I Smell Evergreens, Turkey and Dead People?

Christmas holidays….dead people? Today we visited the Paris catacombs, an underground tunnel system containing the bones of 6 million Parisians. In 1786 the Parisian government decided to move these human remains, from overcrowded, thought to be unsanitary cemeteries, to an existing underground series of tunnels that were part of limestone quarry system.

The damp one mile subterranean walk was thick with human bones that were neatly stacked floor to ceiling. Fighting the urge to reach out and grab a tibia was difficult, but we managed to obey the rules and resist.

The girls walked the entire route without complaint, including the 60 feet of steep spiral stairs. P had some concerns over ghosts, but otherwise they were unaffected by the morbidity. It’s crazy to think of the 6 million lives lived by these bones, now lost in anonymity and stacked liked firewood.

I wonder how many people this is?

Is that a ghost or Dad?

Boo!

Christmas Day Photos

D & P with their new trotinettes

Catherine & Nina (our niece's grandmother & cousin) walked us to the bus stop after hosting a lovely Christmas lunch.

Rupert about to carve our long awaited Turkey

Christmas Eve in Paris

It's Christmas in Paris. While you are all taking care of last minute things, we were embracing our chance to spend our holiday in whole new world. Our Christmas Eve was filled with time together, last minute preparations and a mini adventure. After our traditional McMenamin Chowder, we ventured out to see how Paris spends their Christmas Eve. We were surprised to see that at 7:30pm there were still shops open and people finishing last minute shopping. We finished our stroll by finally going up the Eiffel Tour. It was a short worthwhile wait in line, and despite our hesitations was not a disappointment. Beautiful views of the city, lovers kissing and the girls enjoyed writing their name in the ice bar on the first level (unfortunately it was closed).

Decorating cookies for Santa

It's hard to keep still for a photo, when you are on the Eiffel Tour on Xmas Eve

Giggling by the fire in their new grandma Cherry PJs

The girls are now tucked tightly in bed. After this post, we are settling into some Champagne by the fire, waiting for Santa, and listening to "The Shepherd".

We are thinking of you.

Day in Montmartre

This Sunday was spent in Montmartre, a former artist haven, and place of debravity which was famous for Can Can dance halls (Moulin Rouge), and bordellos. Atop the Montmartre butte (hill) sits Sacre Coeur, an impressive looking, domed basilica. The walk down the switchbacks from Sacre Coeur, take the crowds of tourists, through narrow cobbled stone streets, filled with cafes, street artists, marvelous views of the city and even a small vineyard. We totally lucked out on the weather and spent the lovely balmy afternoon outside, enjoying the village atmosphere.

We start our journey at the top of Montmartre in front of Sacre Coeur Basilica.

Ru & P sit on the steps of Sacre Coeur, enjoying the view of Paris and listening to a heavily accented street performer, sing Allison Krauss.

P waits for her Dad to pay the for the yummy crepes, we just ate on a patio in Montmartre.

D joins her.

Ru relieving P from tackling one of the many sets of steps, on our walk down from Sacre Coeur.

Shark Girl discovered in Paris

We were affraid that Ps interest in tooth fairy money, was causing her to prematurely wiggle one of her front teeth loose. But an insistant little girl and eventually a painful apple experience proved she was right - she did seem to have a loose tooth.

Our biannual trip to the dentist revealed what should have been obvious, and can clearly be seen in the picture below- her grown up teeth have arrived and the babies must go! P must wiggle the teeth often, because the sooner the baby teeth come out the better.

She is growing up so quickly!

Seal is broken...first overnight house guests test drive the spare bedroom

Well, we finally had our first house guests this week. The Wey family (Chris is a fellow IBMer) from Boston came to Paris for xmas and spent their first four days with us. We had a great time, and the apartment soaked up four more people without a hitch. Note to all Canadians who are planning a trip...the doors are open, the seal is broken, and inn keepers promise they are ready for a good time. First come first served.

Christmas in the hood

Secret Agent Pop

Getting Festive

And so the Christmas preparations begin.... first stop - a tree. Most of the many florists in our quartier sell Christmas trees, but as you can imagine, a Parisian florist Christmas tree comes at a premium. Prices start at 65 Euros ($105) for a 3 foot tree, so we opted to save a few bucks (we paid 25 Euros) and sacrifice quality, and buy our tree at a neighbour grocery store - and boy did we sacrifice! A tree only Charlie Brown could love. The one redeeming quality of our grocery store Christmas tree, is that it comes with its own stand made out of a buche (log). The buche keeps the tree rock solid and apparently allows the tree to stay fresh and keep its needles until March. We'll keep you posted validity of this myth.

D checking out the trees at "Ed".

D & P help their Dad carry the "tree" home.

On Sunday we decided to walk down to the Champs Elysses to check out a Christmas Market. I had seen them setting up the long rows of charming white wooden huts, a couple of weeks ago and had visions of French craftspeople, making the trip from the country to sell their handwoven linens, pottery, and arty Christmas decorations, I couldn't wait. In the end, the huts contained Paris tourist crap, asian gift store trinkets and a surprising number of huts selling Canadian stuff (maple syrup, fleece belaclavas). As we pushed our way through the bus loads of people along the boulevard, Rupert hit the nail on the head "We could be in Hull".

But all was not lost. Almost all heavily congregated areas in Paris offer a pay-to- play ride for children. Usually a charming old carousel, car ride or swing of some sort, but this time the Champs Elysses had something new to offer - Trampolines, with the added bonus of a harness hooked up to, tensioned surgical tubing. The girls had a blast!

D, P & Rupert reflecting on their stroll through the "Hull" Christmas market.

D with P in the background trying out the new ride.

Best friends

Hamming it up on Rue St-Dominique

Home for halloween

French arteest & Le Petit Chaperon rouge

Hockey sur glace...at last

Well it finally happened. Last night I played hockey…in Paris. Fantastic!!! After months of searching the web, our family doctor made a couple of calls (one to a contact at the Canadian embassy – daaa), and I was on my way to Colombes for my first practice.

I took the metro (x2 transfers), a regional train, and grabbed a lift with a new team mate, and played with 15 guys (all French except for 2 other Canadians) in a “practice/scrimmage session”. They are a hockey club of mixes ages (mostly +30) that practice (pick up x2) a week, and have friendly matches every other weekend.

I was very out of shape, and puffing almost immediately, but must have showed a little Canadian moxy as they asked me if I would join, and could I play in their matches? :). They are the only club at their rink, so you can permanently leave your equipment in the dressing room - a nice feature! It’s a bit of a trek to get out there, but I am totally psyched.

My body, and mental well being will get a big lift and I can practice my French with my new teammates. Here is a link to the club website http://www.geocities.com/millepattesdecolombes/ which is two years out of date, but as Guy, my hockey guy embassy contact says, you’ll get the idea. More on the hockey sur glace scene in Paris later…

14 days in Canada

Our return from 14 eventful days in Canada has unfortunately left us no hard visual memories - our camera was on the fritz for most of the trip. The captions below are meant for the missing photos.

- Princess Poppy & Princess Disa Trick or Treating with their cousin, Fairy Princess Grace

- Mimi, Poppy & Disa biding on boxes of dolls, at the Gordon's auction - Sold!

- Rupert & Shawn lighting the fireworks at Mark & Cherry's Guy Fawkes Party

- Poppy & Disa in awe of the burning Coyote "Guy", on the massive bonfire at Guy Fawkes

- Cherry & Rupert gleefully taking pocession of our new cottage/farm
rental property

- Poppy & Disa helping Paddy clean up the windfall's from the front lawn

- Jo loving holding 6 week old Cameryn, at the Running Mom's get together

- Rupert & Blair sharing a pint at the Sens game

- Disa helping her cousin Lila blow out the candles, on her birthday cake

- Jo with Suzette & Craig on their Wedding day - Congratulations!

Turkey Hunt

Our first Thanksgiving in Paris had a discouraging start, and ended on one leg.

Our search for a Turkey was a bit more challenging than expected. A Parisian assured me that two days notice would be more than enough time to get une dinde.

Five days before Thanksgiving, I was standing in front of four butchers, looking at me and each other, insisting “…no the first Turkeys arrive for Thanksgiving…”.
“But, it is Canadian Thanksgiving this weekend” I respond.
“The Turkeys are not ready” one butcher says definitively.
“So, are you saying, there are no Turkeys in Paris right now??”
The four butchers laugh “probably not in this neighbourhood, but maybe somewhere else”.

After many phone calls, and trips to various butchers, I did find a place that supplied Turkeys (The Thanksgiving Store, of course). Unfortunately they needed seven days notice.

In the end, my little grocery store, the G20 had a Turkey leg. Our one leg filled the house with the smells of Thanksgiving, and satisfied our family of firm meat eaters.

With some good French wine and tarte aux pommes as a finish, Thanksgiving Dinner was a big success.

Our Flat

We have had a number of requests for photos of our apartment...

Front Hall

Dining room

Living Room

Guest Room

Kitchen

Laundry room.

Boys bathroom

Girls Bathroom

The childrens dorm

Master bedroom

*Disclaimer - Level of tidiness reflected in photos is not probable at the time of your stay.

Cool Cousins

Last night the whole family headed over to Sylvie, Fleur & Nina's house for dinner. Fleur & Nina are first cousins of Lucie & Noa (Rupert's nieces) and our closest link to family here in Paris.

We had a great time. Sylvie was a lovely host and the language barrier didn't pose a problem for long for the four little girls. Quiet drawing led to pillow fights and spinning in the egg chair - just like home. Thanks for the warm welcome to Paris.

Plastic Surgeon Treats Impaled Expat

If you follow France culture at all, it's difficult not to come across a "how great the French health care system is" article. Well here's another for the pile.

As silly as it sounds, I went to the Doctor today to have a splinter removed. Yes a splinter. I have been trying to dig it out for about a week now, with no success. So I decided to put the needle & tweezers, in the hands of a professional.

After about 20min of digging, my new GP (who is from Montreal btw) couldn't get it out. So she says "I am just going to go next door and see if the Plastic Surgeon is available". Thirty seconds later, my GP comes back with the Plastic Surgeon and 30 seconds after that, my splinter is out!

French Health Care in action!

Apples with Jim

Finally convinced Rupert to get behind the camera

We spent our beautiful sunny afternoon today, at Pere Lachaise Cemetary. The cementaries are big tourist attractions here and for good reason; cobblestone streets, elaborately architected cripts and trees, make for a wonderful outing.

Pere Lachaise is permanent home to Edith Piaff, Oscar Wilde, Moliere (amongst others), but due to weak map reading skills on my part, our quest to find them, was in vain.

The one destination plot, we did find was a bit anticlimatic... but eventful. Jim Morrison's plot is an unimpressive, poorly maintained, ground level stone, with a security railing and guard preventing anyone from getting close. As we sat down to eat our afternoon Royal Gala with Jim, our dispointment turned to mild excitement, when Rupert spotted the guard confiscating one of the pilgrims party goods. We noticed the guard disappeared after the confiscation. I guess she went to turn it in ....

Snack with Jim

P& D enjoyed running throught the mazes, of paths and staircases and Rupert loved the clear sense deep history, you only find in old European cities. It was a lovely afternoon together.

Pontiff prays pour P in Paris

I am sure he could feel our presence.

We arrived one block from Esplanade des Invalides over an hour before Pope Benedict was scheduled to deliver High Mass to a crowd of more than 200K. The gens d'arme were already saying it was full, and sending people around behind the stage to place Vauban (the other side of the dome) where a large screen was set up with an excellent sound system. We found a place on the grass, and settled in. The Pope arrived in the "Popemobile" and blessed the crowds on either side as he slowly made his way to the front. I am sure we were blessed many times as he worked to cover the crowds :).

The streets from home were lined with police, there were choppers over head, and thousands of volunteers giving out water, and a service kits which included plastic ponchos which we sat on.

It was a cool experience, and worth the short trek. My only regret is that I missed my chance to discuss the merits of the DaVinci Code with the Pontiff himself.

First Day of School

I didn’t quite have the courage to throw the girls into the fire, of an all-French school, so this year P & D are going to a bilingual Montessori, about a 10min walk from our flat.

The girls and I went to visit the school last Friday, to get them warmed up to the new place. The school is housed in a church and is absolutely beautiful, with lots of windows and beautiful old wood. They immediately loved the space and didn’t want to leave.

They girls were so excited this morning, they started begging to go to school at 7:30am.

P & D share their pre-first-day-of-school thoughts, from the foyer of their school.

Last day of summer

School starts for both of the girls tomorrow, so I made sure we had some fun today. Translation - five hours of exploring and playing at the Jardin de Luxembourg. Lucky for me the Jardin de Luxemborg is one of my favorite places in Paris.
Don't ask me why, D immediately insisted on giving the gold head a hug when she saw it in the distance.
More pond shots. Can you find the sign of an Alfie fan? First person to respond, wins 7 free nights accomodation in a left bank apartment.

P&D in front of the front of La Fontaine de Médicis . Click on the image to expand and see the beautiful Italian style grotto in the background.


You spin me right round, baby, right round.....D spinning on one of the many spinning toys at the Jardin du Luxembourg playround.

We are sooo excited for tomorrow.

Still no Quasi...

A second trip to Notre Dame today, but with Rupert this time and STILL no Quasimodo sitings. We toured the grounds and inside the church and planned to go up the tower and search for Quasi, but we didn't think the girls would weather the long line up well. So we decided to come back another day. We had a lovely afternoon anyway, feeding the birds, admiring the gargoyles and flying buttresses and Rupert's favorite, of course was the everso masculine statue of Charlemagne. "Sheer power" he says.

Today was our first car ride in a month. The girls were absolutely giddy over the experience. You would swear they were on a roller coaster. Poppy said it was like being at the fair.

Rupert, D & P with Charlemagne

Hike those pants up a bit further and he may even pass as a real frenchman

Feeding the birds