Bonjour amis,
It's been awhile. I have been trying to conjure some wit out of the busy lives we are carving out for ourselves here to share with you. School is out for the two week Toussain Holiday. I am starting to think of it as the 2 week INsane holiday. Pretty much everyone sends their children to their parents' house for the entire vacation which is fabulous for them, not so much for us as there are no kids around to play with our lovely children. This means all family all the time.....yay.
All the boys now have boy bikes. Micah gave up his girl bike for a bike that is literally labelled "boy". Bob bought a used bike from an homme who lives an hour or so north from here. So far, we're not sure that was a great idea. It has some issues. I am still waiting to find the right bike for me. I am happy running through the beautiful countryside for now.
As a follow up to my failed marathon of the last post, I waltzed right into that darn prefecture and got my darn residence card aucun problem. Except that I still can't leave the country until December after I go back there for the actual sticker in my passport. But still.
Jasper and Micah got to go to a Minecraft "workshop" in Lyon where they sat in a small, warm room full of boys (can you smell it?) and played Minecraft like they so often do. Only this time we got to drive to Lyon and pay 25 euros for them to play for two and half hours. Sounds a little like a rip off except...it was the first 2.5 hours we had had without them in two months!! Get your mind out of the gutter, we went walking around the lovely city of Lyon in a section called La Croix Rousse. It is currently where you live if you are a Lyon hipster. It was formerly where you lived if you were a Canut, which is a silk worker. Apparently in the 18th century, Lyon was centre of silk making in Europe, so it is said. One of the cool things you can find there are the hidden tunnels known as traboules that the silk workers used to transport their silk to the Saône river. We walked through a few, they were cool, they also smelled like pee.
Since I last posted we went to a couple of social events with our friendly neighbors on "the Rue". They are a close knit group of awesome folks that have dared the awkwardness of befriending us. These events prove to be fun and extremely exhausting trying to speak french or trying not to feel awkward, very unsuccessfully on both accounts.
The second event was actually a sort of fundraiser (roll eyes now) but french style. It was actually a fundraiser to raise money for a giant party known as the Conscrits. This event will happen in Fevrier and consists of a week to 10 days of drinking for those who are participating. We may or may not attend any part of this event. It is unclear (as so many things are to us) who goes to this party. The Conscrits event, in France, is unique to the Beaujolais area. It originated in our neighboring town and the "capital" of Beaujolais, Villefranche. (Yes the place with the awesome Sunday market, which is actually every day except Tuesday and Thursday, but I digress. ) This event was created as a last hurrah for the soldiers being drafted into the army. It took place the night before the draft where one out of two twenty year old men would be sent to war the next day. It is known to be a time where all men were equal, the rich and the poor and no one knew who would go and who would not. So they partied hard. Now, they celebrate every year to celebrate a 10 year group; for those who turn 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 etc etc that year. So this year it was "the 4s" those born in 2004, 1994, 1984 and so on etc. Now women do it as well as men and it does not have to do with being drafted but it is a great community builder and a good time. So the party we went to was a taste of it, we drank we danced to a live band whom had their own dancers, we watched our friend do a dance routine because she is a conscrit AND we had a babysitter(!!!) We got home at 2 am. So to me, that was worthy of your time to read about, I hope you think so too.
And then my last bit of "news" that I will share is that we finally made it to Paris, as per Micah's request for his up coming birthday. It was awesome and all the things that Paris is known to be. (Mis)Quoting Bob, the amazing thing about Paris is that it doesn't have to try to be Paris, it just is Paris and it lives up to all the hype without even trying. I believe much the way that say NYC or London do in their own ways. We stayed just outside the city in an apartment we found on AirBnb, which was clean and comfortable, not exactly what we were hoping for but good for the last minute. We rode the metro everywhere and walked what seemed to be hundreds of miles. The kids did great. We climbed the steps to the second floor of the Eiffel tower and took the elevator to the top. We went to the Louvre, and l'Arc du Triomphe. I think we saw about 1/100th of the things that we would have liked to, but that's how it goes, especially with kids.
Queue the fotos:
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| Minecraft club, can you smell it now? |
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La Croix Rousse in the rain
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| Farmer Ted gets a new car |
Conscrits
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| This years group, the "5"s, doing their dance routine |
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| This is Christophe, he is one of the neighbors that invited us, he happens to be the president of the conscrit for the "4" year, which was, in fact, last years group that happened in Fevrier. |
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| School picture time |
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| Find the yank |
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| Mercredis a la piscine-Micah's class goes to the pool every Wednesday. I go too. |
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| Panini at the mall |
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| Swans on the Saône |
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| A bike ride from home |
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| Just in case you miss Chuck-a-rama when you're in France (we did not go there, just took the pic) |
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| We got a lot of goodies at the second hand gear sales that happened last week. |
Encore le prefecture
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| Back at the prefecture |
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| Triumphant |
Paris!
Le museé d'armee
Sure missed Uncle Scott at this musee. We needed some Euro war history knowledge.
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| Shout out Mantua |
The Charles De Gaulle exhibit. Too fancy for itself, the über tech didn't really work.
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| Shaa |
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| Heck oui |
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| Napolean's tombe |
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| Beers and crepes by the tour. It was fun being a tourist. |
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| climbing the stairs to the second etage |
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| I was hesitant to take the elevator to the top but was certainly glad I did. |
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| Paris Italian dinner at a tourist spot, 21:30 o'clock, spendy but friendly |
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Je suis fatigué
Mental note: don't take left overs home on the metro, it gets awfully crowded at 11pm to carry a pizza box.
Awkwarrrrrd. |
Le Louvre
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| The Nike of Samothrace |
She needs no intro
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| My future as an artist |
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| Caravaggio |
Taking kids to a gigantic art museum
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| Oh Michel |
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| le Metro |
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| Art deco Cité stop, the stop for Notre Dame |
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| Alors.. |
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| HA! Yeah right, have you met our children? |
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| Joan |
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| Therese |
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| Micah artist shot |
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| Micah artist shot to the face |
Pont Des Arts
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| Who's this Mike guy? |
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| I do |
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| Jasper added a lock for his future love. Micah kept his lock as a souvenir. Jasper admitted later that he was sad that he left his lock there.... |
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| Love's lock lost |
Dans les ramparts
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| Mexican rollerblade show |
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| Photo shoot |
Jardin des tuileries
L'arc
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| Oh no you didn't! |
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| For the unknown soldier, powerful exhibit |
Atop L'arc
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| Sucks to be them |
Au revoir Paris!
But not before ..
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The playmobile "fun park" aka Someone kill us now.
This room filled with about 3 times this many people. No one say "ebola"
We managed to take 2 hours to make the 15 mile trip here from Paris, after failing Versailles due to not finding PARKING!! You win some you lose some.
The kids loved it......
Á bientot amis! (don't I look relaxed behind the wheel? not.) |
