Month: June 2011

364 days ago today I turned on my laptop in the house in Seattle at which we were staying, having earlier that day moved out of ours. I was alone for a few minutes, Melinda & Ella having gone to run an errand and Chloe being with a friend. On a whim, I connected to WordPress and set up this blog.

Let me repeat that. This blog was a complete whim, started without much thought. It has grown to become a significant piece of the sabbatical, attracting a multitude of faithful followers (thank you to all).

Today marks the official end of the sabbatical from a timing standpoint. But I am very excited to say that Melinda and I worked it out with the powers that be at PSCS for us to remain in France for 4 more weeks. I’ll continue to post daily updates here; in fact, I’ll post through the month of July which will include the first few days we’re back in Seattle. After that, we’ll have to see. If any of you faithful followers have ideas, let me know.

Meanwhile, thinking back on that first blog post I knew I wanted to have a photo each day and wanted to keep the text short. I’ve succeeded at the photo part, but I know sometimes I’ve gone on a bit long. To honor that first photo, I present today’s. As I did on Day 1, I used PhotoBooth on my MacBook and I’ve tried to emulate the pose.

It’s hard to believe it’s been a year. As the saying goes, “The days are long but the years are short.”

So about an hour ago Ella came outside to where I was just getting out of the pool (rough life, I know) and announced that she wanted to bake something. After considering various possibilities with Melinda, she settled on zucchini bread. She checked online for a recipe and together, we cross-referenced the ingredients with what we have in the kitchen. Turns out we were missing two items, eggs & zucchini.

Off we went to the neighborhood grocery store, the U Express, what I’ve come to refer to as our pantry, so close is it to our house. Regarding the eggs, it is interesting to note that they are not kept refrigerated in French grocery stores. You find them on regular shelves, much as you do canned goods. Of further interest, they are usually next to the milk, also not refrigerated but sterilized in plastic bottles that need to be stored in the frig after they are opened. Today’s photo is of Ella in front of said shelf.

Let it be known that we couldn’t stop at buying just the two missing ingredients. We also bought breakfast cereal (Golden Grahams, if you’re interested), Milka chocolate that makes Chloe go a little nutty, a mango, and I let Ella talk me into buying her some yogurt with chocolate chips.

This is another one of those posts that has oodles of personal meaning for our family but may not make a heck of a lot of sense to others. You see, standing with Ella in this picture, taken last Friday on her last day of school, is Monsieur Bregéon. M. Bregéon is the head teacher of Ella’s age group at Le Loquidy, the school she attended. He also was Ella’s history teacher. He is also the man who showed us around campus last July on our second full day in France.

We were all quite taken by M. Bregéon, me especially. For one, he is a class act. He is both kind and no-nonsense. He is funny and smart. In short, he has a combination of character traits that I think make for not just a good teacher, but for a good human being. I insisted Ella get his picture and was thrilled when she came home with this one.

A couple more things to note. First, every time we saw him he was wearing a very nice pair of jeans. I mean really nice. High-quality denim with orange thread stitching. I bought myself a pair last fall and took to calling them my “Bregéons,” a name that caught on with others, especially Christine and Frédérique, as well as Chloe, Ella and Melinda. I want to market them in the US under that name.

Also of significance was seeing him at the hockey game each time I went. He was sitting high above the ice in a spot reserved for officials of some kind, as far as I could tell. I decided he was keeping statistics.

To sum up: M. Bregéon is a classy teacher who likes hockey and has inspired me to wear nice jeans. Now do you feel caught up?

With Friday having been Ella’s last day of school, today became her first day of summer vacation (she & I don’t count the weekend). And since she has been so busy with school, seeing how long school days are in France, plus homework, plus just wanting to be home and re-charge her English-speaking battery after hours of hearing French, she’s missed out on some of the ordinary things the rest of us have done in Nantes. We’re going to use some of our remaining time in France to rectify that, dubbing these “French Culture Class.”

Today’s lesson involved taking Ella to Leclerc, the huge grocery store at the end of our neighborhood tram line. We took the caddy, of course, and made her pull it. We showed her how you have to use a coin (or a fake coin) to get a shopping cart. We showed her how to use the self-scan device as you put your items in your cart. Of all the things involved in a trip to Leclerc, I think Ella liked scanning the groceries the best.

Today’s photo is of the three of us going down the escalator to the parking lot and toward the tram stop after having finished our shopping trip. All things considered, including the huge mirror, I thought the shot came out kind of nice, even arty.

Maybe I’ll incorporate some photography into upcoming lessons, things like how to try to roll your R’s without success, how to have the kind bakery women give you French lessons, and the importance of remembering that most stores are closed on Sundays.

Totally hot. And by that, I mean completely hot. Really hot. In Fahrenheit, it’s 95 degrees. That’s hot. I’m hot. Totally hot.

Given that everyone else in the family is totally hot, and given that we have a pool, today has been spent either in or next to said pool. It was too hot for me to go get the camera to take pictures. But if I had, I would have tried to persuade someone to take my picture inside the blow-up horse I was using as a floatation device. I think it was designed for someone younger (in fact, Chloe kept saying how much 3 year-old Luce would like it), but it was doing the job for me. Celeste and Claire came over for a swim and with Chloe’s help they located a few more pool toys. There was the horse and a floating basketball hoop that prompted a game of P-I-G. Every game in the pool was welcome.

What you are getting for a photo is one I took yesterday as I conducted the weekly pool water test. We need to make sure the pH and chlorine levels are where they should be. To do the test I take small amounts of water from the filtration system located in the laundry room in the basement (that’s it in the background). I add a few drops of solution in each side, the one on the left, the red one, is pH, and the yellow one is chlorine. All looks good, which is a good thing considering the use of the pool today.

We had a very spontaneous get-together last night with Christine’s & Bernard’s family. Eldest son Max was having a few friends over and in order to provide them some space, we invited the rest of the family over for an impromptu dinner. It all came together quickly and at the last minute, including Christine and Melinda making a dash to the grocery store to pick up cheeseburger fixin’s. We wheeled out the grill, which hadn’t been used since last summer, and, together, Melinda and Bernard got it working. I grilled the burgers, Christine whipped up a salad and Melinda put together drinks and munchies.

Of course the pool was in use, as was the basketball hoop in front. I helped Théo refine his jumpshot and an abbreviated game of H-O-R-S-E was played. Given the grill was out and Christine said her kids had not experienced s’mores before, Chloe and Ella took it upon themselves to remedy that family oversight. Today’s photo of s’mores consumption took me back to the Nebraskan summers of my youth so adding the Polaroid effect seemed appropriate.

Earlier in the day Christine had made a lemon cake which she kindly added to the dessert offerings. Like all of Christine’s baking, it was delicious. After dessert, some of the kids settled in to watching Harry Potter on DVD. The adults (including Chloe) watched a couple of episodes of that classic American TV show Freaks & Geeks.

Now that’s a fine Friday night.

Today marks the conclusion of one of the most significant aspects of the sabbatical, Ella’s experience in a French school. This was the thing that *worried* me the most about our year away. Ella was the one least excited about being gone for a year. At 13, she would not only be away from all of her friends, she would be fully immersed in a huge school where she would not know anyone nor would she know the language. Her first day of school in September was one of the most stressful days of her life. She handled it, and all the challenges that came with this school year, with her usual charm. In short, we are very, very proud of her.

So, yes, today is a very significant day. For us, the photo captures several important things. The adult with Ella is her main teacher, Madame LaLaude. Madame LaLaude has been wonderful for Ella. Not only is she is thoughtful and empathetic, she speaks English. In Madame LaLaude’s hand is a chocolate chip cookie. Last night, with Melinda’s help, Ella made dozens of chocolate chip cookies, enough to give several to each of her teachers and enough for each student in her class to have two. Ella also wrote notes of appreciation (in English and with Christine’s translation help, also in French) to each of her teachers.

Of greatest significance to Ella and us is the T-shirt she is wearing. Her classmates surprised her late in the day with it, each having signed or written a message to her on it. Many told her to come back soon and that they would miss her. We are all quite touched by the gesture and the comments, choked up, in fact. Ella described it as being like the “soul food” activity we do back at PSCS on the last day of school each year, where students write heart-felt notes to each other on paper plates that get passed around. That she got something like this from her French school is a tribute to the school, to Madame LaLaude and to her friends.

It is also a fitting tribute to Ella. As it should be.

This morning, soon after we finished our jog home from dropping off Ella at school, Melinda suggested that she & I finish the walking tour of Nantes we started months ago. I had found online an English language guided tour of the city (go listen to it yourself – it’s fun and less than 25 minutes in audio, longer if you’re doing the actual walking part of the tour) when we first arrived. We each put it on an iPod and off we went. But back then we got both sidetracked and a little bit lost. Knowing Nantes better now, and feeling a bit nostalgic for when we first arrived, we decided to follow it today, and from the start.

Today’s photo comes just outside the Passage Pommeraye, the fifth stop on the tour. Note the earbuds and looks of concentration as we learn about the history of what they refer to as an “arcade.” I wrote about it before on March 24. And you’ll see that the doors are open so we were able to enter but didn’t. You see, we’re pretty familiar with this place. The delicious little pastries I wrote about on Monday, the kouignettes, were purchased just inside the entrance on the left (if my big head wasn’t in the way you could see the shop).

We had a great time on the tour and felt so much more aware and informed about Nantes this time around. Let me know if you take the time to listen to the tour. And use the search on the right to look up some of the stops by name. You’ll see which I’ve blogged about.

Let me first say that I’m a day late for a post with this title as the “Fête de la Musique” or World Music Day was yesterday. It’s a new event in my awareness but I learned that it’s a big deal in various parts of the world. It started in France but has since spread. The idea is for musicians to take to the streets on the summer solstice and perform. Both amateurs and professionals participate, and in some places it’s a huge event.

In Nantes yesterday, the main part of town was closed to traffic from 8:30pm-1:30am. Melinda and I decided to head into town to check out the festivities. We boarded the tram at our usual stop and were fortunate to get seats. By the time we approached the center of town the tram was packed. Everyone had to get off two stops short of the hub and walk the remaining distance, but that in itself was fun. We wandered around and saw dozens of musicians and bands getting warmed up. The crowd was immense, which surprised us for a Tuesday night. Beer was being sold on nearly every corner so most folks had a cup in hand. As the bands started to play we weren’t too impressed. But as we wandered further, we started getting into it a little more. There was the Irish punk band featuring a bagpipe player, and the two middle age women singing power pop in French. Great stuff.

We bumped into Christine & Bernard, who had come with Celeste and Claire. That’s Christine with the girls in this picture, waiting on their order of cotton candy or what the French call “barbe à papa” (daddy’s beard). Great name! Of course, Bernard put some on his face.

I made a quick dash over to the bank this afternoon, trying to time it so I could walk from the bank to Ella’s school to meet her at her dismissal time and then walk home. Turns out my timing was a bit off as I had about 15 minutes to kill. I realized this early enough in the walk to make a few detours, including this stop over a creek that runs east-west from the Erdre through the northern part of town. The trail along the creek has become a regular part of my run, as has this particular bridge. Given I was walking instead of running, I decided to stop and take a couple of pictures. Today’s photo is one result.

Also taking place today was a fine sushi lunch that Melinda, Chloe and I shared in town. Chloe is sad today, having learned last night that she won’t get to babysit Zacharie and Luce in July as was first planned. It turns out they can spend extra time with their grandparents. Chloe was very much looking forward to a month with them in which she had no homework or school obligations hanging over her head. She’s going to miss those kids a lot.

Last thing, a happy anniversary to Melinda’s parents, Dwight & Michele! We see Michele is celebrating by getting a Facebook page. Nice!