French Parking and Dressmakers Heaven

This car is right in front of the apartment. It's parked for real and it was there all day.
Hey Sullivans, look, it's TinTin in it's original french!


I had the morning off so I planned carefully. After trotting down to the bank to open an account. Let me stop there and say some more about this account. This bank, Societe Generale, is a European bank. For a person my age a savings account is free and the carte bleue, debit card essentially, is 4 euros per month, usable anywhere in Europe. I was told this in a tiny bank not one block from the apartment I live in, in an office accessible by a lillipution spiral staircase. So after that I walked to the closest metro station and took the metro line one to Charles de Gaulle. Metro line one is for the uppities of Paris, they keep it very nice. Metro line 2 is kind of for everyone else. I was the obvious minority once I got on line 2. Suddenly there were no walls on the side of the track or voices announcing each stop and also there was suddenly a myriad of questionable french to learn from the walls. I hopped out at the fabric center of the world. I'm not kidding, this place was several blocks SOLID fabric stores. Every kind of fabric and most several stories high. I immediately bought nine yards of summer color discounts at good prices per meter. This meter thing is new for me in sewing. Of course, everything is new for me, like watching cartoon network in french dubbing.

So after speding a fair amount of time ogling all the fabric I headed back. Since I was in the mode I decided to stop at the grocery store while I was out and see if I could find something to make guacamole with. The microscopic ethnic center of the store had tortillas a few small bags of chips and chile peppers. After giving up on lmost everything but the chips and avacado I headed back. Later in the afternoon I went with A to go grocery shopping. They deliver here. It's pretty sweet. Grocery shopping is relly interesting. All the cultural food things suddenly become this huge thing. I could hardly believe the wall of cheese, it was bigger than everything else. But I'll have a good time buying things to cook. I like to grocery shop, it's not too bad when someone else is paying and delivering. After we finished A asked me if i wanted to drive her car. Her car is everything posh and european. Not only does the idea of trying to parallel park make me quake, the actual driving kind of totally seems like a nightmare. There is nothing oganised or familiar in the way these people drive. They gas and brake constantly and come within inches of bikes, pedestrians and other cars. They park with five inches of space in the back and one in front; they park on the corners, yep, right on the corner where you walk across the street; they park facing echother. Each road looks like one way street and the lines between two directions of traffic are white just like the lines between two lanes. And lanes, they don't care about lanes, who uses lanes? So I'm little worried about all that loud and pushy driving. I'm anything but loud nd pushy when it comes to driving.

One thing about buying things is that all you have to know is this, "oui, merci. Au revoir." And numbers, fortunatly I know numbers, I even had to correct someone who gave me 12 extra euros for change. So now my top priority is a french press. As much as I like plain espresso a substantial cup of good coffee can't really be replaced.


Here's one funny little thing about the french. They don't learn to type so there is this universal two finger picking. It's everywhere, even the receptionist at the bank. I'm a terrible typist but here I kind of look like a keyboard superstar.

Broken French and loud birds

Yesterday, on my first day alone with them, the kids grandmother came. She brought with her a very jet lagged four year old cousin of theirs. E, the kids grandmother speaks absolutely no English. Though I understand a bit of french my ability to speak and respond coherently is pretty low. Plus there's no guarantee I'll get what was said to me in the first place. However, all my efforts to get these kids under control are well supported by their grandmother. She gave me lots of advice and from familiar words I understood it to mean she thought they could use a little more firmness. I replied with the ubiquitous smile, nod, and "ouais, okay". I also brought the twins to a school prep activity. After they ran straight into the house yelling and to the hostess I half shouted across the room, "Bonjour, je m'appelle Angela. Je suis le nouvel au pair." She replaid with an "ah, Bonjour"......chirp, chirp. Geez lady, can't you tell when you've exhausted a girls vocabulary?

After dropping the twins off, Ag went with me to open a bank account. That wasn't too bad because I know the words for passport, visa, work contract and ID card. But it didn't happen becuase I didn't have everything I needed so I had to set an appointment with monsieur someone or other. All I hope is that he's a really good guesser or he speaks English otherwise it might be a really short meeting. "Vous comprennez?", "....uh, non."

After picking up the twins I deduced that they were to be brought back every afternoon this week. N got very upset insisting that it was mornings and afternoons. In an affort to make peace I said, "Don't you think she would have said 'tous les jour' if it was morning and afternoons instead of 'tous l'apres-midi'?" He looked at me blankly for a minute and then said "Tous LES apres-midi." Touche.

And today was my first time on the Metro. Ag and I went to her orthodontist appointment on the Champs elysees. We went up in the worlds smallest elevator. I'm not kidding, I have pictures it was probably not even two square feet. The waiting area was kind of odd. It was separated and the nurse kept coming in, opening the door to the tiny room, calling patients and then closing the door behind her. All I could think of was how the families with more than one kid coped with the elevator.

So for pictures it's a Normandie house in Deauville and N working on the castle turned pond.

Deauville and Riding Bikes in Bois de Boulogne

Yesterday around five pm we went out to ride bikes in Bois de Boulogne, a very big parc on the west side of Paris. I got to ride F's bike which was very nice so I enjoyed it a lot. The girls had problems with their bikes and were pouting most of the time so we didn't stay for very long. After riding around the parc for awhile we went to sit on the biggest tree I've ever seen. It's a huge Sycamore that has four trunks. Out of one of them comes a large branch that curves to about two and a half or three feet of the ground. We sat on that for awhile drinking apple juice.

The parc is very big and has lakes, trails, camping and gardens. I think I will visiting it quite often.

This morning we got ready for a "picque-nicque" and headed out. On the way out of Paris we stopped a couple of times. A did the Paris typical sidewalk parking job that really cracked me up. Not only do they do that but they park nose to nose. Smart cars are everywhere and they are so short that sometimes instead of parallel parking they just reverse between two cars, facing the road. J, N and I waited in the car for a little while. They showed me some childrens books. I asked them some questions about words using "Qu-est-ce que ce" instead of "what is". N looked at me and said "Maman said you didn't speak french, but you know a lot." I can definitly get along with that kid. J asks me questions like "AY-lo ladee how's it's going on?" and "do you know how to say ehllo in french?" It's pretty easy to impress someone with such low expectations. I don't predict the same grace from the people in the librairie and bucherie. But I can dream, right?

So anyway, the ride out to Deauville was lovely. We saw plenty of adorable Normandie farms and lots of dairy cows. It was raining when we got there so we are our ham and (strong) cheese sandwiches in the car before venturing onto the beach. The water wasn't so bad but the air was chilly. We played in the waves for awhile before playing monkey in the middle and a shell throwing contest. The tide started to come in so we made a castle with a moat that turned into a little pond.

It was a fun day. Tomorrow I start my semi routine work, dropping kids off and picking them up, opening a bank account (without the help of A!)as well as spending the day with a non-English speaker. So it shoould be a good day.

My First Day in Paris

It's currently 8:30 PM Kansas City time. Thats 3:30 AM here.

So this is just a quick little overview of my first day.

My flights weren't bad. They weren't bad as flights go but I can't really sleep on planes. When I said goodbye to Mom and Dad in Kansas City I worked pretty hard to not get too emotional. I had a total meltdown for Thailand that lasted well into my flight to Atlanta so I stifled that a little. I sat in Economy Plus which really is much better. When I got to Dulles in Washington DC I wandered around for quite awhile finally eating Wendys in a fairly empty gate. I don't like to be the only one eating in a crowded area. Once I got into all the gates starting with C I felt like I was in a foreign country. There was far more French than English and everyone was crowded close together.

I sat next to some lovely people on my way to Paris who were very encouraging and fun. Once we arrived all I had to do was pick up my bags and walk out. No customs, no immigration. It took me a little time to find my family but they were there all friendly and smiling, carefully speaking English. We got in the car and immediately began breaking every driving law. As soon as we got back into the city I could see the Eiffel Tower. We drove down the Champs Elysees, around l'Arc de Triomphe, by the Musee d'Orsay and the Louvre, the parliament building, and then went and drove by the Eiffel Tower from the base of which we could see Notre Dame. It was all surprisingly close.

When we got in I was shown all around the beautiful home and then we sat down to have tea. After unpacking and showering I went with A to go to the post office. We walked all around Neuilly stopping to see the library, the bucherie, the metro station and the bookstore. After lunch I took a nap and we went to walk down the champs elysees.

By 8:00 I was completely exhausted and went to bed. But now I'm having a little break from sleeping....