10 things you'll see in France but not in the US

10.   A woman in heels peddling a bike through a insanely busy traffic circle

9.   A dog poop vacuum in use on the sidewalk

8.  Roman Polanski

7.   A police car with 17 cops crammed into it

6.  Statues with boobies! (Hooray for boobies!)

5.  Rental bikes you can check out on your own and leave in any other rental stand when you're done

4. Cheese that smells like a corpse left in a sewer... but tastes sooo good

3. An underground gas station

2. A guy in a suit driving a scooter with a cigarette in one hand, and ice cream cone in the other, his youngest son sitting in front and his eldest sitting behind, zipping down the boulevard. (absolutely true. wish I could have controlled my amazement and managed to take a picture)

1. A man wearing a scarf while jogging, on a 55 degree F day.

Next installment:  10 things you'll see in the US but not in France.

The trolley is dead. Long live the trolley

An essential tool of daily life in downtown Paris is the trolley, also known as a wheelie, Rollser, rollie-thingie and a bunch of other names. In a place where taking the car to the market isn't practical, you drag your trolley with you to carry your groceries home. Everyone has one, and many people have several.

The garish trolley in the right of the picture was bequeathed to us by Rob and Cheryl when they returned home to the U.S. last year. It was a dodgy creature, with shaky wheels, stretched fabric and a distinctively homely exterior. Still, we were very glad to have it. After all, who would steal such a thing? (you leave them outside the market when you go in to shop and they are known to flee under their own power sometimes)

As Troy was leaving Casino (a supermarket) yesterday, it took a curb a little too heavily and broke the plastic supports that help keep it upright. While you can still carry things in it, if you let go of it, it will topple over on its poor ugly face. A bottle of marinara sauce was sacrificed in the ordeal.

Today we bought a new trolley, a little camouflage number we hope will be suitably ugly yet high in capacity. We like it. But it's not our old one.

The trolley is dead. Long live the trolley!

Bonne Fete des Meres

Today is Mothers' Day in America.  We of course are celebrating it here in France which seems a bit strange but hey, I am taking what I can get.  The actual date of French Mothers' Day is May 31st and you betcha I will celebrate that one too!  After all, we went through the torture of getting the little monkey adjusted into the French public school system you bet I will milk that mothers day gift and day for all it is worth.  

All kidding aside, when you are so far away you take stock in what you have, your supportive family network back home, and you also grab on even more tightly to the family you have around you regardless of the fun you are having. :) 

One of the most important things in my life is my little monkey and although she thinks I am a bit looney sometimes and doesn't really understand what Mothers Day is quite yet, I know I am her number one fan and she is mine.

Happy Mothers' Day to my momma and momma in law and all the other mommas out there. May you feel as blessed as I feel.

Contradictions

The Dutch are well-known for their tolerance and socially liberal policies. Where else is drug use and prostitution legal, right? 

Which makes it all the more confusing to me to see the rigor with which they uphold their traffic laws. They will obey the pedestrian lights as if violating them carried a sentence of life imprisonment. It's common to see Dutch people waiting patiently for 3 or 4 minutes, no traffic in sight, for their little green man to appear and assure them it's OK to cross the street. Tired of standing there, several times I made a common sense decision to just cross the street when safe and they looked at me like I had punted a crying baby into the bushes.

But smoking crack while renting a hooker? No problem.

Amsterdam in the spring

Sorry for the absence. We spent last week in Amsterdam where Troy held one of his two big panel meetings of the year. And it was great! Friendly people, beautiful weather (unusual for the Netherlands in April we're told) and endless things to do and see.

While Troy toiled away with his conference, the other Monkeys went to the nicest zoo we've seen in along time, the NEMO science museum, a massive indoor play area, and all sorts of walking. Our Dutch hosts also set us up with a 90 minute canal cruise past all the famous sites:  the Anne Frank house, the Opera, the skinniest house in Amsterdam (about 20 feet wide) and lots of others. On Thursday afternoon, after the conference we all went to the Keukenhof Gardens, where there are literally millions of tulips, roses, hyacinths, etc on display for 6 weeks of the year. Stunning! 

An exhausting week but well worth it. Allie did a great job walking long distances without much complaint, and didn't even seem to notice the ladies in the window dressed only in their underwear as we skirted (ha!) the edge of the red light district. And Troy finally got some Indonesian and Malaysian food. Yum!

And this weekend - off to Bretagne for the 1 May holiday (French equivalent of labor day)!

An interesting Easter discovery

Even though Easter was two days ago, we just got another reminder how differently France and the U.S. celebrate, particularly with regard to Easter eggs.

The French don't particularly subscribe to the whole Easter egg thing. Chocolate eggs, sure, they're OK with that, but the concept of dyeing actual chicken eggs is not something they do here. First, it was pretty difficult for us to find white eggs. All the eggs here are brown. No better or no worse, just the product of darker colored chickens (white chicken breeds typically lay white eggs, brown/gray ones lay brown eggs).  It's not impossible to dye brown eggs, but let's just say pink doesn't work well and the green looks like something out of Dr Seuss.

We did finally find white eggs that we could dye for Easter - in the kosher section of the supermarket. I enjoyed the irony of that. We already had some Paas dye shipped to us earlier in the month, and off we went, a-dyeing.  So far so good.

And then, Allie surprised us by bringing home some candy and 2 colored eggs (real eggs!) home from school. How charming! Understanding that she has kids from all over the world in her class, Allie's teacher went the extra mile (or 1.67 kilometers, I guess)  and had them color eggs. And they were colored very nicely too, in thick enamel paint with a swirling 2-toned pattern.

Dana held one to her ear and shook it tonight. It sounded...different. Good thing Allie never dropped the eggs. Next year, we need to explain to the French that you must boil the eggs first.

A secret glimpse of the Ecole Maternelle

The little monkey had a back to school night at her school a few days ago.  Needless to say we jumped at the chance to get a glimpse inside the school and actually see hard copies of the projects they do in their 15 hour day (Ok, a bit exaggerated).  Some of the past blogs about the Ecole Maternelle explained to our readers that parents are not allowed in.  You leave the kids with a hug and a kiss at the big blue doors and hope that they find their way.  So, we thought it would be fun to smuggle in our camera and sneak a few photos to give you a peek inside a French public preschool. 

Keep in mind this is one of the smaller ones you will see but generally they all follow the same pattern.  The cement courtyard as you see in the picture is quite small and one can only imagine what "recess" is like with 50 kids running throughout.  A lot different than the spacious green grass, monkey bars, swings, basketball hoops we grew up with but then again, we weren't in the middle of Paris.

The classroom is quite organized thanks to the new teacher (Allie's third one for the year).  As expected, we were bombarded with materials Allie has completed throughout the semester.  We were pleasantly surprised that there were more happy faces on her work than sad. (The French grading system in the Maternelle)  She actually understands the assignments now as opposed to resorting to just doodling on her paper.  

All in all, we were pleased with the visit, didn't get caught taking our hidden pictures and glad our little monkey is finally settling in and learning French.

As far as where she will be headed to "kindergarten", well... not this school.