Greetings from Tuscany. I would apologize for not posting more, but I'm taking a vacation from my vacation. So for the past almost two weeks I haven't been able to access the internet due to the fact that we were staying on the island of Corsica. Now that we are in Tuscany I can at least check email. So I am. And blogging too. Corsica was great. I hope to be able to figure out how to post the pictures before too long, but it might have to wait a while. Hmmm, seems like I ought to have more to say about Corsica than iot was nice, but nothing is coming to mind.
I guess I should recap for the viewers at home. We left Paris on the 15th, picked up a rental Renault Clio and drove south towards Nice. We took a ferry over to Corsica (www.corsicaferries.com) and then stayed for a week at a resort (http://www.lavallicella.com/ for more info and pictures). Nice place, chock full of Germans and Austrians since it was a holliday week for them. I think it was a full week for the annunciation or ascencion or enunciation or something like that. Anyway, we then took the ferry to Italy and now we're in Tuscany (www.barcoreale.com for those of you wondering). Italy is great. It's beautiful (and looks alarmingly like California) and the people are really friendly. Well, when I say friendly I mean that they smile a lot and love our children (bello bambino, bella bambina).
We took the kids to a doctor in town that was reccomended by the campsite we're staying in. Emma's ears were bothering her and Finn still had a cough. Holly called him around 12 and he said that he'd be there until 1 so we drove down. Wonderful doctor, no white coat, his kid's artwork on the walls along with other obviously well-liked amateur art, lots of wood. No forms were filled out. He looked at Emma's ears and throat, Finn's ears and throat, listened to Finn's lungs, and looked at my throat. He decided that they were all related and prescribed anti-biotics. He then rummaged through his cabinets looking for free samples to give us. After he didn't find any he wrote out a perscription, offered us his hand and said ciao. We shook his hand and said ciao, but shouldn't we pay him before we left? He just shook his head dismissively, as if the idea of paying him for his services, which I'm pretty sure involved him going to lunch late, was absolutely ridiculous. How could he accept money from us? It was nothing, his pleasure, ciao bello. Holly and I just shook our heads when we got into the car at the idea of that happening in the US. Walk-in, no appointment, total strangers from out of town, and hey no problem, it's my treat. I love Italy.

Okay, so I was going to write a bunch of stuff. About Amsterdam. About France Miniature. About us going to Disneyland Paris and seeing all sorts of employees, er cast members, with facial and ear and eyebrow tiny band-aids and wondering what kind of occupational risks they were exposed to that inflicted those injuries. But its 2 am and Finn is sleeping after waking up with croup, which means gasping for breath and having a look of panic in his eyes and calling the Kaiser advice nurse and then SOS Medicins and having them make a house call and give Finn a shot of steroids so the swelling in his vocal cords would go down so he'd breathe normally. Which he now is. So I'll write that other stuff later. Maybe. Maybe not. Hopefully we'll find an internet cafe on Corsica or in Italy and update this. For now content yourselves with new pictures. Good night.

This is Holly here. Charlie has fallen (rather miserably) behind on our blog, so I'm taking over, at least for today. We have just over a week left in Paris (how did that happen?) so we're trying to get to a few of the places on our list that we have not yet been to yet. There are many places that we want to go again, as well. We "discovered" the Parc Floral last weekend, which is a little (actually quite big) corner of nature in far south-eastern Paris. Forests, beautiful flowers, people riding bikes (!), ponds, butterfly gardens and bonsai gardens (with some 200+ year old trees) were all a refreshing change from the urban life we live day to day. Not that there aren't lovely parcs throughout Paris, but this was somehow different because it wasn't in the middle of the city. At the other extreme, we have plans to take Emma and Finn (dragging Charlie kicking and screaming all the way) to Euro-Disney next week. We had promised Emma that we would go for her birthday in February, but it was too cold and rainy so we postponed it until warmer weather came. Except that it's still not warm and it's still rainy! I don't know what people are talking about when they extoll the virtues of Paris in the Spring. Sure, the flowers are pretty and it's nice to (finally) have leaves on the trees, but it is by no stretch of my imagination warm. We have had a few (very few) nice days - like 65 degrees - but for the most part we're still in the high 50s. At any rate, the cold and/or rain can't keep us away from Disney now...Next week I also plan to go (with a friend, yes I made a friend!) to La Mosquee de Paris for the women's only Hammam - a series of hotter and hotter steam rooms, with a cooling pool in the hottest room and salt scrubs and massages. It's supposed to be an amazing experience, so I'll keep everyone posted.

It's hard to believe that we're going to be leaving our garret apartment next weekend. It's come to feel something like our home, even though nothing in it is ours. We will be driving (in a rented Renault Clio) around southern Europe for 6 weeks. Well, we won't be driving the whole time, of course. We've picked 6 places and will spend about a week in each place: Corsica, Tuscany, Italian Lakes District, French Alps, Costa Brava (Spain) and the Dordogne region of France. We will be back in Paris for 4 days at the end of June before flying home and will be able to stay just around the corner from where we are now in a friend's apartment. I imagine that it will be a homecoming of sorts before the real one in California. Hopefully, the Mediterranean climate will be warm enough so that we aren't completely shocked by the Davis summer heat!

There are many things that I will definitely miss about living here: not having a car. food shopping several times a week. our baker and her fresh bread. all dairy products. discovering the lovely little nooks of Paris by accident. art everywhere. such beautiful flowers. bridges. the roar of the metro train as it approaches the platform. the way it stays light until 9:30pm (and it's only May!). the contrast of the metro on a weekday morning with the metro on a weekend evening. incredible shoes on everyone. kid's parks everywhere. a true sense of historical perspective. a truly multicultural environment. feeling perfectly safe walking alone at night. the views from our apartment.

There are also many things that I will most definitely NOT miss: the hassle of trying to navigate the metro (stairs, stairs and more stairs) with two kids and stroller. not being able to go out to dinner with our kids before 7pm and not being able to eat out at all for less than $40 (unless you only want a slice of pizza or a sandwich). really serious Parisians. feeling like we have to be quiet. the feeling of "otherness" almost all of the time. having to put the kids to bed really late since it doesn't get dark and then not having any down time before I want to fall into bed. controlled and artificial nature. lingerie ads everywhere (what is this doing to my daughter's future body image?), living on the 7th floor of an apartment.

I guess that's it for now. a bientot.

I've got the Amsterdam photos online and I hope to finish up my Amsterdam thoughts and post them tonight, but for now here's a teaser. One of the high points of the trip was on the way back on the train. We were travelling in first class on the high speed train and were served lunch, which consisted of three different kinds of fish. Holly commented on the abundance of fish to me, which Finn overheard. He then pointed a the fish on my plate and said "Nemo", and made the kissing noise that he used to use instead of the word fish. "Nemo". smack. smack.