Okay, since I´ve got a web connection, I´m gonna use it. First, let me say that (without overqualifiying too much) that the commerical truck drivers in the Catalunyian region of Spain (not to be confused with Basque passenger car drivers) are the worst drivers in Europe. Or at least much worse than any other drivers I´ve encountered while driving across France, Italy, and Spain. I think it is their habit of putting on the turn signal and then changing lanes, regardless of whether the lane is vacant. I guess I should give them credit for using their signals though. I feel that this might be something that doesn´t translate from real life to blog though. Still, nothing gets the heart racing like driving along at 140 kmh and having a gas tanker decide that he´s moving in, no matter what.
Okay, enough about that. It´s time for Exotic meaty treats of Europe. Number 1 would have to be the delicious four cheese pasta with smoked dried some kind of meat that I was served in Venice. the meat was called sfilacci, and was really tasty. I read the menu, which was written down on a little piece of paper and carried by the waiter, and decided that quattro formaggi con sfilacci sounded great. After the meal I asked him what it was and he said "orze" and I repeated it to make sure I was pronouncing it right "orze?" and he said "yes, orse, you know" and then made a clip clop noise with his tounge and I said "horse?" and he said "si, cavallo". So the real name of the pasta topping is actually sfilacci di cavallo. Yummy.
Number 2 is the Dutch treat called frykandel, with the stress on the del part, but pronounced much like fry candel, which I suspect it is named for. The owner of the Dutch place that we have eaten at twice now explained that Dutch tourists flock to his etcafe and gorge themselves on frykandel. He insisted that we try one and I´ll try to describe it. It is a sausage like/hot dog like thing that was either fried or baked or both, and served split down the middle with curry mayonaise, some sort of Dutch ketchup, and lots of chopped onions. Fabulous, just fabulous.
Oh, and yesterday we went to Barcelona. Nice town, nice tourist bus, great food.
Tomorrow we are off to the Dordogne in France and shortly we´ll be back in Davis, just as if it was all a dream.

Howdy from Cataluynia (or Catalonia or northern Spain, whatever you want to call it and however you want to spell it). After a whirlwind tour of the lakes region of Italy and Lake Garda we departed for the French Alps. We stayed in Bourg d´Oisan, about 45 minutes west of Grenoble. Nice place, really big mountains, lots of snow. The high points were driving up to Alp d´Huez along the same route that the Tour de France uses. This particular road has 21 infamous hairpin turns and about 3000 feet of elevation gain. The next day we drove up to a high pass, the Galabier col, along another narrow (perhaps a lane and a half wide with no guardrail and really long potential fall to the road below) windy switchbacked road. Wonderful view from the top, although I wish I had read the guide book before we went since it turns out that that stretch of road is the next stage of the Tour. I can´t imagine racing on these roads. The combination of altitude, the narrow roads, the really sharp turns, and the total lack of guard rails on the outside would be a brutal combination. That evening I was talking with a German family in the next caravan and the father casually mentioned that the whole family had cycled up to Alpe d´Huez on their mountain bikes, "even little 8 year-old Magnus". Wow. Apparently that wasn´t enough fun for the older children who navigated cross-country on foot trails with their mountain bikes to go back home. Reminds me of my neighbor Alex who cycles to Sac and back on a Schwinn without toe clips. No hand built carbon fibre racing models for these sturdy folk (Alex included).
But now we are in northern Spain. Eating traditional local food. Well, kind of. The first day we ate at a place called Jan Patat. Which is Dutch for "John Potato", and served great Dutch food, although we did have a tortilla, the egg and potato omlette thing that is in fact Spanish. And there is internet access in our campground. Which is a change from the alps where a couple of Kiwis complained about the lack of local access, saying that even in Macchu Picchu there were a variety of internet cafes to choose from. So expect another post this week before we depart for the Dordogne region of France.

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.

Wow, I don't even know where to start. I was just standing there and next thing I know my mother-in-law is in town for two weeks and then she's gone back to the states. So that was cool, and then next thing I know we're in Amsterdam for the weekend and that was cool also. And now there are less than two weeks left in the program, which means next thing I know I'll be back in a classroom and its September. Hmph, time flies when you are having fun. The time with Jeanie flew by, partly since I was teaching most of the time, which seriously cut into my sight seeing time. We went to Versailles, which was really amazing, almost unbelievable actually. I was going to write that I was amazed that the royalty was so out of touch with the common people, the amazing dichotomy between peasants and the ruling class, but then I remembered that George Bush Sr. during his campaign went to a grocery store and didn't know how much milk cost AND HAD NEVER SEEN A BARCODE SCANNER. So I guess la plus ca change, la plus meme chose, if you know what I mean. We also went to Giverny, the home of Monet, which was also lovely, but a bit smaller than I expected. Somehow I had gotten ideas about how big the pond was, and how big the bridge was, and they were both much smaller than that. The gardens were lovely, the pond and water lilies and bridge were lovely, and the weather was lovely. I got the feeling that the house felt melancholy. Seeing the pictures of the family around the breakfast table it was easy to imagine how the house would have sounded with all the children running around and laughing and playing in the house and yard and none of that was happing now. We spend Easter morning having brunch with a group of anglophone ex-pats, followed by an Easter egg hunt in Parc Montsouris. There were at least 7 couples in attendance, with their children, and it was really a lot of fun.
On a local note, the sycamores outside have leafed out finally, and the chestnuts are flowering. Spring is finally here! although there are still cold rainy days. Holly and I got to go out to dinner before Jeanie left. We splurged and went to a really nice restaurant across town. And when I say nice I really mean really quiet. It was the quietest place I've ever been to. The service was exceptional - the server came out with a little silver carpet sweeper (perhaps 10 cm (4 inches) wide) between courses and admonished us to let the wine sit for a bit before he poured it. Recently, Emma and I went to the Paris Ballet at the Opera Garnier (photos to come). The opera house is absolutely gorgeous, in an ornate kind of way - lots of gold trim.

Next time: Amsterdam!

Oh my God, it has now been three weeks since I've updated this thing. I mean I knew I was suffering from blog burnout, but this has gone way beyond that. I promise that by Tuesday night I'll have updated the blog with the lurid details of my mother-in-law's visit, thoughts on Paris, and our trip to Amsterdam. And I'll have up new pictures as well. Till then....

I was going to write a top ten list about living in Paris, but then I thought I'd rather write a top whatever list and not try limit myself to ten. But then a friend wrote me an email about cool things in France and I thought that she was absolutely right about many of the things she said and that they were some of the things I was going to put on my list. And then, while I was walking around with Finn waiting for Holly to finish getting reservations on the train to Amsterdam I wandered past an independant movie theater. I was gazing in the window and a woman came out and gave me a brochure about an upcoming film festival. I thanked her and kept walking, but it hit me that Virginie was absolutely right, that one of the best things about living here is the feeling that you are part of a community. A small community. Which is a funny feeling to have in a city of 10 million or so people. But the spatial design of Paris was intended by Baron Haussmann to create this sense of place. So, having a favorite cheese shop, and a favorite bakery, and a favorite wine shop, and a favorite pastry shop (everyone in Paris apparently knows that a good bread baker doesn't make good pastries, nor does a good pastry chef make good bread, and I'm inclined to agree with them) is a wonderful thing. We mourn the two days a week that the GOOD boulangerie is closed and we are forced to make do with mediocre baguettes from the OTHER boulangerie. Although if we walked just a block (rather than half a block) there are two or three more boulangeries that we could get our daily bread from, it just seems so far to walk. So, without further delay, some of the really cool things about Paris:
1) the electric meter is inside our house. It has an amber led that blinks more rapidly when we're using more juice, and the lcd display is selectable to show total power used, instant watts being used, instant amps being used, and four other readings that I don't understand. How simple and cool to know exactly how much electricity we are using.
2) the really cool small cars. I saw a new VW beetle parked on the street out in front and I actually thought it looked really big. Compared to the smart cars and the micro hondas and the renault clios, it really is big. But when you are paying $5 a gallon for gas, fuel economy is important. I've only seen 2 hummers here, and come to think of it, they were over in the section of town where the embassies are so they probably were owned by Americans.
3) excellent, inexpensive wine, bread, cheese, and food in general. $4 for a decent red, .93 for a baguette, and $10/lb for the really good cheese.
4) while I don't know anyone that actually grows the food we eat, it is nice to have the beginnings of a relationship with our bread and wine purveyors. Also very nice is seeing that older man walking his small dog every day. After about a month he would crack a large smile whenever he'd see me either running in the morning or walking with the kids in the afternoon. So much for that whole unfriendly french thing.
5) beautiful motorcycles that are only sold in europe. I'll be doing a whole series on French vehicles ( VW turbo diesel hearse, mercades minivans and garbage trucks, and other unusual cars and trucks) so the pictures will be worth more than a couple hundred words.
6) walking around and not relying on a car. Most places have free delivery with a minimum purchase. Which makes a lot of sense. After all if you own a motorcycle or a smart car, you are not going to be in a position to lug home a king sized bed set. But the grocery stores as well have the same service. I've read that the trend in Paris is to do online shopping for non-perishable items and have them delivered, and then go to your local neighborhood baker, cheese shop, butcher....which seems like a good use of resources and time somehow.
7) abundant parks and green spaces, not that you can actually walk on the grass, but they are nice to look at. I've seen posters up in many of the parks promoting "the secrets of spring", the new bulbs that will be popping up soon. It's nice that the asthetic appeal of the parks and green spaces is something that Parisians really care about. I was worried about going nuts with all the concrete, but I've gotta say, Paris is a beautiful city. If I had to live in a big city, Paris would be the one.
Well, that about wraps it up for tonight, I'm sure I've forgotten many other important things, but they'll have to wait until the next list.

Happy Poisson d'Avril! or april fish! The French apparently play practical jokes on each other on April Fool's Day and then present the victim with a chocolate fish (while crying out poisson d'avril). In keeping with my philosophy of adapting to local customs I convinced my cultural geography class that they really were having a surprise midterm exam today. I made up for it with hazelnut-filled chocolate fish though.

I am well aware that I've been slacking on the blog. I'll try to make this one short and sweet to try and encapsulate the last two weeks of our lives.

So Doug and Carol visited us and that was nice. We ran around Paris doing touristy things, but because we were showing someone else the sights, I felt somehow not touristy, but rather locally. The pictures from this period are up on the website, including the fabulous one of Finn parked, while sleeping, in front of one of the lamps outside the Louvre. I really just stepped away, shot the picture, and went back to him. Honest.

We also went to Italy. Specifically the Cinque Terre region, which is also called the Italian Riviera. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. On so many levels. We took the TGV, which is something that all Americans should experience. It travels at an average speed of 180 mph. Average. Top speed was 515 kmg, which is really moving. It was comfortable and quiet. And to think that every year Amtrack almost goes bankrupt in the US. Anyway, the conductors were great, although the Italian ones were way cooler (better fashion accesorizing - scarves, ear rings, pony tails - and this just for the men).

The pictures for the Cinque Terre are up on the site so you can look with envy at the scenic and picturesque town of Vernazza, where we stayed. Every morning we'd stroll down to the breakwater with a bag of fresh focaccia and pastries and get some cappucinos from the bar next to the sea. The cappucinos were the best I've ever tasted, and I worked in a coffee shop during college. Also they had attractive chocolate syrup swirls painted in the foam by the attentive barrista (see photo for more info). The children seemed to enjoy the local version of hot chocolate, which resembled a cup of warm pudding more than the traditional drinkable version they were used to. No one complained however. Oh, and there was a gelateria next door to the pensione we stayed at with (again) the best gelato I've ever tasted. Did I mention that the Cinque Terre region is just down the coast from Genoa (Genova), the birthplace of pesto? We also availed ourselves of locally produced pesto, pasta, and wine.

This region has been famous for its wine since Roman times. Somehow the relaxed pace of the Cinque Terre gave me hope for the future. I was struck by how little it had changed in the last 2000 years. Cars are not seen on the streets, travel is by train or boat, and the main product is wine. Geologists predict the end of cheap oil sometime around 2040. In many areas this will be catastrophic (LA for example), but I got the feeling that the Cinque Terre will just keep on keeping on. No cars? Okay we use sailboats then.

I really have to reccomend the Cinque Terre as a wonderful place to visit. I think I've run over my column space for today so I'll sign off, but I'll pick up next time with the tale of my cross-town excursion with kids and stroller and no wife to find an anarchist skateboard shop.

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.

So its another Sunday in Paris. After yesterday's experience of Finn with no nap we decided to take it easy this morning and do our daily big outing this afternoon. I'd like to state that I was premature in declaring Friday chilly. Today was chilly. Little snowflakes accompanied me on my run this morning. We went to the flea market by metro and were accompanied by, yes, little snowflakes. Holly said her feet went numb. Emma said she was the coldest she'd been since yesterday. Finn just kinda went numb and didn't do much, except fall asleep. After lunch we went to the Guimet museum of Asian art. Today the line was even longer to get in, but was moving much faster. Wonderful collection of Tibetian art and artifacts.
I should let you know that as I'm writing this I'm eating a creme brulee from Monoprix. 3 euros for a two pack - and they each came in their own glass jar suitable for broiling! Again, I gotta say how happy I am with the food here.
Well, that about wraps it up for tonight. To summarize:
Cold, snowy, flea market, asian art museum, creme brulee.

It is still Friday, at least for a little while anyway. We tried to go to the Guillemet Musee of Asian Art this afternoon after a nice walk to the park to see the ice this morning. (Look children, ice!!) By the time Finn's nap was over and I got off the couch and we got the kids bundled and got onto the metro and got off the metro and onto another line and then off that one it was around 16h (thats 4 PM for those of you not on euro time). And there was a line around the block to get in for some reason. We decided to walk around the area (Trocadero, across the Seine from the Tour Eiffel) and check out the scenery. Nice statue of Geo. Washington on horseback with erect saber. Very revolutionary war heroesque. Anyway, we had a nice time wandering around, then the kids began to melt down so we went home on the metro.
When we got home we picked up dinner parts from three local places - the local baby supermarket (wide selection, small store), a bakery (baguette traditional), and the gormand tradition store (already made quiches). I am still gladdened and amazed by the low price and high quality of food here. 3 euros for a really nice quiche, 95 cents for a loaf of bread, 4 euros for a really decent bottle of red wine. I'll say that again in case Corey reads this. 4 euros for a really decent bottle of wine. It is great to be able to choose from 4 bakeries within a few blocks.
For Davis people I think it would be the same if you lived around the corner from the Nugget supermarket, except that it would have to be much smaller and cheaper, the food would have to be better, and you'd have to pass 3 bakeries on your way to it. So I guess it isn't like that at all.
I think I'll try to put up a new page of pictures each week, so look for another installment this weekend.

I just went for a run and I thought it felt cold. I mean it has been snowing (for 5 minutes at a time, once a day) here for a few days. I thought it was cold when my hands felt numb, and then again when I saw the frost on a car roof, and then again when I got to the park and saw the grass frosted over, but I knew it was cold when I saw the lake frozen over at the park.

Weather.com says outside temp is -3C, 27F. Yup, chilly. Apologies to the East Side Crew in St. Louis for calling -3C chilly, but hey we're from Davis.

This morning we went to St. Chapelle, which housed the crown of thorns ; ). It is next to Notre Dame. Anyway, wonderful place. We entered on the ground floor and both Holly and I thought, hmm, this isn't as beautiful as we thought it would be. And then we went up to the 1st floor. Wow. It puts Notre Dame to shame. Huge intricate stained glass windows. Not to be missed. Following that we went to get ice cream, despite the fact that when we left the house the 'real feel' temp was 22 degrees F. Nice ice cream at Berthillion's on Isle St. Louis. Even if your hands go numb.

Our next door neighbor Yvette gave Emma and Finn hand-me-down jackets! A really nice, touching, gesture from relative strangers.

Okay, I've got the pictures from the first days up and running for your printing pleasure. Let me know if there are problems with downloading them.

Another day of snow showers. Very, very cool, in many senses of the word. I've put up the next batch of pictures and they can be found at from a link at http://ic.arc.losrios.edu/~thomsec/paris/paris.htm. These should open in a new window and allow you to print them to your heart's content. I'll go through and process the first batch of pictures by the end of this weekend.

Two great days of birthdays in a row. Emma's featured a trip to the Marmottan museum, featuring some of Monet's works, which is why she wanted to go there. Finn's featured a pony ride and hot chocolate.

Chilly Monday morning and we're headed off back downtown again. We made it to Brentano's book store, and then had to return home so I could go teach. After class this evening on my way home I ran into Holly, Emma, and Finn at the local small grocery store, which was funny since I was just wondering how they had faired with the really chilly weather this afternoon when I knew they'd be shopping. Anyway, just as I saw them it began to snow. Not really hard, just a little, as if to give credibility to the notion that it was really cold.

There are several projects I'm cooking up right now - some mini-essays that I'll get around to in the next few weeks, and posting the most recent pictures. The pictures should be up Wednesday, for those of you who are wondering what we've been up to, visually speaking.

This morning was a frigid, grey day so we went to the Cimitare du Montparnasse, home of Jean Paul Sartre, Simone de Buvoir, the sculptor Brancusi, and a bunch of other dead people. I'll post some of the better monuments (including "the kiss" by Brancusi, which wasn't on his grave but tucked away in another corner). We went out to eat after that to the Cafe d'Orleans around the corner from our apartment. While we were waiting for our food to arrive a family sat at the table in back of us and looked over their menus. The wife then commented to her family that they should leave because "it didn't seem too French". Well, they did leave, which left Holly and me scratching our heads. We looked at the menu, looked at the bar which was filled with actual French men drinking Kir, the official French aperitif, and smoking, the semi-official French activity. Go figure. We had a chuckle, as well as the wonderful holier-than-thou glow that comes from being morally superior. After lunch we went on the metro to the Opera district to go shopping. Well, everything (almost everything) was shut down because it was Sunday. The huge grand magasins, the French equilivents of Sacks 5th Avenue, were closed and gated. It felt kind of like a ghost town. The only other people on the streets were tourists looking at the Opera, and those who didn't know that Everything shuts down on Sunday. Well, everything except the Starbucks, which was packed. We took a walk while enjoying the grey overcast and temperatures in the upper 30's. We walked past the gilded statues of the Opera, past the Place des Victoires, past the Haussmannian architecture (triangular street corners, 2d and 5th story balconies, shops on the ground floor, long wide boulevards), down to the Tuileries gardens and the back of the Louvre. We stopped and bought crepes and marvelled how easy and cheap it is to buy really good food. We decided to keep walking past another metro stop and walked across the Seine on the Pont Neuf bridge and by Notre Dame where we caught the RER train home. We did a lot of walking in really cold weather, but it was another of those days that I'm sure we will remember for a long time. The evening was capped of by a lovely dinner at home, followed by the cheese course. According to Holly, 20% of the space in our refrigerator is taken up by cheese. Hopefully we can get that up to 33% soon as we find more wonderful varities.

Emma and I set off for the African quarter this morning, just the two of us. Its nice travelling with just Emma, I really miss the time I used to have with just her on Saturdays when Holly was at work, and Finn just a glimmer in someones eye. The African quarter felt different from anywhere else we've been in Paris, or anywhere else I've ever been for that matter. Mostly north Africans, with some Algerians thrown in. Many small shops selling everything - hookas, clothing, medical supplies, beauty supplies, bulk food and spices, beautiful raw cloth, unusual shoes, halal meats, unidentified sticks (tooth brushes) both in bulk and in cellophane two packs. I bought a scarf for myself, and a necklace for Emma. We wandered around up and down some side streets and caught the metro back home. We bought some pain au chocolate (square croissant with chocolate inside) to take home and eat with Finn while drinking hot chocolate. Which we did.

Today, the Louvre. It is big, rather big, really really big. And chock full of paintings, and sculptures, and gilded things, and various crown jewels. We saw the biggies - the Venus de Milo, the Winged Victory of Samothrice, the Mona Lisa. And some other things. The crowd scene around Mona was surprising. Most people seemed to be viewing her through a view finder or LCD camera screen. Many people were holding up their cell phones to snap the "I'm here" shot. Rather surreal, especially after reading "The Da vinci Code". Emma really enjoyed the venus de milo, but preferred the tile mosaics since they are closest to tapestries, which she's really into these days. We walked around the gardens in the Tuilleries and over to Rue Rivoli, where Holly bought a beret for Emma for €6.

I've made a new Paris central page at http://ic.arc.losrios.edu/~thomsec/paris/paris.htm
It will be the main page with links to this blog as well as the pictures as they are posted.

Monday morning and we're off to the Jardin des Plantes. We went to the Arene de Lutece, a Roman arena that dates from the 1st century BC. The city has stabilized it and it's open to the public. Another amazing historic site. We could walk on the floor where gladiators had been 2100 years before us. Rather staggering. After lunch I went to work.

Sunday in the Marais (4th arrondisment). We all went to the Carnavalet museum. It was very nice since it had lots of great information about Paris, beginning in the Pleistocene (200,000 years ago) up through the various King Louises and the revolution, and it was free. Afterwards we cruised the Marais, which is the traditional Jewish quarter, as well as having an upscale area. After a great falafel we went to the Bastile site. Oh, happy birthday Mom.

Valentine's Day from the most romantic city on Earth (according to some magazine). We blazed across the city to go to Brentano's Books, an english book store by the Opera Garnier. Nice big store. I purchased French for complete morons or something like that and we all wen home. After that Holly and I went out without the children, who were at home being sat by one of the staff from the AIFS office. Well, we paid her, it's not like we get free baby sitting. It was nice to go out an experience a French lunch without the kids. Nothing too special, except the company.

The pictures are up! and can be found at: http://ic.arc.losrios.edu/~thomsec/paris/FirstDays.htm

It is Friday the 13th, but somehow I didn't notice. Another nice day - sunny and warm. We went to the Tour Mountparnasse, the tallest building in Europe. Hazy, surprisingly smoggy view from the top. The Tour Eiffel was a dim outline in the haze, as well as everything else in the distance. Holly says the high point was fresh warm pain au chocolat afterward. Emma enjoyed the view and found Notre Dame, Luxembourg gardens, and the dome of Les Invalides, while Finn liked the telescopes.

This morning we went to the Cluny Museum (Le museum de la moyen age). The Cluny features the Lady and the Unicorn tapistry, which was nice to see, and is built on top of Roman baths that were almost two thousand years old. I really enjoyed that part since I'm from California where old things were built in 1960. I've had some thoughts about that about our apartment, which was only built in 1902. The idea that there would be an entirely different mindset to a culture with very old things that were updated and repaired rather than totally destroyed. How do you mix building materials and techniques from 1784 with fiber optic internet cable or Wi-Fi? to say nothing of older innovations like plumbing and electricity. We took the higher speed metro (RER) and for some reason the descent seemed eternal - escalator after escelator going down and down. More work. I took my French Life and Culture class out and about our neighborhood so they'd have some idea of where the grocery store is, where to find bread, go jogging and the like. They seemed to enjoy it, although some of them have really been getting around.

Went to the Marais district in the 4th Arrondisment to find an American book store called the Red Wheelbarrow. Nice bookstore, small and personable. Like the way most bookstores used to be before the advent of the mega stores. Rather typical of most things Euro-French - small and high quality. Like less is more, like bigger isn't always better. Very satisfying, except for trying to mix a small bookstore with small rambunctious children. I went to work. After work reception with nice hors d'ouvres and drinks. Since this didn't happen at ARC the drinks were more civilized - Kir coctails with white wine and cassis juice.

Today was my first day of class. I was as excited as usual, and spend the night before getting ready. I laid my clothes out and got my Pee-Chee folders out and sharpened pencils. Nice bunch of students, large classes in rooms that lacked ventilation, but overall workable. The students had a lecture on the history of Paris which was really interesting.

I had to work today. Well, actually I had to sit in an auditorium and listen to an orientation for the students and then I had to ride around Paris on a guided tour bus for a few hours. The tour bus was actually really cool. One of those touristy things that we wouldn't have done on our own, but what the heck. It turned out to be very informative and we saw a lot of the city. Sitting on the bus while these amazing sights whizzed by was another high point the Rodin Museum! Les Invalides! Napoleon's Tomb! the Arc de Triomphe! entering the insane traffic circle around the Arc de Triomphe at high speed! in a bus!! the Champs Elysees! The Obelisk! The Louvre! The Opera Garnier! The square where they set up the guillotine during the revolution! just one thing after another capped off by Notre Dame again.

Our big activity today was going to the Jardin du Luxembourg. Paris to the Moon cover - the Palais de Medici built by yes, one of those Medicis in 1630, at the Jardin du Luxembourg. Huge pay-per-play playground.

We went back to Parc Mountsouris to try to see a puppet show and got rained out. The experience was rather nice and included hot chocolate.

Okay, another great day. I'll try to not keep saying that but we went to Notre Dame and the deportation memorial so I'm sorry but it was a great day. I was really surprised at how much I enjoyed Notre Dame. I took some nice pictures of Point Zero, which is the actual point from which distances to Paris are measured. Geographically cool. We walked along the Seine River and saw all the little book and curio stalls, passed by the shop of a luthier (one who repairs lutes and stringed instruments), saw the bookstore Shakespere and Co.

We walked to Parc Mountsouris in the morning, which is a great park with a waterfall, small lake, hills, grass, trees with their scientific names, and some sort of mysterious meterological observatory.

My birthday. I had some cake. Great day: We took the metro for the first time. The metro rocks! Cheap, easy, convienient, fast. Everything public transit should be. So our first metro destination was the Tour Eiffel, but we didn't tell Emma where we were headed. We got off the metro at the bir hakeim stop and went upstairs and walked toward it and let Emma discover it. She was thrilled (Mommy, Daddy, I found the Eiffel Tour!! It's right there!!! I found it!!!) Very cool for that to happen. We didn't go up, but walked around underneath and enjoyed the atmosphere. We took some pictures (Emma against the tower to be posted soon, really). and then went home. Holly went shopping and cooked a great birthday dinner capped off by a fabulous cake from a local patisserie.

We are here in Paris, and most of you are not. We were in the air this morning on the first leg of our flight. I was looking forward to seeing Ireland, but there was clouds cover that began over the ocean and didn't break. We landed at Heathrow, did the changing gates thing, sat down and then boarded before I had a chance to look in the magazine shop at the cool British car mags. Took off, had lunch service (the veggie chicken caesar sandwich), and landed. Southwest and Americawest could learn a thing or two from BA in the passenger feeding arena. Once we were over the channel the clouds broke and I could see the meanders of the Seine, which was cool, but not as neat as the chateaus we saw a few minutes later. We landed at Charles de Gaulle, collected our bags and left. We had read all about the customs information (bring serial numbers and receipts for electronic equipment to prove you purchased it, red line if you have things to declare, green line if you don't) but we got our bags and left straight away. It was a little disorienting. Where are the dogs? The chain smoking customs agents in our faces? Took a shuttle from the airport around the perimeter road to our apartment. Nice driver, looked a little like our friend Ajay. Saw the big box stores (Ikea, and a bunch of French ones I didn't recognize) on the outskirts. Got the key to our apartment, got settled in and went out for a bite to eat. Really jazzed at the Frenchness of the whole scene - Small apartment! Kitchen in a closet! Cool French light switches! Small cars! Small dogs! Motorcycles! Scooters! We walked a few blocks to the next major street, ave General Le Clerc, and actually had an omlette and frites for dinner in an amusing smoke filled atmosphere. Lots of atmosphere. Then we came home and went to sleep.

Our flight over. Not too much to say. Nice big plane, great flight stewards (especially Vito, who has kids of his own and therefore an extra large soft spot for Finn, and Tony who was also great) Tony brought out kid fun bags unasked - nice tote bag with age appropriate activities for each of the kids. British Airlines has the greatest vegetarian dinner ever. Some kind of vaguely North African meal - chick pea curry stuff, couscous, eggplant stew. Great, absolutely great. Stewards coming through the cabin every 20 minutes with water and juice trays. Very attentive. Later they brought out a little Britax folding car seat, or well airplane seat, for Finn. He overflowed. Really. They said it was made for kids up to 30 pounds, which he is, and he's not a gangly guy by any means, but he overflowed. Arms and legs spilling out, but hey, he slept for a couple of hours which was great. Emma slept for a little bit, Holly pretended to sleep, and I watched the Northern Lights out the window. If you haven't flown an international flight you probably haven't seen the amazingly cool lcd units that are either in the back of the headrest in front of you or on a fold away pole if you have a bulkhead seat. They show the usual movies, and this is the coolest for geography geeks everywhere, ACTUAL GEOGRAPHY INFORMATION. I didn't bring my GPS unit on the plane because I didn't want to be wrestled to the ground by Tom Ridge's Sky Marshalls (Its a GPS unit not a bomb, I'm a geographer not a terrorist.....) The map channel scrolled through a couple of screens that showed a map of the whole route, a more detailed map, a local map showing the towns in the immediate vicinity of the plane, a flight info screen showing altitude, airspeed, tail wind speed, outside temperature, and all the units cycled through metric and US units. Very very cool. I caught a few minutes sleep.

Howdy everyone, this is just a test of Blogger to see if it works. I will be posting our info about Paris this spring from time to time. Check back next Wednesday to see if anything has happened.