'Twas the Night Before Christmas

The Kids Enjoying Their Hot Chocolate on Christmas Eve


"I run this house!" "J'adore la creme!"




"I'm sleepy, but I won't admit it!"



"I Can't Wait for Tomorrow!"

Signs of Christmas

At the Maternelle, Sophie and Sam's classes made Christmas signs that were then posted all over Mougins at bus stops. This is the one right by the school. So festive!

At La Maison de Retraite

Sophie showing off her creation


Last week Sophie's class had a field trip to a retirement home. The goal was to hand out ornaments made by the children, make a treat (dates stuffed with marzipan) and sing some Christmas songs.

After passing out their handmade ornaments, the kids and "aged people" as they say in French donned plastic gloves and began cutting open the sticky dates. The ladies (I say ladies because there was not ONE man there) did most of the cutting, thank goodness.

But there was no marzipan (pate d'amandes) because none had arrived in the truck that made the daily deliveries to the home. So there was a lot of staring off into space, playing with sticky gloves and aged people worrying about what they were supposed to do next.

Finally someone made a grocery store run and saved the day, and most of the dates were eaten, save a few (like when I offered some to a very old lady in a wheel chair and she snipped back at me, "I didn't order anything.")

After everything was finished, the kids drank grenadine mixed with water (so gross!) and the directrice gave them all chocolates and huge tubes of Smarties. I'm not sure who got the better end of the deal!


Giorgios giving a lady a Christmas ornament

Carnival of the Absurd

Insane things get said at our house sometimes, mostly because our children are nuts.

The following exchange about Carter – our two year-old – occurred last night in the kitchen:

Stasha: Dave, Carter just pee’d all over the table.
Dave (to Carter, standing naked on his chair): Carter, are you kidding me?
Stasha: Did he get it in his meat?

My kids are sneaky and selfish

When the kids are playing on the computer and something urgent tears them away (like going to the bathroom or they have been called away to help clean the kitchen), they take the wireless mouse with them. Or they hide it somewhere, so nobody else can come along and take their place at the computer. The only problem is that sometimes they forget where they put it and Mommy can't find it. And when Mommy can't get on to people.com, Mommy is NOT happy.

Carter at Le Bois Jolie

Every Monday and Thursday from 1:30 - 5:00 Carter goes to day care, or what's called "Garderie" (meaning "to watch over"). Carter's Garderie is called Le Bois Jolie. It's about a five minute drive from the house and is set on a hill not too far from the old village. The ladies there are very nice and Carter - after several months of trepidation - is finally going there without too much complaint. He still starts to whimper when we pull up to the Garderie, but he no longer screams in terror anymore when Dave or I drop him off.

In France, all families in which the parents work (or the parent, if it's a single-parent family) are able to leave their children at a day care. The day cares are mostly funded by the state. There is a cost to the parent for leaving the child there but it's extremely cheap: two euros or less per hour, depending on your income. The care is excellent, the places are warm, clean, bright and happy, and the kids seem to really enjoy their time there. Carter doesn't like getting dropped off but he's never unhappy when we arrive to pick him up.

In our case, we received approval to take Carter there twice a week based on our request to expose him to as much French language as possible. And it's working: at two years old he probably says twenty words, and most of them are in French.

When You're Mad at Jesus

The Cloister at Jesus College, Cambridge (England)

If your kids are like ours, the sight of blood, for any reason, means that something has gone very wrong and a bunch of band-aids are immediately required to stave off certain, impending death. We had a near-death experience this very morning, in fact.

I (Dave) was driving the kids to school. Sam, five years old, was in the back with Sophie (six), when he said, with great worry in his voice: "Dad my finger is bleeding!"

"I'm sorry Sam," I said. "What happened?" I never took my eyes from the road, which was like every road in Provence: five feet wide and winding all over the place."

I pulled a piece of skin off and now it's bleeding!" He was ready to start wailing.

"Which finger is it?" I asked, hoping to distract him.

He stuck his middle finger between the two front seats so I could see it.

"It's the finger you point at the sky when you're mad at Jesus."

"Why are you mad at Jesus?" I asked.

"I'm not mad at Jesus," he replied. "That's just the finger you use when you ARE."

Don't ask me where they come up with this stuff. I just pay the bills.

Back & Forth...

Every Monday and Friday the kids come home for lunch. Mondays and Fridays are not easy. They go like this:

1. 8:15 - leave house to drop kids off at school
2. 8:25 - drop Abby off at school
3. 8:30 - drop Sophie and Sam off at school
4. 8:40 - drive home or to the gym or whatever
5. 11:15 - leave house to pick up kids from school
6. 11:30 - pick up Abby at school
7. 11:35 - pick up Sophie and Sam at school
8. 11:40 - drive home for lunch
9. 1:15 - leave house to drop kids off at school
10. 1:25 - drop Abby off at school
11. 1:30 - drop Sophie and Sam off at school
12. 1:40 - drive home or to the gym or wherever
13. 4:25 - leave house to drop kids off at school
14. 4:35 - pick up Sophie and Sam at school
15. 4:45 - pick up Abby at school
16. 4:50 - drive home

And at the Maternelle school (ages 3 to 6) all parents must walk their kids all the way to the classroom. Trying to find a parking space in the rain is an interesting experience. I see the crossing guard, Lawrence, more often in one day than I've seen my mother in the last two years. We're really getting to know each other.

SpongeKid Blonde Hair

As I'm finding out, the kids are amazing when it comes to learning this language. Their mouths haven't formed unbreakable habits yet, so they're able to mimic the sounds they hear from others exactly. In other words, they learn words and say them perfectly, without any real traces of an accent.

The kids have a French teacher that comes once a week and he's told us several times that the quality of their language development is inversely correlated with their age. In other words, Sam can speak and understand slightly better than Sophie (even though they're basically learning exactly the same things at school), and Sophie speaks and understands better than Abby. And all of us speak and understand better than Dave, who is really getting up there in years...

But there is a flip side to the kids' sponge-like brains and it goes like this:

The other day Sam said, "Mom, I know the "A" word. It's "As." (I guess he didn't quite hear that one right because there's a big difference between "As" and "Ass")

Abby immediately responded: "Mom, I know the "S" word."

So I said, "Yeah, spell it for me . . " So she replied "s . . . h . . . i . . ."

"OKAY!" I said. "You know it. How do you know that word?"

She said, "You were yelling it when you wrecked the car!"

It was a memorable moment for all the wrong reasons, as it was when I bashed the car into a low stone wall the other day and completely destroyed one of the doors. Never mind that the street was like 9 feet wide and going upwards at a 30 degree angle. In one fell swoop I taught my daughter new vocabulary and spent like two thousand euros. See below.

All Ready for Christmas!

Sam and Romeo at the Fete de Noel

Last week our friend Sabrina had a GREAT Christmas party for about 20 kids. They had a treasure hunt, fished for gifts with little poles, colored pictures, swung at her hand-crafted Santa pinata and gorged themselves on all kinds of yummy treats.

Naturally, the best part for Sam was the face painting. As you can see, he is really in the holiday spirit (just the wrong holiday)!

Pressure from Père Noel

"Collecting toys in good condition for disadvantaged children"

Like everywhere in the western world, it's Christmas season here. You can hardly go anywhere without hearing parents tell their children,"Tu dois faire sage!" Veiled threats that Santa is watching work just as well for French kids as they do for American ones. These days we're telling our kids in both French and English that Santa is watching. But I'm not so sure our kids are really getting it. Maybe they're cracking under the pressure, I don't know. I'm not proud. See below.

At the Saint Martin Maternelle school all parents must walk their children all the way to the door of the child's classroom. Dropping off, picking up, in the morning, for lunch, in the afternoon, it's all the way to the classroom. It's pretty good, actually, because it creates a huge number of opportunities to interact with other parents. Perhaps I'll write about that another time. If it's true what they say about the greater the sacrifice then the greater the love, then perhaps French people love their kids more than the Americans at Copper Creek, since we must drop off our crazy ones at the curb?

Anyway, when Dave was dropping off Sophie and Sam yesterday, Sophie noticed the huge pile of toys stacked at the entrance to the school. "Dad why are there all those toys?" she asked. "Well," Dave responded. "Some children are poor and can only have Christmas if we give them some of our toys. Wouldn't it be nice if we could donate some of our toys to others who need them?" he asked.

Sophie thought for a minute, then shrugged as she began walking away. "Yeah," she said. "Maybe we could give them all the boring ones."

Urgences

The emergency room in Grasse.
Last Sunday morning about 2am Sam woke up screaming at the top of his lungs. The master bedroom is downstairs and on the other end of the house so it took Dave and I a couple of minutes to realize we weren't dreaming the horrible noise.

When we both groggily reached the top of the stairs we woke up quickly. I found Sam doubled over in his bed in total agony, screaming "I feel like I'm gonna die!" He kept writhing around on his bed holding his abdomen, and no matter what we did we couldn't get him to hold still. It was obviously pretty bad.

We brought him to the bathroom and began interrogating. This is difficult when someone is already screaming. But we did our best.
"Do you need to throw up?" No. (more writhing).
"Do you need to go to the bathroom?" No. (Still writhing).
"Are you really hungry?" No. (Still writhing. And screaming).
"Does it hurt here?" (press on stomach) No.
"How about here? " (press on appendix) No.
"How about here?" (lower intestinal region) YES YES YES YES OWWWWW OWWWWW!

Naturally, in such a situation every parent is afraid their child has a serious illness like appendicitis. A stomachache becomes a brush with death and no less than the hospital will do. I called my sister, who has done medical transcription for years and knows every malady that exists, including (probably) gout and bubonic plague. Plus, it was only 6pm in Phoenix.

"It's very possible he has appendicitis," she said. I felt very scared.

"What happens with that?" I asked.

"Well," she said. "He'll be in incredible pain for awhile but then it will rupture and the pain will subside, so you might think he's doing better. But in 24 hours he'll be dead."

"In 24 hours he'll be dead?" I asked, not realizing I wasn't alone, and that everyone else in the room could only hear my side of the conversation.

"I'M GOING TO DIE????!!!!!" Sam began scream crying.

Dave rolled his eyes. He just wanted everyone to be quiet.

"You're not going to die," he said. "Just calm down and take it easy."

But Sam would not take it easy. With him still writhing on the cold tile floor in the bathroom, we decided to take him to the hospital.

When Dave came to visit Mougins back in May, Virginie made it very clear that if anyone had to go to the emergency room we must go to the hospital in Grasse, not the one in Cannes. The one in Cannes is apparently a death trap. All the French people are afraid of it.

The problem is I didn't know how to get to Grasse. So we debated about who to call, going down our list of five or six options, eventually settling on my friend Gina. Ultimately I just decided it would be better to call someone that I can speak to in English, so I wouldn't have to struggle for words while Sam was screaming in the background. Gina is American but has lived here for six years. She speaks good French, native English, and is also fluent in Italian and Spanish. Her husband is Greek but was born and raised in Sweden so speaks those two languages perfectly, not to mention English. They speak English to each other. Gina speaks Spanish to her kids and her husband speaks to them in Greek. Their kids speak French to each other. They speak Italian to their grandparents. I've seen her do it. I don't know how they can keep it all straight.

So I called Gina and Kosta answered the phone. "Meet me at our house and you can follow me to the hospital," he said. With Sam laying in the back of the car screaming, I rushed off in the night to get to the hospital. Dave stayed home because we didn't want to leave the other kids alone.

The route to the hospital was very windy and confusing. I would never have found it in the dark. We were almost there when Sam let out a huge burp. He stopped screaming.

Kosta parked his car and mine and I carried Sam into the Urgences. Luckily for us, we were the only ones there. The man at the desk took Sam's name, our address and phone number. Two seconds later we were in a room and a nurse was checking out Sam. Since he was no longer writhing or screaming it all seemed a little less urgent. But after she gave him a tylenol suppository and some kind of anti-cramping medicine, he had one more bout of writhing and groaning, so I was *kind of* glad that they could both see I wasn't crazy. The nurse handed me a prescription and that was it!

"Do I get a bill?" I asked Kosta.

"I don't think so," he replied, "I think it's free."

As we got in our cars and drove home I was so grateful that 1) Sam was okay 2) Hospitals exist and 3) There are kind people all over the world, and I know a lot of them.

I'll let you know if I get a bill.

This is Gina, who deserves her own post!

Transformation

Our two year-old has needed a haircut for a really, really long time. Like since the day we arrived in Mougins almost three months ago. But I'm a cheapskate and didn't want to pay €11 for a pair of hair cutting scissors, so a couple of times I have used the regular kitchen scissors to trim him up a little.

The problem is that his hair kind of grows up from his double cow-licks and he wiggles like a greased pig when I try to cut his hair. So you can imagine the results I got with that method.

When Dave came home from his trip to the US, I asked him to bring my hair cutting scissors as well as my hair clippers. You can see why I could hardly wait to get my hands on our baby:

As soon as I sat him down to use my great scissors, I knew it was not going to work. We went straight for the clippers. Aaah, alas, another unexpected international problem arises: The adapter for the plug allows the clippers to turn on, but apparently the voltage or something is too powerful because the clippers go crazy and roar out a sound so terrible that my ears hurt while simultaneously causing my entire arm to vibrate. But I waited so long for those clippers. . . there was no turning back.

Lollipop Trick-Not working



Trying to put in earplugs
(Why did we ever think that would work?)

I ended up wearing the earplugs myself while Dave held onto the baby (we can call him that because he is the very last one for us!) so I didn't accidentally knick his scalp. I clipped on the #2 head and went to work as fast as I could as not to permanently scar my son's attitude about getting a haircut. I don't think it worked:

Sulking at his traumatic loss

But now he looks so much better. A little shorter, but so, so much better!

Toilets

Hoping they don't have to go

This is the bathroom at Sophie and Sam's school. It's right in the middle of the hallway leading to their classrooms, so we walk right by it every day, multiple times. Notice that there are like 10 toilets in there (you can only see four here, but there is one out of the picture + five more on the other side of the bathroom), so a bunch of the children can go at the same time, which is usually right after lunch, before recess, etc. The teachers send them in basically at the same time, so they're not always asking to leave during class.

Notice also that the doorway to the bathroom is like five feet wide. And notice also that there is no door to the bathroom. Yes there is in fact no door. You just go. No door.

Tomorrow will be the tenth day since we have seen Daddy around here. He had to catch the airplane back to the U.S. right in the middle of our Halloween party. He of course went to support his brother, but then tacked on a few days in Arizona to tend to some business like turning our pool back from green and brown to blue, and buying Christmas gifts.

Unfortunately this trip coincided exactly with the 10 day Vacances de Toussaints. Don't get me wrong, I love a nice break from school now and then, but 10 days alone with four children . . . uh, need I say more?

This post has nothing really to do with France, except that one character in the story is French and we live in France. No insights into French culture or language, unless you know what merde means. Normally I don't use dirty words, but in this case, I believe it is warranted.

The story begins simply enough. Ysabault called to make good on a playdate with Abby that I offered her last week. I needed to go to Auchan (mix between Super Target and Super Wal-Mart) to buy groceries, so we invited Ysabault along. Of course, that would mean I would have to drive the schoolbus, er, the Trafic. I hustled everyone outside to the change the carseat and get going before we all starved to death.

No sooner than I had placed my things in the front seat did I realize I did not have the key. One look in they key dish reminded me of the last time I had seen BOTH keys to the Trafic: In the hands of the mischievous nearly two year old who rules our roost. But that was days ago!

A full hour later, after scouring the house, the cars, the garden and the guest house, I was desperate. Unfortunately, the last place I saw Carter holding the keys was near the trash can, and I had taken the trash out to the big bin a few times already.

And this is where the merde comes in. I pulled the black bags one by one out of the bin and started my search. I cannot bear to tell you how disgusting my trash is, so I will cut right to the chase: NO KEYS. What a foul waste of time! But, what the heck, the recycling bin was standing right there, so why not take a look?

No more fooling around, I tipped the bin right over and was flooded with empty milk cartons, salsa jars, egg crates, and much to my delight, a black car key! A little more sifting and I found the other one, at which point I breathed a huge sigh of relief.

I suppose I got myself into this jam when I didn't immediately take the keys from my toddler. When you get around to your fourth kid or so, more than anything you don't want to listen to screaming. I think that's why the "baby" of the family turns out they way they do. Needless to say, a tired Mom alone with four kids is bound to do something stupid around day 5 or so.

But I've learned my lesson: If you leave things to your two year old, you're going to be in deep merde.

the Halloween Fête

The Halloween Fête was a great success. That Saturday afternoon, as Dave was simultaneously preparing to leave the country for ten days and helping the kids hang balloons and signs up for the party, I was busy drawing jack-o-lantern faces on clementines and making spiders out of ritz crackers, peanut butter and pretzel sticks.

One by one the guests arrived, each parent laughing, saying "Merci" for us giving them a couple of hours sans kids, and then "Bon Courage!" as they slipped back through the gate.
Being the dutiful American who occasionally visits FamilyFun.com, I had not only prepared healthy and festive snacks for our guests, but also some great games like "mummy hands" and pin the nose on the witch.

Imagine this scene: 7 or 8 little witches jumping on the trampoline, 3 or 4 princesses swinging on the hammock, a few playing dolls on the kitchen floor, some on the monkey bars and some hanging around the family room watching "Harry Potter", which I had turned on earlier to set the mood for the day. We also had one self-described "diablesse" (she-devil): Ysabault, from Abby's class at school, who wore a witch's dress and a hideous pumpkin death mask with green hair that made her sound like Darth Vader when she talked. I couldn't understand Darth Vader when he was talking in English. Trying to understand a 9 year-old female Darth Ysabault speaking in French was hopeless. At one point I thought I heard her say "RESISTANCE IS FUTILE", but it turns out she just wanted a piece of candy. After that I asked her to remove the mask.

Darth Ysabaux

After about an hour of witches and princess madness, I tried to round them all up to force the "fun" of playing Halloween games on them. They were perfectly happy already, so it was no surprise that we only made it halfway through one round of "mummy hands." (Think hands wrapped in toilet paper trying to sort candy into different bowls). I gave up. Off they went to play again.

I insisted, however, on carving pumpkins. No one had even heard of a Jack-O-Lantern, and after the searching I'd done for pumpkins it became necessary to insist upon pumpkin carving. Or "il faut", as I hear a hundred times a day. The search was not easy. There were no big piles at the grocery store or at Carrefour (think Target or Wal-Mart) like in the states. I did find some teeny ones at a shop called "Botanic" for five euros each. So when I spied the guy with the truck selling potatoes on the side of the road, the flashes of big, fat, orange caught my eye. He had seven decent sized pumpkins and I bought the best five on the spot. It set me back €25 ($37) for five very flat, medium-sized pumpkins, but it was for the great cause of HALLOWEEN!

You can see that these pumpkins are not your typical US Halloween Carving Pumpkins. No shiny, bright orange skin, tall and fat, just waiting for a face or an elaborate cut out of a witch on a broomstick. Ours were much shorter, not super duper orange, and the insides were so gloopy the girls squealed in disgust and delight trying to scoop them out.

Abby's French tutor, Thierry (with whom, as far as I can tell she only speaks English), actually did an excellent job carving his Jack-O-Lantern. The mouth was carved underneath the pumpkin, but I thought his effort was otherwise outstanding. Incidentally, in this photo Thierry looks exactly like a monk, but those were in fact his normal clothes.

A Monk & a French-O-Lantern

Between the pumpkin carving, eating gobs of candy that people had brought to share (Dave said that many parents asked if they could bring something, so he just told them to bring a bag of candy), along with the witch's brooms I made from pretzels and fruit rollups, strawberries dipped in white chocolate (little ghosts!) and the pizzas we made, no one left hungry. Sadly, only one clementine was eaten, and not a single Ritz spider--must have been the peanut butter, since literally no one eats peanut butter here. That I've met anyway. In fact, I had my peanut butter shipped in two months ago when my mom visited from Ohio.

But the greatest thing about this party was that everyone in Sophie's class brought her a gift. It was a sea of Pet Shop, My Little Pony, Dora the Explorer and other wondrous things that delight a six year old, especially when it is not even her birthday! Needless to say, Abby was extremely annoyed. I asked Stephanie about the gift thing and she said, "the girls in Sophie's class must have thought it was her birthday. Nobody has a party here unless it's your birthday." Abby said, "Maybe I should throw a Thanksgiving party and I'll get an iPod". Smarty pants.

All in all, I think the party was a success. Lots of smiling girls running around having a great time, not a tear shed and no wardrobe malfunctions. And the very next week Abby was invited to have a sleepover with the She-Devil. Hooray! Our little plan worked.

Hump Day?

In this part of Provence at least - for children the age of ours - there is no school on Wednesdays. (I learned the other day that this was originally instituted because Wednesday was the day for children to go to Catechism). Other than on that day, in which we do whatever we want because we don't go to Catechism, the schedule is as follows:

a. 8:30am Drop off Abby at school. Run to the gate because we're late
b. 8:35am Drop off Sophie & Sam at their school (near Abby's). Theirs starts at 8:40am
c. 8:30/40am-11:30am School
d. 11:30am-1:30pm Lunch at home - yes, we go pick them up, then drop them off again
e. 1:30pm-4:30pm School
f. 4:30pm Pick up the kids
g. Wednesday - No School

There is an option for the kids to have lunch at school every day at what's called la cantine. But this is essentially for children whose parents both work, so isn't really open to us, unless you count Dave burning piles of rubbish in the back yard as a job. After a couple of weeks at school we were able to convince the woman at the Mairie (town hall) in charge of cantine that our kids needed to go at least twice a week so they could learn French better, by interacting more. Luckily my friend Stephanie did all the talking, and I just nodded like I had no idea what was going on. With a little wink, she agreed, and now the kids are in cantine on Tuesdays and Thursdays (that was the day I learned the word tricher). The kids can't bring their own lunch, so when poisson or quiche is on the menu, Dave and I just cross our fingers and hope we don't hear too much complaining on the ride home.

Although we don't like to drive to or from school 8 times a day on Mondays and Fridays, it's surprising how useful it is. We have to walk Sophie and Sam to their actual classrooms, so we see their teachers as often as 4 times a day. And we see Monsieur Gyss, Abby's very stern Directeur (principal) at least twice a week. In Phoenix I'm not sure I saw their teachers four times a year. And we've gotten to know a lot of parents because of it.

The whole no school Wednesday thing is fabulous. You're never more than two days away from the 'weekend', and therefore there is no "hump day". I mean, does anyone in the US really ever say "It's Hump Day!"? What a ridiculous thing. Just declare it: no school on Wednesdays, and Hump Day goes away. Problem solved.

School is Out!

School's out, school's out, teachers let themselves out? The other day we arrived at school to find a note on the classroom door:

Madame Sylviane has gone to attend to some family matters. She will not be at school today or tomorrow. Please take your children home.

Needless to say, Sam was thrilled! He got to come home and watch cartoons and play on Webkinz. In the meantime, Abby was also home from school nursing her "injured" foot. Dad accidentally jumped on it while on the trampoline and she was taking full advantage of the incident.

I called a friend to find out what to do as Abby would not be at school that day. "Oh, nothing" she replied, "just send a note tomorrow in her book telling the teacher she wasn't well." I wasn't thrilled to have TWO kids home from school, but was especially worried that Abby had missed a day, seeing as how she needs all the exposure to French that she can get.

But I needn't have worried! Apparently that very same day Abby's teacher was also out sick and therefore the entire class had gotten a free day off school. Even more wonderful, Madame Balloy would be out the next day as well!

Berets off to France on this one. Teacher sick? No sense wasting time or money to find a "substitute" teacher! Why pay for someone that will almost certainly sit in the room babysitting the children while they concoct ways to torture her or make fun of her behind her back? Rather, keep them home with Mom, Dad, Grandma or whomever to make sure the day is well spent.

I can't say we spent the day studying verb conjugations or practicing math, but any day we get to hang out with our kids is a day well spent.

Uh, Happy Birthday?

Last Saturday we went to our first real French birthday party!

Lots of kids, a few balloons, a heap of gifts, and of course, birthday cake.

The highlight of the party was NOT the birthday cake. It was brought out, somewhat unannounced (the mom walked into the room and started to sing, but there was no "gather 'round" call to the table) with a candle or two stuck into the bare top.

Everyone sang and helped themselves to the array of sweet popcorn, Haribo brand chewy candies, coke and juice. As you can see, there wasn't much cake consumed.

HOWEVER, there was quite a stir when the Champomy was brought out, and the children all cheered when the cork was popped out and went flying across the room. Trainin' 'em young in France.
Joyeux Anniversaire! By way of interest, here are some other photos from the party:



Of course, why wouldn't there be a baby ostrich, an ENORMOUS rooster and REAL champagne at a birthday party in France?

Dave is a Good Actor

Last weekend we were invited to go to Gourdon with a family we know from the Maternelle (the school for the younger kids).

We were very excited to go, although I was a little nervous because the mother, Marielle, speaks faster than any other person I have met in France. She makes no adjustments for me, so I understand about 75% of what she says. Dave maybe understands 20 or 30%?

Gourdon is perched on a craggy cliff and on the approach (very windy and narrow, surprise, surprise) the view is spectacular. I was feeling pretty motion sick by the time we arrived, so I couldn't wait to get on my feet.

The air was cool and crisp and the leaves on the trees were lovely shades of gold and red. Combined with a little overcast sky, the setting of an ancient town with buildings made of stone and cobbled streets, we all felt a little Harry Potter in the air!

The kids ran and played, jumping off stone ledges and in and out of the little shops. Marielle bought some yummy spice muffin things dipped on chocolate, so we all feasted on that fall treat while we stood at the wall and looked down the steep cliff at the villages off in the distance. All we needed was some hot chocolate and it would have been perfect!

I had a great time sniffing the scented soaps, like mandarine, chevrefeuille, magnolia, citron, lavande, pin, etc. I bought a couple of bars and also a very cute provencal tablecloth. The one I REALLY wanted was 170 Euros, but I settled for a different, less "authentic" one for only 30.

The best part of an outing is almost always the listening (you learn way more french if you just close your mouth and say "oui" a lot). So Dave gave it his best shot. Aurelion speaks enough English that Dave could have a decent franglais conversation with him, but as you can see from the picture, he is stupefied by Marielle.