Toussaint vacation and November in France

Paris with the Powells

Luxembourg Gardens

Pointe du Hoc - Normandy

Sneaking up on the enemy

Ranger Monument - Pointe du Hoc - Normandy

Ranger Memorial - Pointe du Hoc - Normandy

Cliffs at Pointe du Hoc

WWII Memorial - American Cemetery - Normandy

Omaha Beach

Monument - Omaha Beach

Omaha Beach

Mont St. Michel

Rainbow seen from Mont St. Michel

Mont St. Michel

St. Malo - Brittany

Crepe break - Brittany

Chambord - Chateau de la Loire

A Long Day at Chambord

Revived

Chenonceau Chateau

Leonardo da Vinci Museum

da Vinci Museum

Amboise 

Amboise

Roman Theater - Orange

11/11/11 at 11:11

Visiting Vineyards

Visiting Vineyards

Arles

Arles

Arles

Pont D'Avignon

Pont D'Avignon

Pont du Gard

Pont du Gard

Post Swim at Pont du Gard

Dinner with Annie and Joe in Paris!

Morning view from our apartment

Biking to School

Annecy

Mary, December 1, 2011 ! 

First day on skis - Tignes

SNOW FINALLY!

Val D' Isere

Val D'Isere

Val D' Isere

Val D'Isere

 November 2011

I will have to admit that at the beginning of the year, I did not like the Wednesday – no school policy.  I felt as if we just started getting in the swing of things for the week, then Wednesday came around and everyone got out of the school sync, and nobody wanted to return to school on Thursday.  However, now I am thrilled with the mid-week break!  We are also planning to take full advantage of the vacation holiday schedule.  The children have school for about 7-8 weeks followed by 10 days-2 week vacations.  We just finished our Toussaint (All Saints) holiday. 

We left Annecy on Friday October 21 and drove to Paris where we met our friends Brent and Wendy Powell, and their three children.  The Powells are taking a sabbatical year and are planning on traveling around the world. Right now they are in Scotland for a few months, and by luck, they were in Paris the first weekend of our vacation, so we all met there.  It was so great for all of us to see friends.  We were non-stop for the three days in Paris, and felt as if we were “back home” after having spent 2 weeks in Paris in August. 

In Paris we saw Saint-Sulpice church, which was especially exciting for Scottie since he is reading the da Vinci Code.  Alex went back to the market outside the Viollet’s apartment that we frequented in the summer and “Monsieur croissant” acted as if Alex were his long lost friend! (He had probably noticed a significant drop in the sales of pain au chocolat, croissants, and baguettes ever since we moved out of the Viollet’s apartment in August.  No wonder he was so thrilled to see Alex!!). We returned to our favorite playground in the Luxembourg Gardens and played boulle, ping pong, and soccer.  But the most fun was being with the Powells and our friends the Viollet’s who were kind enough to further extend their hospitality to us.  Powells, Bococks, and Viollets (18 total) all convened at the Viollet’s apartment on Sunday to watch France vs New Zealand in the Rugby World Cup Finals, (unfortunately France lost 8-7, but it was not the blood bath that had been predicted) and enjoyed a delicious lunch prepared by Chrystelle. 

From Paris, we drove to Normandy.  We stayed in Bayeaux, famous for the tapestry that tells the story of William the Conqueror and the Battle of Hastings.  Elisabeth can give quite a good rendition of this story now.  All of the children vote Normandy as the best part of our Toussaint vacation.  We all were in awe walking on Omaha beach.   Pointe du Hoc was especially interesting / sad /  moving /.  We saw the cliff that the Rangers had to scale up using grappling hooks and ladders, to help secure Omaha beach.  There are still enormous holes in the ground left over from when the Allied Naval ships bombed Pointe du Hoc.  Our kids chose to “play army” in these holes and ran back and forth with sticks, diving from one spot to the next, trying to capture the enemy.  Fortunately no other tourists seemed to mind this.   After Normandy, Elisabeth declared (in the most whiny voice possible)  “…everything we do in France is bowhing (she has not yet mastered her English R’s).  I don’t want to go to a monument; I don’t want to see a church; I don’t want to go to a museum.  All I want to do is go back to Normandy and get in the trenches!” 

We then moved on to Mont Saint Michel, then the Loire Valley were we saw beautiful chateaux, and learned all about Kings and Queens of France. In Chateau Chenonceaux we saw the bedroom (and the exact bed – so we are told) where Queen Mary (Queen of Scots) and Queen Elizabeth slept.  You can imagine that was a big thrill for the girls….  We saw where Leonardo da Vinci lived (and died) and went to a great museum and learned about da Vinci the painter AND inventor.   Excellent museum….

Scottie went to a ski camp in Tignes for 5 days at the end of October.  The skiing was excellent, however leaving us in the midst of a great vacation, and full immersion 24/7 in French with 20 kids and a few coaches, was difficult for him.  However, upon return, he received rave reviews from coaches and other kids about how well he skied and how well he progressed in French.  Overall, a great experience for him, but one that was not at all easy.    

No sooner did we return home after Toussaint, then we had a long weekend for Armistice Day (11/11/11).  We took advantage of that and drove to Avignon, which is only about 2 ½ from here.  We saw an ancient Roman theater in Orange dating back to 50 AD and still very much intact.  We visited vineyards, saw the Palais des Papes in Avignon, went to Arles where we saw more Roman ruins and where van Gogh cut off his ear.  Our favorite activity was seeing the Pont du Gard, built in about 50 AD to transport water over the Gard river and to carry the water to Nimes.  Fascinating to see all of these well-preserved Roman “ruins” in France.  Just by luck, Scottie is studying the Roman Empire in School and there were pictures in his history book of all the sights that we were seeing.  So that sparked his interest a bit more.  The icing on the cake is that now Scottie is starting to read Julius Ceasar (in English!!), although I’m not sure that he feels this is really icing.

We continue to discover that the world is very small.  Alex recently received an email from Vinnie Broderick, a friend of his from Pasquaney.  Vinnie knows a woman from NH who is living in France with her family, and it just so happened that this woman (Martha Macomber) lives about 20 minutes from Annecy.  So the small world is: Martha went to Dartmouth with Jack Bocock.  She married a Dartmouth man named Jory Macomber who ski raced against Jimmy Sullivan in college.  Alex and I met Jory and Martha for lunch a few weeks ago in Annecy.  It turns out that their oldest son is doing a PG year at Burke and is roommates with Aleck Sullivan!  What a small world.  So we had a great time, and hope to see them again soon.   Anyway, below I attach an email from Martha and a link to a one-minute video clip about 11/11/11 in France.  People asked me how the French celebrate Armistice Day.  Parades? Fanfare?  Not at all.   Martha’s email/video perfectly summarize the sentiment in France about Armistice Day.  Please take the minute to watch it.   

“Today I wondered up a French valley in search of a hike that would get me above the fog that notoriously lingers by the lakes this time of year.  It was Armistice Day in France, a country that had a 74% casualty rate in WWI.  It is also 11/11/11.  That will not happen again for another 100 years.  I soon discovered that the towns have no ceremonies but each one places flags by their war memorial and plants mums at the base.  So on my way up the Verde Valley to find the sun, I stopped at the villages and found their memorials.  I headed to the church and sure enough the flags, the mums and the names would be there.  As I approached each church I would peer anxiously around for the memorial hoping to spot it, and at the same time hoping I would not.  But alas, no village was spared.  So I would stop, read the names, try to translate the inscriptions, and sometimes go in the church.  Being alone in the churches I would sing a few measures to check out the acoustics and fill the dark, cold vessel with something.        

       

Then I found the sun and the trail I was just in awe at how beautiful it was.  I found myself above the clouds, amidst the Alps, thinking about war, and boys and the stupidity of WWI.  I was standing as close to heaven as I think I can get, wondering if there was some sort of connection between what those poor kids had to endure and the sun streaming down on me, and the fog, and the peaks.  I don't know. I headed back down and visited a few more towns before picking up Anna at school.

        

       

So, I made a one-minute movie as a way to try to make sense of this Armistice Day.  Here's the link:  http://marthamacomber.phanfare.com/5349131 <http://marthamacomber.phanfare.com/5349131>


I went to an OB/GYN conference in Paris for 4 days at the end of November, which was a real treat.  The conference was very interesting.  Physicians from all over the world attended, and in fact not many from USA.  My real luck was that Annie and Joe Koletsky just happened to be in Paris at the same time – just a coincidence.  So we all had dinner together which was so much fun for me. 

Thanksgiving came and went without much fanfare.  Admittedly, a little lonely on this side of the Atlantic.  I proposed that we all go out for a French dinner, but was overruled because everyone wanted to try to make a true Thanksgiving dinner.  It is nearly impossible to find a turkey here.  The ones I found in the market still had feathers and claws . . . not very appealing.  I eventually did find appropriate Thanksgiving food (except cranberry sauce) and we celebrated on Friday night with the Nichols and the Allen family from Canada.  Jimmy and Mary gave presentations in school about Thanksgiving, and I pulled photos of them at the Mayflower from several years ago, off my computer – a great success. 

Not a drop of snow (or rain) fell in the month of November.  In fact, the papers are reporting that this is the warmest, driest fall EVER recorded.  We are all anxiously awaiting the ski season.  Thanksgiving weekend, we decided to go to Tignes and Val D’Isere for the opening weekends.  There was plenty of snow in the mountains (of course not like Utah, but . . . ) the weather was lovely and we had a great time.  We had never all skied together for an entire weekend without someone being on a harness or in a backpack.  We had a great time.  The lunch houses are cozy and festive.  We laughed when we noticed that the “cafeteria” sells $100 bottles of wine.  Yet another example how important lunch and wine are in France!  We had so much fun that we went back to Val D’Isere the following weekend, and finally it snowed!! (Fortunately, because until recently the cows were still happily grazing on the slopes of Le Grand Bornand – our home ski area near Annecy).

School is getting easier for everyone.  The kids are becoming more comfortable.  Our friends, the Allans are going back to Canada in December.  I asked our family if anyone wished that we were going back to SLC in a few weeks, and everyone said that they wanted to stay in France longer (except Elisabeth).  However, she acquiesced to stay with us to finish out the year.   The girls continue to take French lessons with the famous Sandrine.  They now know that in French the word hampster, is “hampster,” and that Sandrine colors her hair.   Our neighbor comes once or twice a week to help with homework / reading, etc.  I have mentioned that she is a retired school teacher, lives alone, and frankly enjoys coming to our house, and stays for about 2 hours each visit!  She is quite strict and the other night she was grilling Scottie about Greek Mythology and Greek history.  She asked him to explain something, and after’s Scottie’s explanation, she pauses and replies curtly  “pas du tout.”  While Scottie’s French really has improved, Alex and I hear him saying to Monique (our neighbor)  “Ahhh, oui, oui.  Je comprends…”  when later he admits that is not necessarily the case. . . 

Admittedly nobody has been knocking down our apartment door to invite Alex and me over to dinner or to a party, and our social calendar remains quite open!  The kids vowed to swim at least once a month in the lake and indeed, at 7 pm on  December 1 in the middle of dinner, Mary gasped because she almost forgot to go swimming (she had bet her friend Luke 5 euros that she would swim on December 1) So, everyone (except me) took a plunge.  The next day Luke coughed up 5 euros. 

Happy December to everyone!