Today I got to go on a field trip with the 4yr old class at the Nursery School. I won't talk about the fact that I just found out about it the day before, or the fact that the director apparently had some plan for me to stay just the half day on Thursday and the full day on Friday which she forgot to mention. You gotta TELL the person for those kind of plans to work.
Anyway, we went to the Centre Pompidou to do an 'atelier' about circles. Let me tell you, these kids were EXCITED to ride the metro! We took two trains, and the second one was the super cool line 14, the fully automatic one with no driver, so the kids all piled into the front of the first car and pretended to 'drive'. Too cute.
We arrived at the gallery (which I'd never been to before, and really want to go back to now) and got started on our activity. Basically the kids made 'art' with different coloured and different sized plastic circles. It was pretty cool, and really simple, and the kids got right into it. Then we went up to one of the galleries and BREIFLY (as in, looked at two pieces) toured it, before heading for lunch.
Which is when the fun began.
We had lunch at KFC (which is not PFK in France. Apparently that's just a crazy Quebec thing). We arrived around 12:30 at the height of lunch hour and the place was packed. The director was all stressed because she had called and made a reservation. Don't start laughing yet. It gets better.
A manager came over and pushed a whole bunch of tables together for our group of about 20 (after asking if we'd prefer to sit on the terrace). Then, we get table service. 15 kids meals are brought to us, then someone comes and takes the teachers orders, and brings that to us aswell. They also brought us cups of water for all the kids, and told us not to worry about cleaning up when we left. And they wished us a nice day when we left, and asked us to come back soon.
COME ON! I mean, this is France, but still, it's KFC. The manager was probably just out of highschool. I couldn't believe it! It was so pleasant I almost enjoyed my food.
Then, after half the kids ran wild in the extremely busy pedestrian walkway out front while the other half went to the bathroom, we tried to find a park, so the kids could run around ("Like dogs?" Erik asked. "Yes, they needed to run"). Turns out the park we were looking for was somewhere else, and we ended up in some plaza near les Halles, and basically let the kids loose. Except there were no guidelines like "don't fall into the fountain" or "stay away from the tent city that is over there". Just a bunch of teachers letting go of kids hands. And no one really being worried about anything. Then the carousel started up, and the kids got on, and it was definetly the highlight of the day. I'm sure there will be a lot of confused parents tonight when they ask their kids how the museum was and they start talking about merry-go-rounds.
By the time we got back onto the metro, the kids were EXHAUSTED! One kids asked me if he could sleep on the last train home (this was after one of the teachers and I had watched him try to keep his eyes open for about five minutes). When we finally got out of the metro at Jasmin, they were all asking if it was nap time (should have been for the teachers!).
It was a lovely day, the kids are too sweet, and it was fun to see them so excited at the simplest things. It was also a great trip. So completely different from any field trip I'd ever taken before. No real plans, just a general idea of what we were going to do. No parents (I was there because the teacher didn't want any parents), no pressure, no worries.
Just a lot of kids in a really great, kid friendly city.
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By the way, in case anyone is stressed at having had to go back to work after the two week vacation, this weekend is a long one. Not that it makes a difference to me, because Mondays are my Sundays, but still. Let's space the holidays out a little, please!
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And thanks for the grammar tutorial dad! Came in handy when I made more phone calls tonight. Wait till you hear me roll my r's! I'm starting to sound French!
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