The Visit Continues

On Friday morning, we met up on boulevard Edgar Quinet to check out the antique market. Nothing caught our eyes, so we carried on to the Centre Pompidou.

That's the line we were in outside

After waiting in line for about 30 minutes, we made it inside, realized that there was no line at all for the automated ticket machine, and cruised up to the sixth floor to visit the Kandinsky and Calder exhibits.

Both exhibits were wonderful, we loved the wire sculptures and the circus that Calder had done, and the colours in Kandinsky's paintings were breathtaking.

We took a quick coffee break at a nearby boulangerie before wandering down the rue Montorgueil.

Saturday Mom and Deb were on their own, visiting the market at Edgar Quinet, doing some shopping, and walking through the Marais, the Tuileries and visiting the Orangerie. They then invited us over for a delicious market dinner at their fabulous apartment.

I met up with them Sunday afternoon on the Champs Elysee, where we braved the hot temperatures to climb to the top of the Arc de Triomphe. It was a beautiful, clear day, and we enjoyed the spectacular views of the city, and the many rooftop gardens that we could spot.


After freshening up, we met for dinner at Chez Janou. We stuffed ourselves with their generous portions, and enjoyed sampling some of their many pastis.

Today they are visiting the Andy Warhol exhibit at the Grand Palais, and I think tomorrow they will stop by the nursery school in the morning.

Hard to believe their visit is almost over!

The Visitors

Mom and Deb arrived bright and early Monday morning.

After getting them settled into their awesome apartment near rue Daguerre, we wandered around the neighbourhood, stopping for a nice lunch and continuing on through the cemetary.

They have been filling their days since with all sorts of touristy fun, and we were lucky enough to join them today, on this holy holiday of Ascension. We headed out to visit the chateau at Fountainebleau, enjoying a surprisingly quiet visit of the castle and gardens.

After a relaxing train ride back into Paris, we're just heading out to meet them for dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, La Cerisaie.

To be continued....

My Adventure at the Farm

Last week I spent four days at a farm. With sixteen five year olds. And it was actually pretty fun!

Every year the five year old class goes on this trip, and usually the teacher takes her student teacher with her. But this year she didn't have one, so they asked me to join them, and I said yes.

As the trip approached, I began to wonder what I had gotten myself into. When I told one of my tutoring families where I was going, she told me to get lots of sleep the night before we left. I began to think that I was more stressed about this trip than the kids were. I'd never spent more than six hours in a row with kids before, how was I going to deal with them 24hrs a day for four days straight?

This attractive picture was taken on the second last day. And I'm kind of smiling, right?

Monday morning, I arrived a the school to be greeted by a handful of kids running around the garden, with their little rolly suitcases lined up by the gate. As more and more kids arrived, they got more and more excited. Eventually we all loaded into the cars, and a couple of parents drove us to the train station at Montparnasse. We quickly got them settled on the train, and before I knew it, we were off. A one hour TGV ride brought us to Poitiers, where we had a very stressful 3 minutes to unload 16 kids and 18 suitcases. That done, we found our coach that would take us on the last leg of the journey, one more hour to the Centre de Plein Air de Lathus.

After the kids settled into the rooms, we were off to the farm, just a short walk away. The next three days were filled with activites like milking goats, riding ponies, fishing for tadpoles and making bread. The days passed quickly, with the time before dinner spent getting the kids cleaned up and into pyjamas, and the time after dinner spent trying to get them to sleep. Of the sixteen, only two had trouble getting to sleep, and well, luckily there were two of us.

Our bus picked us up on Thursday afternoon, and we loaded 16 tired and dirty kids and set off for the station.

I think the best part of the trip (aside from the fabulous weather that made me wonder how I can stand living in grey, grey Paris) was watching the kids see their parents for the first time as we got off the train.

And I slept for ten long hours on Thursday night. Thank goodness it was a holiday on Friday.

Weekend in Basel

The month of May here is France is basically one long weekend with a couple of work days thrown in. Last Friday was European Labour Day, so we took advantage of that to go to Basel to visit Alex. A couple of hours on the TGV is all it takes to leave a dreary, grey Paris and arrive in sunny Basel (we spent most of the trip sitting across from a very cranky woman who COULD NOT BELIEVE that the train was running late. She complained to the conductor that the train was not going fast enough, and then spent the whole trip huffing to herself. Lucky for us she got off at Strasbourg)

We spent Friday afternoon wandering around Basel, then we had a BBQ at Alex's and got to meet all of her friends. It was a lot of fun, and I sadly took a total of zero photos that night. Erik in particular had a blast, and as a result was feeling a little under the weather the next day for the outdoor activities we had planned.

Alex took us to a little town just outside of Basel to do a hike up a mountain, following a waterfall.

It was fun, although I apparently walked too fast.


We were treated to some spectacular views from the top, and Erik enjoyed the rest the hangover Whopper that he had bought before leaving.



The best part was that once at the top, you could rent scooters to zip down the mountain all the way to the bottom. Scary, but worth it. When else will I get the chance to scoot down a mountain?

We spent the rest of the day lounging around warming up (it rained all the way down the mountain) and had dinner Saturday night with one of Alex's friends. And that was that. Sunday morning we caught the train back to Paris, and sadly said goodbye to Alex, making her promise to come and visit us soon.