top this charlie brown!

Well, our tree was more pauperly than I would have actually liked, (and we had a fire scare while attempting to pop popcorn to string... that's another story) but a combination of factors made it the one that worked for us, and in the end, it really doesn't matter relative to simply wonderful fact of being together as a family for Christmas this year. Basically the best christmas present ever was the miraculous fact that Ryan's travel plans went exactly according to schedule so that he was in fact here, at our apartment in La Rochelle, in time to walk around the corner and wait for Julian and Miette at each of their schools to greet them as they finished their last day of school before christmas break. Ryan missed the terrible weather that blocked air travel by one day, made it to Paris on time to catch his train here, and from the station here caught a cab bringing him to the correct destination in la rochelle completely on his own. I met him downstairs in the dentist office where I had left the keys to our place 2 minutes after he arrived! I had my last afternoon of work that day and didn't think I'd be able to meet him before I got off (especially because I missed a day the week before when Julian was sick) but it turned out that I was done early because of holiday celebrations and could run home to check and see if he'd arrived in time. So in fact we got to walk together to pick up the kids. This was a big deal to me because otherwise he wouldn't get to see the whole school thing- the other parents and kids, the classrooms, their teachers, Julian's first school ever! Miette got to take him in and give him a little classroom tour.

So far our vacation has been lots of slow mornings at home with various little outings of different sorts each afternoon. Of course, we had to show him our beloved Ludotheque the day after he arrived before it closed it's doors for the holiday break, and another brief stop at the Mediatheque. Then we had dinner together here with our friend Stephanie before she left town to do some vacation traveling in the UK. The next couple days we walked around town to check out the Christmas village at Place de Verdun, to see the main market, do a few last minute errands and window shopping.

Christmas day we stayed in and played with new toys and started on some of the building/project gifts that Ryan, urhmm, i mean Santa, brought. We ate a hybrid pancake-crepe thing for breakfast with nutella and bananas, later had peppermint hot chocolate and cookies (store-bought:( we'd already finished the ones mom sent!) and for our Christmas dinner we bought sausages for the boys and I made mashed potatoes, garlic bread, and broccoli. Unfortunately either the food or a bug made Ryan sick in the night and he had to take it easy the next day- he stayed home and napped it off and I took the kids to see a french film called "Le Renard et l'Enfant".

Yesterday we visited la Tour de St. Nicolas and la Tour de la Lanterne which were absolutely amazing. These are the towers one sees in every postcard of La Rochelle and they are situated on the port which borders the center of town. The Tour de St. Nicolas was built in the 14th century and has stone walls 3-5 meters thick. It feels labyrinthine. There are 2 spiral staircases which are intertwined like DNA (without the ladder rungs). You can go out on the top and see the entire city and the sea from above, and you can actually feel what it might have been like back in the day when they had to keep the city safe by guarding the harbor from these towers. I'll take it over the Sears Tower any day. I could go on and on, I didn't really want to leave. The other tower is cool (but not as cool as St. Nicolas) and it's interesting feature is "grafitti" carved into the stone walls from the many prisoners it held over the years- their names and the dates they were held captive, a couple had etched tally marks, there were various different carvings of large sailing vessels, and there was even a hand carved chessboard in the floor. The tower walk there was practically intolerable for me- The wall is about waist high, the walkway is extremely narrow and there is nothing between you and the sea or ground far far below. Ryan walked around with Miette but I wouldn't let Julian do it, just thinking about it makes my stomach lurch. I got the view but quickly returned back down with Jules leaving Ryan and Miette to enjoy the view.

Today we planned on doing a self-guided bike tour of the city (you can borrow bikes free for 2 hours at Place de Verdun) but as soon as we headed out we realized that it was too chilly to really enjoy being on bikes for long so we switched plans and went to the Musée d'Histoire Naturelle instead with a coffee afterwards at the gorgeous Café de la Paix nearby and then browsed the Friday afternoon market that sets up by Place de Verdun. We bought some tartes salées (one salmon and one tomato-goat cheese), a little apple cake, spicy olives, pickled garlic, and wine to bring home for dinner.

I'd also like to mention that I finished a mystery novel already and am ready to start (and finish) a second, which has been something I've not been able to do since I've been here- not for lack of time but because I get too scared to read them when I'm here alone!

NOTE: As Ryan is reading and editing over my shoulder, commenting on my excessive run-on sentences and lack of proper use of semicolons and commas, I would like to state for the record that I DON'T CARE! and I have no pretensions of being a great writer!!!!!! This is a purely informative blog!

Did I mention its freezing here?

Yes, it is currently colder than I though possible for this supposedly-insulated-from-extreme-temperatures-by-gulf-stream-waters seaside town. There is frost on the grass and cars and when biking, the wind absolutely cuts like a blade. But no snow still! I won't complain about the cold, it makes it feel like Christmas. Rain and 55 degree weather just doesn't fit the bill.

I am leaving momentarily to do "english" in Julian's classroom. This will consist of singing a couple songs and doing little fingerplays. I may sing "We wish you a Merry Christmas" but it's kind of boring and doesn't have any motions to go with it. 12 days of Christmas is cool with the numbers and animals etc., but too complicated for 4 year old non-english speakers. Anyway, I dressed Jules in his american flag sweater that Grandma Debby sent so he would be our little cultural mascot for the day! (Plus, it's warm!)

Our tree is up and already shedding. Miette has already started putting random crap on it to decorate- a habit which I'll have to nip in the bud before we have a franken-tree. We got packages from Grandma and Grandpa Brown and Aunt Rhonda with some ornaments and other christmas doodads and the little angel from Rhonda is already perched on top!

feeling better

Jules is finally better but just barely. Now the poor kid is starving after 3 days of limited food and everything that went in going right back out. We had a nice weekend regardless. I think it forced me to rest up a bit as well which I needed so I can be in good form for the last week before Christmas. There's so much going on in the next 5 days! Meetings, dinners, school christmas shows, and I even still have some stupid french bureaucratic ends to tie up to top it all off. Christmas will be a welcome calm.

Little people funnies: Julian's new favorite phrase is "freak out". As in, "Miette would be really freaked out if I..". (fill in the the blanks). I wish I could remember the multitude of ways he's used it lately but it's been in every other conversation we've had lately. Pretty funny coming from the mouth of a not-quite-four-year-old. Also he has been speaking little tidbits of french more and more often. Usually almost secretly though, to himself while playing I'll hear him say- "pas comme ça, pas comme ça". And a couple times when I've "caught" him, he acts kind of mad that I've heard him! We got a "Schtroumpfs" DVD (the Smurfs in french) from the Mediatheque and while he was sick watching it, he made a comment about the smurf who gives trick presents that explode and referred to it as a "cadeau", choosing to use the french rather than the english in his description!

AAAAAH! Christmas is almost here...

Why, even after countless discussions about gifts and travel and this and that does it always sneak up on me?? I am so NOT on the ball this year so just a word of warning that New Years cards may be in order this year.... So far, we have only some paper snowflakes on our window and little clay-and-paper scenes of trees, santa, and presents that Miette made for decorations. I think we will buy a very small charlie brown tree tomorrow on our limited budget! I was going to scramble around town this morning to try to get some things to send off to the States in time but my plan was foiled by Julian waking up to vomit at 5:55 AM. Oh joy! So I called off work, kept him home from school and we played it cool at the homestead today. No more vomiting but the illness migrated out the other direction so it was good he was home. He also took a 2 1/2 hour nap and was asleep again at 9 PM. Poor guy.

Miette is thrilled that I am coming tomorrow morning to see the play her class will be performing for the parents. She has the role of the duck with whom the story begins. It is called "SILENCE!!" and involves many barnyard animals. I will write a detailed report afterwards. I will also try to videotape it and post it if possible, or at least her part.

I am posting an image of the snowflakes and their shadows through the curtain. Stephanie, our Australian friend, had never made a paper snowflake before- it doesn't snow in Australia. In fact, it's hot for Christmas and they go to the beach! So we taught her our cold weather craft and she was delighted.

All of the english assistants have been being observed while teaching over the past few weeks by the language administration people. We all know them and they are very wonderful people so it isn't a worrisome thing, mostly it's just to give us feedback and help us deal with problems we may have run into etc. So for my lesson the teacher wanted to do something about Christmas. For whatever reason, I figured it would be cool to introduce shapes with a little Christmas vocabulary and made paper cut-outs of a tree, ornaments, star, presents, and snowman (big / small, all different shapes, different colors) and magically transformed the separate shapes into the Christmas scene with the help of the kids. Anyway, my observer thought it was wonderful and wrote it up into a whole lesson plan with accompanying worksheet and has already taught it herself to other classes! So,just a little pat on my own back!

Next week we have a dinner with all the people in the language office, their families and all of us, the assistants. We are supposed to bring a typical regional specialty dish to share. Any suggestions? Skyline chili? Deep dish pizza? nah, maybe greek spaghetti! Seriously, send me your ideas, quickly, it's on Tuesday! I have also been invited to share pre-Christmas dinners with the teachers at La Genette (Miette's school) and another of the schools in which I work. The week is absolutely going to fly by.

I hope that everyone else is more on the ball than me with their holiday prep! Best wishes for these last days of scrambling.

Le weekend

No new pictures to add this week- it's been raining non-stop which isn't so conducive to snapping photos left and right! But we've been busy and had a very full weekend so the rain hasn't stopped us from getting around (we've just gotten quite wet in the process). The weather has been mild, temperatures during the day in the mid to upper 50s and if it weren't for the Christmas decorations everywhere I think I'd forget that it is December. Unfortunately some heavy winds blew away the first beautiful sky we had this morning and I think slightly cooler weather is here at least momentarily. La Rochelle apparently has lots of wind in the winter that can be quite fierce. Funny huh, moving from one famously windy city to another!

Miette had a birthday party yesterday afternoon which was great fun for her- face-painting, treasure hunting, bead-making, and the usual festivities. We had to get there in the rain which was funny- we took a bus partway and then since the other bus that would have brought us right to the girl's house wasn't leaving for 20 minutes that we'd get there just as soon if we walked. But since Julian was with us and can be a wuss about walking if he decides he doesn't want to anymore (or worse, since all the stores and buildings are decorated he wants to stop and tell me about each thing he sees and it takes us 15 minutes just to cross the street). So I decided to borrow a free bike that from the public bike "depot" located at Place de Verdun. This is the central plaza where all the buses arrive at the end of their routes. Anyone can check out a bike for 2 hours free of charge and they have them with baskets and child seats as well. So I checked out the one with a kid seat on back, strapped Julian in and walked him in the bike next to Miette to the party. After we dropped off Mimi at the party I biked with Jules to the Ludotheque and got drenched on our way there so first we had a coffee and hot chocolate in the little cafe upstairs to warm up before heading in to play. It was nice to have this little time together there to play and then we left, biked around for fun because the rain had stopped and he fell asleep in the seat! Then we took the bus to get Miette and got another bus back home. All of this led to me to realize that though it is easy to get around in La Rochelle, I need to get a good raincoat so we can also circulate in all kinds of weather!!! (Maybe that should be the one and only item on my Christmas list, and maybe a matching rain hat! Or an excuse to finally buy myself the beautiful one that I've coveted from Boden!)

After the party, I had an evening out to look forward to. I got a new babysitter, a 17 year old girl named Felixe who is a friend of the daughter of my landlord. She was super nice and the kids took to her immediately - I think she's a keeper! I headed out to see a concert (only my 3rd evening out alone since we've been here) and met a group of 4 friends to see KerenAnn at La Coursive, a concert venue/cultural space on the port in the center of town. As soon as I saw a poster saying she was coming, I made up my mind to go because I love her music- which I discovered from Mom who gave me one of her CDs for my birthday. She sings in french and english and I think for that is well-known here. Her performance was amazing. She did 2 encores and one of those included a funny story about her traveling in the States on a tour heading to play next in Tennessee. She basically ended the story by saying that we all had a little Tennessee in us and then played the Tennessee Waltz. This was especially funny for me to be here in France hearing someone tell a story in french about the U.S. and then play the song that I danced to at my wedding! After the concert we all got a quick bite to eat (I finally found somewhere that sells falafel) and we found an amazingly cool funky little bar where we hung out for a couple more hours. It was great to get out, hear amazing music and taste the night-life of La Rochelle.

Today we were invited to the home of a guy and his daughter who we had met at the park a few weeks ago. He has another friend with a son of a similar age and all of our kids were having a blast together at the park so we made plans to go to this rope-climbing place together. When the day came to go there, we found out that the place was closed for the season. So we finally got together today to make sushi with the kids at their house. The kids got along very well again, had fun making sushi, playing in their backyard and watching movies. We spent all day there, arriving home just for dinner, phone call to daddy, shower and bedtime.

fog, rain, and christmas lights

The weather has been very mild but also extremely wet lately. The Christmas lights and decorations are up around town and we did a little window shopping downtown this weekend, coming home as the night fell. The pictures are of Julian on the bus de mer, the church before the sunrise on a foggy morning last week, the Hotel de Ville with kids out front, and Mimi one evening surrounded by the night-lights.

We rearranged furniture today. It sort of hit me that though we're not staying here forever, I can still claim some ownership over the space and there were some things that just needed to be shifted. I highly recommend this activity for anyone feeling the need to re-energize and get out of a rut! Though we didn't make huge changes, I feel like we live in a new place! Try it, it works!

We also started the advent calendar yesterday which for us is more of a countdown to daddy than to Christmas.... Only 19 days to go!

french

Well, Julian is finally letting on to the fact that he hears french all day... he has told me how to say three things in french! I'm sure he's getting much more than that, just as I''m sure he does more all day than he can ever remember to tell me, but for now, he has told me that in french banana is "banane" and that blue is "bleu" (both pronounced very well in french despite the hilarious fact that the first 2 words he's chosen to tell me are practically identical to english- but still, he recognizes the difference!) and today he said, "you know how they say I'm coming, I'm coming quickly"? -J'arrive" wow. cool. maybe he'll actually learn the correct genders of things without even knowing it. Miette, though she is speaking french like she's been here forever (really, she sometimes has to think for a minute before she describes things from school in english because I think she remembers them in french) she still has trouble with le and la. But nevertheless, she's acing spelling tests, even with all those pesky accents and silent letters and her teacher says she's better in grammar than many of her classmates! Not the be the proud mother or anything...

evening walk

these are just a couple images from our evening walk last night.

must blog....

It's getting harder to find the time to write this but there is even more to say! Now I am jotting words and notes on random pieces of paper so I won't forget the tidbits about what we've done, discovered, thought and the list gets longer and the scraps of paper multiply and I still haven't blogged. But for now, though it is late and I have a new book and bed calling to me, I am going to try to at least recap a few things before the clock strikes midnight and my coach turns into a pumpkin. Not that there is anything monumental to write about, only just the little things that make one day different from the next!

I must say that our 2 most exciting finds of the week were the "bus de mer" (a boat-bus that crosses the La Rochelle port) and a dumpster being loaded with the remains from the IUFM (Institut de Formation de Maitres, I think that's what it's called, it's the teacher's college) which must have been from the 50s because we found very vintage-y teaching tools like fridge magnet type things in french cursive letters, geometric tiles for pattern making and geometry, old wooden puzzles, and cigarette tins that looked like they had been used as a school project because they were covered with a super-cool vintage contact paper that had been hand cut to cover the front of the tin. Anyway, Miette, Jules, and I trash picked and brought our favorite treasures home, cleaned them up and i think they will be some source of creative inspiration for me! After that, which was last weekend, we were heading toward the Mediatheque and just when I thought the kids wouldn't make it walking any longer, we saw that we could hop on the bus de mer and cross straight over there! The kids thought it was amazing, and as Julian is currently obsessed with anything having a motor (or fire), he was riveted by our little boat adventure, taking mental notes on every detail.

I've been noting the funny names everywhere that until recently I hadn't really noticed until one day, riding a bus, I looked out at the bus stop and noticed it was named "Patte d"Oie" which is more or less, goose-foot. Can you imagine an american bus stop being called goose foot? I need to write them all down, because there are funny names everywhere but the only other that pops into my mind at the moment is a kind of apple we just bought called "clochard" which means a bum/tramp/homeless person.

Yesterday we finally celebrated something resembling Thanksgiving. We met another american guy who is here doing his master's degree but did the same job as me last year and decided to get together and do "the meal". He and I were the only americans (and the kids of course) but there was also his russian friend Svetlana, his german rommate Felix, his french friend Juliette, and my australian friend Stephanie. i made mashed potatoes and brought bread and cheese, he made an apple pie and turkey, and there were also peas, corn, salad, and the closest berry-jam that france has anywhere near resembling cranberry sauce. We feasted and talked and felt at home with each other at by the end of the night, I felt closer to home and in the spirit of Thanksgiving. We even went around that table and said what we were thankful for before dinner. (Miette said she was thankful that daddy was coming soon and that we won't be staying here forever and also, she added, that we had enough money because everything was so expensive here.... heehee, I guess she's overheard enough conversations about he weak dollar....)The kids even watched Frosty the Snowman.

Today we woke up to the La Rochelle marathon passing outside our front window (All-ez, all-ez, all-ez!!) Next we went outside so Miette could try out the rollerblades she checked out from the Ludotheque in the church parking lot out back. When we came back, we dove into our respective books, mine being a new one Ryan sent me about motherhood and creativity called Mamaphonic, and Julian had a rare nap. We had a lovely evening stroll in the foggy moist air of the day and wandered back home as the sun set.

This one's for you Greer

Jules was being "Greer" yesterday.... Thinking of you Gree-lo !! (For those of you who don't know Julian's little soulmate Greer in Chicago, she always has to touch a neck while she sucks her thumb. So Jules was channeling her the other day by touching my neck and sucking his thumb)

The French Gym

I had a gym date this morning with a mom from Julian's school. Her daughter Lili (short for Clementine) is one of Julian's friends, the first one he pointed out to me as "not feeling shy around". Anyway, Lili's family is new to La Rochelle- they moved here from Angouleme this summer and Lili, like Julian, was missing her friends from before so maybe they sensed that in each other and bonded a little. Her mom joined a gym and invited me to come along so we went today to a group muscle toning class. The place was hilarious because everything is english- the place is called "Garden Fitness" and the class is called "BodyPump" they also have step aerobics- called "step" and yoga-ish classes, one called "Stretching" and the other is called "BodyBalance". Hilarious. I can't even pronounce them correctly beacuse it just feels weird to say english words with a french accent. Of course the teacher was a totally french guy and all the instructions were in his hyper-enthusiastic french shouted over the accompanying american pop music! It felt good to have a proper workout and it was actually pretty hard. Though I've been quite active here I haven't gotten the kind of workouts I was getting at Bally's back in Chicago. I must have gotten weaker in the meantime!

Tomorrow the teachers are on strike so none of us have school. France is striking everywhere at the moment! Luckily I don't depend on any public transportation for work (I go everywhere by bike or foot) because it sounds like hell for commuters to Paris....

Thanks to everyone sending me warm fuzzies from abroad in response to my last post. It helps and means a lot to hear the outpouring of support and affection. We'll try to call and touch base with the family groups on Thanksgiving and try and feel the togetherness via telephone! (Obviously it is not a holiday here so we'll be at work and school during the day! I may try to find a couple americans and have them over for dinner though!)

Life is not bad but....

I am missing everyone so much today. Not much else that I'll include in this post but just wanted to say that everyone feels far away and very much missed. You will all be together with family and friends for Thanksgiving next week and we are here so far from home.... The comforts of family and good friends are precious. I don't know why it hit me today, I think there is a relationship to the cold coming in strong for the first time. I think of this time of year as preparing for hiberation when we don't have as much extroverted energy and need to be around those people with whom we are very close. Love you all.

stream of conciousness update!

Long time no post, that's vacation! Funny that i have more time when I'm working than on vacation to do things! But now we're back into the swing of things and I am ready to spew out an update. I don't have all that much to report about our trip to Fouras. It was nice to be at the beach in autumn and to have a change of scenery but feel like it was a distraction from sinking my teeth into things here in La Rochelle. The kids need to be with other kids at school and I am enjoying teaching and am happy to be back at work. I realize that I will probably not have many opportunities to teach part time like I am doing and that I have a lot of freedom without the burden of responsibility that come with being a full time classroom teacher so I will do my best to enjoy it while I can. I feel like I am getting the hang of being in front of the class and thinking on my feet while doing a lesson. The first few times it literally made me sweat but now I know the kids and teachers and what does and doesn't work. It's fun to think of interesting and creative ways to teach what are simple concepts to a native english speaker but always harder than I expect for the little ones to grasp.

I did lessons on the english alphabet to some very beginner classes last Thursday and Friday and brought in a song called "The Alphabet Rap". I wasn't sure if the kids would think the song was lame- (Give me an A-A, Give me a B-B, .... let's snap, let's clap, now get ready for the alphabet rap) but they started bopping in their seats to the tune and snapped along happily (some kids still can't even snap that well yet!) If I'm into it, they get into it. I also read "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" (an alphabet book) and the kids liked to repeat the words chicka chicka boom boom. Never underestimate the power of simple things.

On Friday I teach in Miette's school where by far they do the most creative things! I get to do one session of "arts plastiques en anglais" which is my favorite time of the week. They were creating a prehistoric moquette using clay, sticks and ther natural materials collected from outside in their courtyard. I work side by side with the teacher because we're going around giving a hand where needed and answering questions. This teacher lived in the States and has by far the best english (and american accent) of any other teacher with whom I'm working so it feels comfortable to do english together. She is doing english with them in class at other times during the week with them so I don't have to worry as much about them getting specific concepts and can just enjoy doing art and expose them to a more casual natural language experience.

Miette's class is doing lots of different work using the story "The Little Red Hen" and another called "Poulet Pizza" using the same books translated from the english originals into french. Her teacher uses the texts side by side in both languages to to compare grammatical structures, expressions, and vocabulary. Now she has created a "jeux de famille", a kind of card game, with the english text from the story. I will be in the class working with small groups playing the game where they have to ask their classmates (in a group of six) in english for the cards to complete an episode of the story. All the classes at her school seem to do a lot of comparative work between languages which is fun for me too because I am also seeing it from the other side and finding new insights into french.

I do have other classes where I have the floor entirely. This is very satisfying while also more challenging. I have to do more discipline and speak more in french to explain activities, clarify directions, translate vocabulary, etc. I also have to plan these lessons from a-z. These are the classes where I am learning the most about teaching by being thrown in there and having to make it work. One of these classes has dream angel students who never have discipline issues and generally seem to love when I am there. (Last time half of the girls in the classes gifted me drawings of hearts!). Another class has 30 students, 21 of which are boys and they are really a handful. If I don't have a very firm hand and a rapid-fire pace they start to go nuts.

And Jules and Mimi finally? I am happy to say that overall, I think they are doing fantastically. I really feel like Julian has found his niche at school and has reported the past few days since we've been back from vacation that he's had a lot of fun at school. Yet when I ask "What did you do that was fun?" he says "I don't know". So it's hard to get a inside view of his day but he tells me things about his friends and just the fact that he refers to having friends makes me happy. He no longer seems totally exhausted at the end of the day and hasn't once chewed his sleeves during the past weeks. He still doen't want to go to lunch at the "cantine" but that's the least of my worries. Even when he complained about having to go last Thursday, he told me he had fun there anyway. I also feel like either school has influenced him and/or he's made a developmental leap because he's made a lot of progress in his graphic skills. He made the coolest drawing this Sunday of an airplane, helicopter, and boat. Of course, he is also quite a perfectionist and gets very mad when his drawing don't turn out how he intends and will scratch them out and thrown them down if something isn't right.

Miette is totally into marbles and plays with them at school every day thus winning them, trading them with her classsmates and adding to her collection daily. She has started mixing french words into her conversation with me at home- tonight at dinner she said "mama, after dinner can we faire the puzzle together?" I notice her playing with language all the time: rhyming, comparing, joking, talking to herself. She goes up to kids at the park or wherever we may be and asks them to play and it seems like the timidity is gone. In fact I think she is so much less reserved here now than she was when we were in Chicago.

Our australian friend Stephanie is also a saving grace and is starting to feel like an extension of the family. The kids love her and I think it has been really important to have another anglophone adult with whom they can bond. It is also great to have clicked with someone and have that security of feeling like I have someone I can really call a friend, who's also new here, with whom we can speak at ease in our native language! I read this article on culture shock that talked about the importance of finding people of the same ethnic group to socialize with to ease the sense of isolation that comes with being totally plunged into another culture and language. When people go abroad there is always this pressure to "hang with the natives" but the reality is that as human beings we need to have people with whom we can connect and irregardless of language, we connect more easily with people who are also strangers in a strange land too. Having someone to call a friend who is in a similar situation makes it easier, in fact, to reach out to others that are native! So. Funny that she's from even farther away than France but feels closer to home.

Another fun thing I started is a french-english conversation exchange with Valerie, my landlord's wife. I feel like I may have included this earlier in another post so I won't write more about that now.

I feel like the floodgates have opened and I could write for hours. I'll spare whoever's reading from that and stop myself before I lose all sense of what actually might be interesting!

Topics to come:
How much I adore, really truly love, the Ludothèque: part 2.
The wonders of free (or almost free) institutions: Why I love the Mediathèque.
La Rochelle is beautiful all the time, we are unbelievably lucky to be here.
We finally found another wonderful big playground.

Fouras

We just came back from a little vacation in a nearby town in Fouras which is on a "presque-île", a little peninsula abut 40 minutes away from La Rochelle. These pictures are just of the beaches at sunset and also one from the Hallowen party we went to this afternoon right after we got back into town. (Yes, I know it's not Halloween anymore but the family who threw the party was out of town for the school vacation and so had it today after their return.) I'll write more later about our time there- for now just the pictures!

Toussaint

Today is Toussaint, All Saint's Day. It was absolutely the most magnificent fall day imaginable. See picture above where I tried to capture a sense of the sky. Everything was closed and so we had slow home day then went to the park and thankfully saw kids from school there. Miette played with Léonie, from her school, and they were shouting rhymes for Miette to each other on the swings- "arrete, je suis une baguette de miette- arrete- baguette-miette- arrete- baguette- miette!!! They made a boulangerie selling cakes, bread and tea from sand, acorns and leaves.

Though vacation in theory is great, being with the kids 100% day and night by myself is making me feel a little crazy at the moment. We all need some more human interaction (and I desperately need a backrub!) Yesterday we went to the Museum of Natural History which has recently undergone serious renovations and reopened this weekend so we took advantage of our vacation time to have lunch in a cafe and spend our afternoon at the museum. Miette made lots of sketches of animals that interested her. Julian was very interested in the creatures displayed there but was a little frightened by some such as the stuffed bison and lion. We also discovered a great playground in the botanical gardens behind the museum and the kids had a blast there. Most playgrounds we've run into here are for preschool age children and they don't have monkey bars, big swings or other things we think of as standards in U.S. playgrounds so we were happy that this new one had some structures geared also towards older kids.

It's been feeling like autumn inside and out- we've gotten local apples and made our own applesauce (thinking of Grandma Katie), made a batch of potato soup, collected autumn leaves and have been drinking tons of tea (in fact, I've switched back to tea in the mornings too! Without Ryan here to share the pot of coffee my heart just wasn't in it anymore!). I'm hoping that since La Rochelle weather is supposed to be mild that maybe it means we'll have a sort of prolonged autumn... It really is my favorite season!

p.s. I added picture of me since I there was a request... but it's not very interesting. You can see me, I am still looking pretty much the same, I think! I will try to hand over the camera and get something with me and the kids in some sort of interesting location next time, If I remember!

Movie of Miette

Hopefully you can now see this little movie of Miette right here on my blog. Let me know what you think! This is her telling, in french, about a game she plays with her classmates at school recess.

Ludotheque

Today we discovered an amazing thing La Rochelle has to offer- The Ludothèque! This is a game and toy lending library! We got ourselves membership cards and checked out some toys! One can go there and play on site with anything- they have hundreds of "jeux de société" (board games) and puzzles plus tricycles, rollerblades for kids, stilts, toy kitchens, trucks, dolls, castles, you name it! Julian fell head over heels with a castle set including knights and horses in full armor with lances, swords, axes and a prison in the castle building. Miette chose a castle building block set. And I had just the other day been lamenting not having any blocks here! They even have KAPLA blocks, just like the ones we have waiting for us in Chicago upon our return! So we have a place to go play on chilly winter days and a constant source of new playthings! Maybe this will be my mission when we come back, to establish a Ludothèque in Chicago- it's very environmental too!

Above pictures are: kids at home, our friend Steph with Miette, Julian having a turn with the pedal horses at the park today, Miette at the old towers in the center of town by the port, and the back view of the beautiful church which is what we see through our windows and balcony.

School Updates

Today Miette said "I like it here!" followed by a qualifier of "of course I still love Chicago and miss it too" but obviously she was showing some spontaneous contentment with life in La Rochelle. Kids will be kids. When the going gets rough, they won't like it here, and when it's good they'll love it. Miette has also informed me that she and a boy in her class (Antoine) are in love with each other. I said "Why are you in love and how do you know he's in love with you too?" and she gave me all these examples of how her gives her his marbles, leans back into her lap when they are sitting outside together etc. etc. Though it is kind of funny it is also so sweet. Too young to be self-concious about "love"... And also feeling close enough with her classmates to have that kind of attachment! I am so happy with how school is going for her.

Julian still has his ups and downs but we're definitely getting more ups. All the big girls at school love him to pieces. They are always trying to hold his hand, hug him and care for him. When the mamas come to pick up their kids and wait outside for the gate to be opened I spy on him playing in the courtyard and see what he's up to. It's great to get those litle snippets of how he plays because its so hard for him to tell me about his day, it all gets jumbled together with other days and times. Today had a slightly rough beginning but ended up going swimmingly. He was unhappy going for morning drop-off because he didn't want to stay for lunch (which he had to because i have a class to get to during that time) and then when we arrived at school I realized that I had completely forgotten about the field trip they were taking that day. I knew a new event on top of an unhappy drop-off would be a double whammy so I looked for Lili, the girl in the class that he "doesn't feel shy about" (his words) and asked her if she would stay with him, hold his hand and sit on the bus with him. She said okay and took his hand and he immediately was fine. The day went well, aside from not eating at the cantine again, and he told me he had another new friend, a boy that is always nice to him. Of course he doesn't remember the boy's name, but what are names anyway?! So I think he's finding friends and feeling more comfortable. Another good sign is that he is no longer chewing his sleeves! He had been coming home with his sleeve cuffs wet and stretched out from gnawing on them all day long and I haven't seen a wet sleeve in days.

As for me and school, The initial nervousness has worn off and the issues with some of the rowdier kids last week were already easier to deal with this week. I've been talking about Halloween all week- related vocabulary, telling how we do it in the States and a little history of the holiday. I included a picture of a princess in my Halloween flashcards figuring it's probably one of the most popular costumes for girls in the U.S. and someone asked why there was a princess- they were shocked to find out that we dress up in costumes other than witch, ghost, pumpkin, vampire, devil or monster! (They really got a kick out of hearing what Miette dressed up as in the past: hot-air balloon? house? flower? WHAT??) Halloween is sort of an a la carte holiday in France, some people do it but not all and I can't say I've seen a single decorated house anywhere. Miette has been hand making decorations for our house! Life is hard though, after my first 2 full weeks of work in the classroom, I have a 12 day holiday starting Saturday! Tough life, huh?

Funny story

Well, I'll start with the end first: I ate meat last night. Here's what happened. A girl named Stephanie from Australia (also here teaching english) has become a friend and the kids love her so she has come over the past three Tuesday evenings to watch them so I could go to this meditation group. It's lovely- the kids love her, get some time away from their mom and get to speak english and I get my meditation and an evening out of the house. So I head over to the meditation place and when I arrive the man who's setting up tells me it's a different meditation than their usual tchenrézi. Once a month when it's on or almost the full moon they do a ceremony for Milarepa which involves everyone bringing offerings of food and drink which are purified and shared at a certain point in the ritual. There are cakes resembling stupas, wine and juice, candies, cookies, crackers, cheese, and meat. He tells me there is a point where first you share a drink of wine and everyone takes a piece of meat and the idea is that after the rituel they are purified and therefore no longer considered alcohol or flesh. I say to the man, do you have to eat it, I am vegetarian, and his reply is well, you really should have a small piece at least because the idea is that in eseence it is all the same food, the same taste, and sharing in it is refraining from adversion or attachment to what one habitually does like or not like/eat or not eat. So I decide I better give it a go, not such a big deal right? It seems like the underlying principle has reason. Well, when the time came, they passed the wine, passed the meat (small pieces of someting steak-like) all very communion-esque as well, and eat my tiny piece. Actually I was amazed at how good it actually tasted when i was expecting to be revolted. But then they passed around more stuff and just gave you some of what was on each platter and you didnt choose what you got. Of course, I got a slice of some other meat, like prosciutto or some thin cured sliced kind of thing which I wasn't expecting to have and then really didn't want and had to rince that down quickly with some juice. So much for the "neither aversion nor attachment" thing! Everything else went fine and I came home, hung out with Stephanie a bit and then went to bed. Well a short later I woke up with the worst feelings in my digestive system! I wo't go so far as to say pain but it was not comfortable and I couldn't sleep for a bit. Immediately I said to myself, my body is revolting against this foreign substance! I suppose it could have been anything, even just the odd combo of many different foods eaten together but my conscience wasn't believing that! I don't think I'll be dipping my toes back into that water!! But I will admit, that little piece of steak was mighty tasty......

Market day, Rest day

Saturday morning while Miette was at school Julian and I finally made it to the central market which takes place Wednesdays and Saturdays. I really would have gone sooner but since the market days coincide with when the kid(s) are off school, it just always seemed like to much hassle. But I've been missing out! It is so beautiful and exemplifies the idyllic small town french lifestyle! There are heaps of gorgeous vegetables, fruits, nuts, and cheese from the region, butchers in the inner covered marketplace displaying animals with heads on and claws intact. There was a cow head in a glass case with parsley inserted in its nostrils. Roosters with feathered heads adorning plucked skin, whole skinned rabbits with visible eyeballs. Miilions of shelled creatures from the sea. Needless to say, I stuck to the veggies and cheese. I finally got my bright little strawberries, some fresh goat cheese, sheep cheese, and real parmesean. It was nice to think back to being in Paris and feeling so nervous when I would be at the market and not always know how to say exactly what or how much I wanted and now I can confidently ask whether it's okay to tear some celery or do you have to buy the whole thing? In other words, it feels good to be here speaking french without worries.

Later that day we were invited to the home of one of the teachers I'm working with for the "gouter" (snack time). When I looked up her address on my map it seemed to be a reasonable walking distance away so I pushed Jules in the stroller and Miette on her bike. Well, we ended up overshooting our mark, turning on the wrong street getting quite turned around and accidentally discovered a huge community garden area. But with the help of a passerby and some more map examining we finally made it to her house at least a half-hour late. But it was great, she has a ten year old daughter who played with Miette and they had a pet bunny in their backyard and we all got along really well. She just moved to La Rochelle this summer so is in a similar place as me, just getting settled in and looking for new people.

This morning we stayed home for a long time and just took it easy. Ryan just sent us all the legos that were still in Chicago and the kids are in heaven (aside from the squables about who found which piece first!). So while they played I cooked a pot of soup, caught up on New Yorkers (that Ryan also sent) and drank lots of tea. Eventually we made our way to the park where we run into everyone on Sundays, saw kids from Mimi and Jules' schools and chatted with a mom. It felt like a true traditional Sabbath sort of rest day. Slow, cozy, quiet and peaceful. And ended with bowls of lentil soup garnished with parmesean from the market and baguette from the bakery. So good night tranquil Sunday!

Le Manege

Yesterday evening on our way home the grand and magnificent carousel that we often pass, but is never open, was moving so with the few euro coins i scrounged from my pocket I indulged Julian in a long-coveted go round. Here are 2 photos of him and the carousel and also one of Miette and her new used bike.

Fall weather brings homesickness.

Well, autumn is usually a time of turning inward and stoking the home fires, preparing the nest for winter to come. In our case I think it is heightening the sense that France isn't really our home and there's a little heartache going around. I think now that the preliminary installation is over, the newness worn off, and all of our beloved are so far away it feels a bit lonely at the moment for all of us. Miette especially had a hard night tonight. She is especially missing her daddy and needing a friend. I think in part because she has been quite stoic and very resilient about things so far she's been sort of overdue for an emotional spell. After her crying jag the three of us all cuddled together in our pyjamas under the covers in the bottom bunk and read lots and lots of stories. Books are such constant friends!

Aside from that, I did have my first class today which was a piece of cake. I also used the bike that I got this weekend for the first time to get there and back and found it exciting to finally be able to zip around the city. There are hills here which is hard to get used to after biking only in eternally flat Chicago. The streets are about half as wide and though sometimes they have a bike lane, it still feels tight and somewhat intimidating. i also felt i crossed more territory in such a short time that the city seemed to open up to me in a new way. I'll have to use some of my morning free time to do a little vélo-adventuring.

Oh, I forgot to mention that when I posted a request for people to send american "stuff" for me to use in my classes, I also would love to have some photos of everyone to put up in the apartment. I didn't bring any and feel like we need a little altar here to friends and family. It would mean a lot to us!

Birthday party and bike

Today Miette was invited to the birthday party of her classmate Apolline. I called to see how they "do parties" here and whether parents usually stay or not and how many kids would be going and was given an open invitation to stay or go as I wished. I ended up staying. This family does not live in the neighborhood, which is rare, so I got to see a different area of town and got to know some other fellow parents as well beyond the everyday pleasantries. There were about 10 french kids all from her class and a couple other parents stayed for the whole party like me. The kids played in the back garden for a couple hours then had cake, opened presents and then made things with clay at the end. I was impressed because they had real clay! The kids had fun until the moment when other parents were arriving to pick up their kids and Mimi and Jules started to melt down. Tired and blood sugar levels crashing, we got a ride home with another family back to our neighborhood. Miette had her usual Saturday half-day of school this morning and then she showered and dressed, ate lunch and headed out to find a present, went to the party and by the end of the day we were all ready to crash. But regardless, it felt good to spend a weekend day with other kids and families. For the sake of the kids, I really need to put myself out there to make rendez-vous for the kids on days off school so its not always just us getting stuck in a routine and to help them be closer with other kids their ages.Apolline's parents are closer to my age than the average of most other parents at La Genette, artistic, and well dressed...... her father is a graphic designer and her mother used to own 2 children's consignment boutiques so we have a lot in common with each other!

Well I too am exhausted now, not so much from a long day but it's getting late here now and I need to take care of myself so I'm "en pleine forme" for starting real teaching this week! Next time I write, I'll have to share more details on the different classes, school, and teachers wth whom I'll be working . There are some pretty drastic differences between them all.

Photos

Photos are of the kids feeding the goats, street signs, the kids at the kitchen table drawing, and one of the schools (Valin) in which I'll be working (it is a very old building in the center of town and I particularly appreciate the beautiful benches in front).

Sunday in the Park

This weekend we spent most of our time in the two parks nearby, each on either side of where we live. One is called Parc Franck Delmas and the other is Parc Charruyer. Parc Charuyer has a sort of mini-zoo in it with ponys, goats, deer, peacocks and other exotic birds. The kids spent an extremely long time feeding leaves and sticks to the goats who apparently eat anything. This was a very absorbing activity for Mimi and Jules and just about every other kid that came through. We took a brief detour through the amusement section as you leave the park but before you reach the beach where they have bumper cars, a kid train, mini-golf and other such activities. The kids each got to pick one activity so Miette did bumper cars and Julian did the train. I had a coffee! On our way home, we stopped in to check out a sweet little chocolate shop/patisserie where they make their own chocolates and everything in house and also their gorgeous cakes (Miette noted that they had a chess cake in the cooler complete with molded chocolate chess pieces and declared that that is what she would like her birthday cake to be!)

On Saturday when we were at the other park we ran into a teacher who works at one of the school where I'll be teaching. I won't be in her class but I had eaten lunch with all the teachers and met her then. She lives in a neighborhood on the other side of the park and had come there with her husband and three girls- 8, 6, and 3 years old. We chatted for a long time and got along really well as did Miette with their 8 year old daughter. The dad was amazed because Miette spoke to him in french and he couldn't believe how capable she was! I have to say everytime french comes out of her mouth with this beautiful little accent I can't really believe it's her!

It looks and feels like autumn here now. The trees are tinged with color and there are all kinds of nuts and leaves blanketing the ground. We are finding so many varieties of acorn-like things here that resemble something you might find in the States but yet are not at all the same. There are also marrons (kind of like buckeyes) and chaitagnes (chesnuts) and then exactly like the US, stinky ginko fruits. Nature feels more present and powerful here- from the spiders coming into the house to the vines creeping out of courtyards and over walls. In many ways Chicago is a very green city too but somehow the traffic, congestion, and population density seem to overwhelm the natural elements. Now that we have a balcony, we can just open the door for the weather report too. The kids do this every morning!

This neighborhood has a very small town sense to it. Every morning we see the same people walking their kids to school and picking them up as we do. My landlord and other people I've met with dogs come walking them in the evening in the grassy spot behind our apartment on the balcony side so if I am out there I see them. The bakery (right across the street) owners' daughter is in Miette's class. Many of the teachers from her school live in the neighborhood and we cross paths on days off school. One day last weekend we joined a family whose son is in Julian's class at school in an excursion to the nearby beach. The path to get there cuts through Parc Franck Delmas and there we ran into the family who had invited us all to our first dinner party. They were playing rugby and had just had guests arrive from Norway and since they were wanting to show them the area, they joined us as well. Then when we arrived at the beach, we saw 2 girls from Miette's class at the beach with their families and with whom Miette went off to play. So if you get the idea....it's a small world here already.

So I suppose in terms of actual news, the main thing that is new is me starting to actually be in the schools. So far we've gone in only for observations of the teachers with whom we'll be working. As it turns out I am going to be in 4 different schools: La Genette (Miette's school), Valin, Puilboreau, and Paul Doumer. It has been quite opening to get to watch all these differents classes and teachers in action. It's really the insider view. So far as I can tell from my experience with Miette being in school and my past education, things are pretty different here! The teachers are very strict and everything is very exacting. The kids have meticulous handwriting at a very young age and everything they do has to done with a ruler. For example, in their "cahiers" (different notebooks for each subject) the pages are gridded (narrower spaces horizontally and wider vertically) so they can measure the height of each letter. When the teacher writes the date and a subject or lesson on the board, she specifies how many squares in and down they must count to place their title and on which line they need to create a line with their rulers to delineate the title from the subject matter. After the have done an exercise, they correct it together as a group and they have to use a different color to note their corrections which must be made (crossed out) with their ruler> EVERYTHING is with a ruler! You can tell that good work habits and neatness are high priorities. I now understand why Miette was especially stressed out about her handwriting.But I diverge.... Basically, being there watching the teachers has been fascinating and I would spend all year watching and taking notes for a comparative thesis on educational systems (then Id have to spend equal time doing the same in the States). The reality is that next week it will be me up there hoping the kids are interested in what I can offer and that I can keep the creative juices flowing for different ways of presenting the english language to these kids! So far all the kids in these classes seem to be excited to meet someone new that isn't from here, like Thierry said, we are kind of like Martians to them!

Maybe now would be a good moment to also put out a call for lots of american paraphanelia to be sent to me !!! I am supposed to be not only working with language but teaching about my culture so if I can bring in "original" stuff from the U.S. to use as props and points of departure for particular subjects it would be great. So if whoever is reading could kindly send me even just a postcard of the city where you live, a menu from a restaurant/take-out place, a local newspaper, a small flag, historical info or pop culture stuff WHATEVER it is that seems american to you- SEND IT TO ME!!! (especially for the realms in which I am totally ignorant like football and baseball- so totally american and yet I'd be at a total loss for words trying to explain any of "our" sports!) feel free to offer ideas of things to present regarding culture and history as well!