October 2011, Annecy

Michael Douglas in Annecy

Mary sizes up her competition on the Rugby field

WHAM!  Take no prisoners!

Elisabeth planting our flower boxes.  We're not quite up to par with others in  town, but we tried.

La Vieille Ville, Annecy-October

Swimming in Lake Annecy, just in front of our apartment, October

Dragon Boat Races / Festival

Swimming across the street from apartment

Scottie and Elisabeth in our apartment 

Picnic dinner at the lake organized by Elisabeth

Scottie's "montagne" class with school.  Mont Blanc in the distance

Mary's birthday at school

Mary and classmates at school on her birthday 

Mary in class

Birthday dinner at our favortite "French" restaurant right near home, called Vivaldi

Our favorite waiter 

Descent des Alpages festival, Annecy

More market photos.  I can't help myself!

Birthday decorations in our apartment by Scottie, Jimmy, Mary, and Elisabeth

Mary's birthday

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Both girls begged for "purses" for their birthdays

There was a strike at Jimmy's school, so cafeteria closed for lunch on a Tuesday.  So, he was invited to a picnic at the lake with his friends for lunch that day.  

Thanks to the strike, a nice spot for lunch for Jimmy and his friends

Elisabeth and friends at inter-school running race

Elisabeth calling "Allez!!!" to her classmates running

Weekend sailing races - Lake Annecy

Alex and Scottie tackle homework

Setting for Scottie's "Cross du College." Lake Annecy.

Finish line

October 2011

We are all settling in to life in Annecy. School is going well for all. At the end of September, Jimmy gave an excellent slide show (in French) which introduced himself, his family, and Utah to his classmates. He showed spectacular photos (about 40 (!) in all) and prepared simple text to go with each photo such as “Je m’appelle Jimmy Bocock. Je viens des Etats-Unis, en Utah, a Salt Lake City. J’ai un frère et deux soeurs . . . . .” you get the idea. His slide show was a huge success! His teacher and his classmates loved it. He was quite pleased with himself.

One night we were eating dinner at an outdoor café . We were with our friends from Park City, (our first visitors) Joe, Jennie, and Kelton Ferriter/Van Horn. Alex and Joe spotted a man who looked like Michael Douglas. I told Elisabeth that I would give her 5 euros if she went up to the man and asked if he was Michael Douglas. So without a moment of hesitation she (and Mary, Jimmy and Kelton) went up to the man and stood beside him as he spoke with several people outside the restaurant. The man started to walk away and Elisabeth trotted after him, tugged on his jacked and said, “Pardon. Pardon Monsieur.” He replied “oui?” she said “Vous etes Meeechal Dooglass?” He replied, “Yes I am Michael” and proceeded to ask the children how old they were and why they were in Annecy and then told them about his own children. Our kids were all thrilled, although they still have no idea who Michael Douglas is, but it doesn’t matter-Elisabeth is just thrilled for the 5 euros.

We celebrated Mary’s 8th birthday on October 7th. I asked her teacher if I could bring a snack in for the class. The “no chocolate, no nuts, healthy snack” policy that prevails at our school in Utah, does not appear to be an issue here. When I asked the teacher if I could bring in a snack for the children and dared to ask if it could be something with chocolate, she replied “Bien sure, pourquoi pas?” and looked at me as if I were bizarre for asking such an absurd question. The class sang “Happy Birthday” to Mary in French and then in English. Several children then tried to practice saying “I am 8 years old” in English, which was a struggle for many! Mary wanted to invite 4-5 friends over to our apartment for a little party. The weather had been lovely, and warm enough to swim in the lake. She planned a swimming / soccer / outside party and of course it rained!! PANIC! 5 eight year olds in our small apartment with no toys or games . . . what do I do? So much to my dismay, I found myself in the French equivalent of “Michaels” craft store the day before her birthday, frantically purchasing paints, and jewelry making supplies, and the like for the party. . .

All of the children have enjoyed spending an hour a week in English class with the French children. They have fun being the local experts for a short time. Mary gets a kick out of the fact that she was told by the English teacher that she had “excellent proNOUNciation.” They giggle that the French kids are taught that a ladybug is a “ladybird.” Jimmy gets to help his classmates read “A Very Hungry Caterpillar,” and his friend Augustin struggles with the word “though.” The kids get a bit of confidence seeing their friends have such a difficult time with simple English.

Scottie has a great class in school called “Montagne” which is exactly that . . . a mountain class. Every other Monday afternoon the class goes on some athletic excursion from 12:30-4:30. The schedule for the year includes hiking, rock climbing, mountain biking, cross country skiing, and snowshoeing. In June he does a 2 day hike in Chamonix. It is my good fortune that they frequently look for parent volunteers, so I have gone on some of the excursions, which I have loved. Last week, the school had a running race “cross du college” of about 1800+ meters. Scottie was among the top finishers for his grade and therefore qualified for “UNSS.” The teachers and parents were very excited about this, but I have no idea what UNSS means, so we will see what is next.

Mary and Elisabeth also had to participate in an inter-school running race. I went to help out, envisioning a simple field day, and there were HUNDREDS of children involved. Quite a site to see.

In Annecy, the school days are filled with required extracurricular activities, which I find interesting. For example – Scottie’s Montagne class described above. Also, Jimmy and Elisabeth have swimming lessons for about 1-1.5 hours every week. Elisabeth goes to gymnastics with school once a week, and Mary is required to play Rugby with school every Friday for about 2 hours . . . all during school hours. Mary shows a good bit of skill on the Rugby field as demonstrated in the photos that I attached. The father of Mary’s classmate Luc, emailed the photos to us. Clearly Mary takes Pop’s advice “No Mercy!!! “ when it comes to athletic competition. The Rugby coach loves her.

The subject matter in school does not seem to be too complicated for anyone, although the language barrier makes a simple homework assignment drag on and on and on . . . . For Mary, who is in the midst of memorizing her multiplication tables, a simple 4 x 9 = 36 turns into a rather difficult “quatre fois neuf egale trente six.” It is hard for her to whip this off with any sort of speed, which she finds frustrating. Scottie’s is studying Mesopotamia which, when taught in French adds a level of complication. I have thought about calling in Chuck Tarinelli or Ann DeWitt for emergency advice (Whitingham School’s gurus on Mesopotamia who taught all Sullivans)

We found music violin / piano teachers for Mary, Jimmy, and Elisabeth. The teachers are very kind. However, we thought that music was a universal language – yes? Apparently not, since in France the simple C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C . . . . scale is “do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do.” Eighth notes are “deux croche noir” and there are many other differences that are proving to be obstacles for our music education! The teacher will say something like - “No Jeemie, c’est fa diez. Ce n’est pas fa. Ecoute bien . . .”). Jimmy has no idea that fa diez means F sharp . . . . and looks are her completely confused. Ah, the thrill of music lessons . . .

Mary and Elisabeth have recently started getting help with French from a French woman named Sandrine who lived in England for about 15 years. She is energetic, fun, and speaks English with a very thick British accent. The girls love her and think she is very cool. She has a hamster, and she says everything is “brilliant.”-what could be better? However, my plan to enhance their French language skills may be a bust since now the girls think that maybe it would be better if they learned “British” instead of French this year . . .

Really, the kids are all coming along in French, bit by bit. They are starting to understand basic sentences, and are less hesitant to try to speak. Mary proudly announced that she “told a joke in French” a few weeks ago and assured me that her joke was hilarious. Elisabeth also declared that she no longer understands English and can only communicate in French. This of course is very convenient when I ask her (in English) to do something. To display her command of the French language, one day when we were walking to town, Elisabeth suddenly yelled “Maman! Attention! Chien poop!!!!” as we found ourselves in the midst of a “chien poop” mine field. She thought she was a riot.

Jimmy’s school provides (requires) French lessons for all non-French speaking children for 2+ hours each day. So, he is in French class with kids from Portugal, Spain, and Kosovo. He is the only American / English speaker which has been interesting and challenging. He really enjoys his group of ski team boys who are in his class and with whom he “trains” 2-3 times / week.

Alex and I still take a French class, which continues to be a source of amusement. The other day Alex was introducing himself and explained that he worked in the stock market (la bourse). I am still not clear what his grammatical error was. BUT whatever it was (he either said LES bourses rather than LA or his accent was wrong, or his pronunciation was wrong, or maybe the entire sentence was wrong). Whatever the problem was, the teacher looked at him in a strange way and asked him to repeat – so he did. There was a pause, and Alex again tried to explain his job, and FINALLY the teacher (a lovely woman named Muriel) understood him, but then went on to explain that the translation of Alex’s original sentence was not that he worked in the stock market, but instead that “he worked in testicles,” which seemed to make sense to her at first since I am an Ob/Gyn.

I almost forgot to add that I was invited to (and actually went) to a French Tupperware party!!!! I wrote to my friend Pam about this and she wrote back “it doesn’t seem that the two words, French and Tupperware should belong in the same sentence.” She was right. . . but it was fun and I tried to pretend that I understood everyone’s jokes and that I was fascinated by the recipes. . . .

There is a 10 day holiday (Toussaint) from October 21-November 3. We are planning on taking full advantage of this and will meet Brent and Wendy Powell and family (who are traveling around the world this year) in Paris for the first weekend. We will then head to Normandy, Mont Saint Michel, and then the Loire Valley. Scottie will go to a ski camp in Tignes with his ski team for the last 5 days of the vacation. He is really looking forward to this.