There is plenty more to come in the next few posts. We still have 17 more days worth of adventures to cover!

Pique-Nique

We're having really gorgeous weather these days. Hot enough to wear shorts, sunny enough to get a tan, cool enough in the shade to not roast. I'm loving it. We took advantage today to have a picnic. Wow, I just spell checked that and my original spelling of "pick-nick" has now embarrassed me.

Easter Eggs

I've realized that with the excitement of my family's visit, I forgot to blog about another fun and memorable experience that happened right before they got here.

Thanks to Betsy, the kids' au pair last year, we got to decorate Easter Eggs American style. In France, I learned that a bell flies over the land and drops chocolate eggs for the kids, instead of our Easter Bunny and baskets of candy. Although, Paul informed me that he knows that doesn't really happen as he launched into a story about how he discovered the truth. It was funny.

So, I went through a self-taught, crash course in hard-boiling eggs. A lot of eggs. Then we colored them. Then I hid them and subsequently forgot where I hid them. Once they were all found, the kids took turns hiding them and making me search. Marie is one good hider. And finder for that matter. Nothing got past her.

Overall, it was a success. I think I may have even enjoyed it more than the kids. I love Easter eggs!

I'm Still Here

Hello All,

Just an update to let you know that I'm still here and everything is going very, very well. My parents and brother have been here visiting with me for the past three weeks. (It was supposed to be only two but thanks to a certain volcano, they ended up getting to stay a bit longer.)

I haven't updated because 1: I've been hanging out with them, and 2: They have taken so many gigabytes of pictures that it will take me a week to sort through them all to pick the ones I want to show you. So, be prepared to be slightly overwhelmed with too much information in the days to come.

A bientot!

Risk and Ice Cream

Today, we held our lives in our hands.

We dangled our legs over the cliffs of Cassis' Cap Canaille.

It was exhilarating...

...and scary.

So we rewarded ourselves with gelato.

Yum!!

Updates

Sorry it's been a while. I think someone hit the fast-foward button on my life and the time slipped by before I had a chance to show you some snippets. So this post is an update post, complete with pictures and little captions.



The kids and I went to see Guignol et le Clown Chocolat in the center of Aubagne last week. It was basically a French version of Punch and Judy, complete with robbery, deceit, damsels in distress, and a stick to beat puppets' heads with. It was quite cute and I think Paul was the most excited out of all the kids there.

The second half of the show involved a unicycle, juggling, hoola-hooping, and a pooping goat. It was all great fun and we ate way too much sugar. It's been too long since I've had cotton candy.

The only strange thing was watching the eight year old girl, who I believe was the daughter of the people running the show, trying to be so adult. She took tickets and sold candy, all the while looking so serious despite the glittery makeup all over her face. Then the show started and you kept seeing the mom catch her attention and remind her how to stand and smile and look excited. It was pretty creepy watching her whole demeanor change so much in a split second. I want to know what she was really thinking.


We found this in a recent visit to the grocery store. Apparently they do eat horse in France. Ew!



While my car was being fixed, the garage loaned me this one. I dubbed it The Dinosaur. It's almost as old as me. And of course it's manual like the other one, but this thing took manual to a whole new level. For example, did you know that in older manual cars have a little thing called a starter (or as my dad later informed me, it's the choke)? I didn't until the man from the garage came all the way to my house where I was stranded with a car that wouldn't start and taught me what it was. That was embarrassing!



This little Rose popped up in our garden on St. Patrick's Day. Too cute!


Paul has discovered a desperate desire to do bike tricks in this skate park. Maybe when you're older kiddo.

Marie just has the desire to play in the dirt. That one I can let you do.



And finally, Hannah and I got our hair cut. I so love that hair salon. I wish my hair would grow faster so I could go back more often. In fact, I wish I'd gotten the bangs quite a bit shorter so maybe I'll be back sooner than I had planned.

So there you are, a photo summary of my past few weeks. Now I need to go finish the laundry. It's finally warm enough to wear short sleeves and hang the laundry outside. I'm so happy!

A Thief

Sunday started out as a great day. I've been desperate to see the movie Nine since whenever I first heard about it forever ago and Sunday I was finally going to see it. I should have known. 9 has always been my unlucky number.

Hannah and I parked at the Aubagne train station at 11:30. We caught the train to Marseille and had loads of time to waste before the movie started at 2. We spent 2 hours wandering back streets of the city that were obviously quite far from the tourist track.

The most disturbing sight was this huge flea market type thing that looked like it was from the slums of a third world country. It was a shock to see so close to the Vieux Port.

We also explored the Cathedral of the Majeure. It's actually closed to tourists Sundays but we snuck in anyway. It was creepy in the dark, especially with the sounds of this little kid's voice coming out of the shadows. It ends up we weren't the only tourists that day but my first thought was definitely ghost.

Anyway, we walked until we were almost late for the movie, and because of my inappropriate boots, my feet screamed at me for it for at least the next three days.

Nine was great. What a cast! The only character I despised was the man. What a jerk.

Then we caught the train home, arriving in Aubagne at 5:30. We got in the car. Hannah looked for her backpack. It was gone. I thought she was joking. I didn't even know she had her backpack with her. But no, it was definitely gone. And at second glance, my front passenger door was also bent in half. Oooh crap.

So, seeing nothing like this has ever happened to me before, what with the biggest crime near my house being cow-tipping, I had no idea what to do. We drove to my house and let the family know. You have no idea how I was dreading that moment.

Later we got the door taped up and I took Hannah home. Then I picked Camilla up from the train station for our already scheduled homework time. Instead of homework, we ended up translating the items stolen into French and figuring out how the heck to say "Someone broke the car and stole stuff" in French. I was freaking out a bit so she offered to come with me to the police station in the morning.

Then I took her to the train station. Her train had been cancelled. So, I drove her back to Cassis. It was my first time driving there and after that day, it was just one more thing. I panicked about getting lost but it all went well. I got home and called to let her know I was ok. Then my phone ran out of money. What a perfect ending.

Next morning: After barely sleeping all night, I managed to get to the police station even a little before it opened at 8. Too bad they were all more intested in their coffee and gossip than me so Camilla and I had to wait until about 8:30 before anyone said more than good morning.

We made the declaration and the policeman seemed to be enjoying trying to understand what we were saying. I'm so glad we made his morning so entertaining. In the meantime, we were checking our watches hoping desperately to manage to make it to school sometime, even if it was a bit late.

Miraculously, we finished there, took the paperwork home, got back to the parking garage (not the train station parking!), and ran all the way to the train station. We made it just in time for the 9:08 train, getting us to school at 9:45. I felt like we had salvaged the day.

At 3, I got back to Aubagne and the only thoughts in my head were lunch and a nap. Instead, I had a phone call that I had to take the car to the garage immediately. Oh. So after getting a pain au chocolat and barely scraping up the 6 euros change for the parking, I set off to find the garage.

Getting there was easy. Finding it, not so much. I drove back and forth on that stupid road for at least 15 minutes, with people honking at me and zooming around. Finally I gave up, parked, and walked to the nearest place to ask directions. Interestingly, that was where I was supposed to be.

The woman at the desk was excited. A jeune fille au pair! She had all sorts of questions. Apparently she was thinking about getting her very own au pair. I gave her the website I used and she started looking people up while I was there. I was informed that she wanted a British girl "because your accent is too hard." Oh, I'm so sorry my accent is bothering you.

Then she needed the registration card for the car. It was the second time that day someone had been mad at me for not having it. I was about to fall apart. I called the family. It seemed no one even knew where it was. Great. So she sent me home.

I got the kids and the rest of the day went. When I finally went back to my room to sleep, I found that an apple sauce had burst open in my purse. There may or may not have been some tears as I washed it out.

So the moral of this story is, I hate people who take stuff that don't belong to them. Oh, and this is probably a really bad time to run out of anti-stress stomach medication.