Hey, we're back from vacation and I've got new pictures up at the usual location. More blog fun hopefully posted tomorrow including highlights from the Cinque Terre region of Italy and travelling with in-laws.

Good morning Blog Fans, some things happened during this last week, but right now our place is packed with in-laws. Holly's Dad and girlfriend are here, along with Andy, Holly's brother. So today we're off to Montmartre and the Louvre and the Tour Eiffel. Yesterday we walked from the Arc de Triomphe down the Champs Elyseess almost down to the obelisk. Anyway, I probably won't have time to post a blog or pictures before next Thursday since we're going to Italy and Nice tomorrow morning. I'll try to post the pictures, but there won't be much time for the quiet reflection required for high quality blog posts.

And now, demonstration number two (la deuxieme manifestation). So we went downtown on Saturday afternoon to shop for some euro shoes to go with my black jeans that Holly forced on me (but I look good and they stay clean so hey...) It was a balmy day and apparently ALL of Paris had a similar idea. The streets around Galleries Lafayette were absolutely jammed with people. The kids were getting cranky so Holly had the bright idea of stopping in a cafe and getting some hot chocolate and wine. Really, a glass or two really takes the edge off of the afternoon and kind of mellows everything out. The crowds were all around the opera area and once we got a few blocks away the streets were really uncrowded. We went to Samarataine (one of the oldest department stores in Paris), I bought some shoes, and we decided to walk towards the Louvre. Well, suddenly there were a whole lot of people on the streets also going in the general direction of the Louvre, like thousands, except that unilke us, they all had banners and signs and a van with loudspeakers and music. So we joined an anarchist parade for a while. Well, they weren't violent, they were very nice, I agreed with their slogans (mainly about the importance of art and self-expression and a few general anti-corporate slogans), they had nice music, and we were all going the same way. When we got closer to the Louvre I could see that marching down rue Rivoli (running perpendicular to our street) there were thousands more people carrying different banners and lots of riot cops on the side streets. Note the posted picture of the roller boogie cops. At that point our paths diverged and we continued on our way to the metro. I don't know what they ended up doing, none of the web news sources I looked at had any information about it. Maybe it was a show of support for Madrid, maybe it was about the upcoming regional elections, I dunno. Nice way to spend an afternoon in Paris though.

Huge bust of a morning. We went to the musee d'homme (museum of man, oddly there is no museum of women nor is there a museum of woman). Anyway, they are supposed to have a wonderful ethnographic collection, including an entire wing devoted to musical instruments from all over the world, but we misread the sign above the ticket booth. We both thought it was saying that the ethnographic collection of the museum of africa and oceania was closed, which we already knew since we went there without knowing that and paid 7 euros to see the alligators in the basement, and therefore thought it very nice of them to warn us of that since it was quite dissapointing to go all the way out to the african museum and have it be closed except for the fish from former colonies. Anyway, guess what, apparently there are no ethnographic museum exhibits in the greater Paris area, they are all closed indefinately. So we paid our 7 euros each, again, to find out that they had installed an exhibit about some comic books that were similar to Tintin "Blake et Mortimer en Paris!" The high points were seeing the striking construction workers being bussed in and fed sandwiches and beer at 10 am, and eating crepes while looking at the tour Eiffel in the gray cloudy light. I've posted a picture of the tour with the little tours that were for sale in the foreground, a nice juxtaposition of images. I think it came out well. Oh, and Holly bought a smashing hat from the sidewalk vendors. But don't bother with the ethnographic museums, at least until 2005 when the new one will open.

The big event today was taking Emma to story time at the American Library over on the right bank. Again it was a cold and cloudy day, but as we approached the address the tour Eiffel popped up. Which would seem kinda hard for something that massive to do, but there it was. Actually, 29 avenue Rapp was even better. I've posted a picture of the front of the building and a close up of the entryway. It won a design competition when it was built and is an outstanding example of art nouveau architecture. Great elaborate carvings on the doors, entryway, intertwined human and floral designs, unnecessary details (see if you can spot the carved bull's heads under the lower balcony). Emma commented "its gorgeous daddy". We stopped off and purchased pan au chocolat and ate them on the way back to the metro stop. Another fine morning.

Today was one of the days that I really need to write about to fully convey the wonderfullness of our experience here. We didn't DO anything really big. Our morning plans were to go to the Luxembourg gardens and see if Emma's mittens had shown up. Which is what we did, despite the drizzle, but hey it is still winter here so... We rode on the RER to Luxembourg and wandered through the lovely park. Nobody was sailing boats on the pond, and only a few children were playing in the pay-per-playground, but the jardin is really lovely so the walk through the bare trees and statues was nice. No mittens, but on the way out we passed the National Assembly, which is in the former Medici palace (built in 1630) and a statue of one of the queens of France, who had reigned in the 1300s. 1300s. Its hard to think about that, much less try to explain it to Emma. (Okay, daddy is almost 40 so that is like 10 daddys, well no that's not quite it...) After that we wandered through the St. Germain/Latin Quarter past St. Surplice (which we know all about after reading the really dreadful "The da Vinci code" which had all sorts of interesting information about the deeply pagan nature of many of the features) and onto rue Buci. rue Buci turned out to be a gem of a street. Narrow, winding, packed with great little stores and trateurs and gelato. Although it was cold enough to be wearing gloves and for us to see occasional snowflakes, we decided that the gelato looked good enough to warrant freezing even more. It was. We had grilled pannini for lunch, followed by gelato and eclairs. Lovely way to spend a morning.

Saturday afternoon and we're off to the Pompidou center to enjoy the ambience. There is a nice square with a playful fountain. What I'd forgotten, but Holly'd remembered, is while you now have to pay to ride the escalator to the top, if you are going to the restaurant the ride is free. So we went to the restaurant at the top of the Pompidou, travelling up the plexiglass encased escalator up, up, up, and up. As it started to rain. From the top there was an amazing view of Paris - all the big landmarks were visable - Notre Dame, Tour Eiffel, Tour Montparnasse. We decided to join the Eurotrash and get a snack. I think it was telling that the hostess seemed to have to think about whether to let us in or not. She did allow us to sit in an enclosed area with padded surfaces and thankfully tv screens with a loop film that looked like it was someone's Junior year student project. No sound, just a sucession of images, which held Emma and Finn's attention, although I think the subject matter went right over their heads (Men without shirts giving other men without shirts haircuts! Three drag queens lip sinking! A close up of someone putting a womens red satin pump on someone else (man? woman? who can tell, it's art!) A boy toy in spandex shorts doing situps!) Anyway eventually our waiter arrived. He was, I can safely say, the rudest most condesending waiter I have ever seen. He was absolutely perfect. He didn't actually say anything rude, no tone, but we got the feeling that he thought we really didn't deserve to be served. But he did. The best hot chocolate I've ever had in my life. Accompanied by the best presentation I've ever seen. He brought out three cups and two sliver pitchers. From the first he poured liquid chocolate into each cup, followed by steamed milk from the second pitcher. Wonderfully done, absolutely fabulous. Really, next time you are in Paris, you owe it to yourself to get hot chocolate at the George at the top of the Pompidou.

This weekend we were planning on going to Bruges, Belgium, but the weather was supposed to be really cold and rainy/snowy which didn't seem like it would be great for walking around in so we joined the entire AIFS crew and headed on busses to Chartres. Lovely city, nice cathedral, although I saw a lot of the city and not much of the inside of the cathedral due to Finn's vocalizations during the tour of the cathedral. It was a chilly, grey, overcast, drizzly kind of day. Perfect for wandering around the ancient city of Chartres. Lovely town (see pictures) with cobble stone streets, but not cobbled for tourists. At least it didn't feel like it. Nice town, 800-1000 years old or so. Fun to wander the narow winding streets in the drizzle and ponder what the last millenium had been like in Chartres.

I went to the doctor today. My left ear had been bothering me - things sounded muffled and it felt heavy inside. It had happened before in Davis and they just flushed out with a fire hose and it was just ear wax related. So I made an appointment with the non-english speaking receptionist to see the english speaking doctor. I arrived at his office and was buzzed into the building. The office was amazing. It was the smallest, dimmest, most home-like office I've ever seen in my life. The ceiling had hand hewed beams and the electric wiring was obviously and afterthought. The doctor had to keep coming out from the exam room to buzz patients in. No receptionist, but a nice piano in the waiting room. The "doctor" I saw had only limited english, which made me suspicious since Dr. Wilson was supposed to be attached to the Hospital at Hertford or Hereford or something like that. The "doctor" agreed with my notion of wax and then hunted around for a syringe to wash it out. He said that he'd only been there for a few weeks and didn't know where things were and would I mind terribly if I ran out to the pharmacy just down the street and bought one and returned? Well I did (.45 euros for a 5 cc syringe in France in case you are wondering), but when I returned I had to start waiting all over again and while I was waiting the real Dr. Wilson came in. He was dressed in street clothes, just like the other doctor, which was different from doctors in the US. Everything was very casual - Dr. Wilson took me into a back back room which was their storage room with a washing machine so the other doctor could see someone in the exam room. He fixed my ear, but we first had to wait for the patient to leave and then we had to dance around each other in order to get enough room to get out of the storage room. 35 euros cash for 2 hours of his time and I was gone. If I was French I wouldn't have had to pay for the syringe (which was never used and I'll keep as a souveneir) or the appointment. One of my students had a cast on her foot removed at a French hospital and when the nurse started making noises about payment the doctor quieted her saying that the patient was a student and therefore they wouldn't charge her. Same thing with museums, people on unemployment don't have to pay admission, which is genius. Hmm, government supported medicine and culture. Nice idea.

Two of my students regaled me with tales of huge rabbits at the Parisian Ag Expo, and since Emma likes rabbits and we like ag expos and the weekly what's happening around town magazine featured it and the wealth of rich regional foods we decided to go. On a Tuesday morning. With, apparently, the rest of Paris. I still can't get over the throngs of humanity that were crowded into the spatious halls of the ag expo. I suppose if I had been by myself it would have been really interesting, but with two children, a wife, and a stroller, I just found the throngs opressive. There were supposed to be foods from all of the regions of France, which we were looking forward to seeing. Apparently, the rest of France enjoys either pate de fois gras with wine or sauerkraut and beer. Oh, wait we did see a raclette cheese fondue pavillion. (Fascinating process that, take a 60 cm wheel of raclette cheese, cut it in half and place the open slab next to an electric heating element until the cheese melts and runs down onto a plate, from which you scoop it up and eat it with bread). We did see the cows and sheep and mules and perhaps most of Paris, but we never did find the rabbits.