Holiday Magic

 

This is Aix en Provence at night. The city goes all out for the holidays and it is beautiful. 

Here is Cours Mirabeau - our main street. 

The girls testing the water of the thermal heated nine cannons fountain.

Marseille gets pretty festive too. The girls loved the Ferris Wheel. 

They have had their share of barbe a papa (cotton candy). I prefer the vin chaud myself.

This was earlier in the season just before the holiday lights adorned the city. It's called Key Frames. It was an installation piece made of light bulbs shaped into dancers. The dancers were choreographed to ballet music. 

Around Town

A Great Maison

 

Rivi in a tree at Parc La Torse

At Cite de Livre - the library

Kyri in the courtyard of the library - Photo courtesy of Rivi

Strolling along the always festive Cours Miarbeau

Around the House

Kyri doing a little light reading

Rivi created a wish list

Rivi practicing small space flying maneuvers

Pajama jam

Marseille...we do seem to love it

Dial M for Marseille.

Endless blue skies.

At the Palais Longchamp (aka Rivi's palace)

Les animaux at the Funny Zoo in Parc Longchamp (photos courtesy of Rivi and Kyri)

Two primates

Nice and Menton, France

Just one perk of the French school system is that after 7 weeks of hard work, the students get a two week vacation. We took full advantage of this and caught the early bus to Nice the first day of the break. We arrived just before lunch and just in time to hit the markets for pizza and fresh apples.

The Nice market had particularly nice displays. We found two types of persimmon/kaki. One soft and mushy, the other firm and apple like. Yum.

Ice cream (glace, creme de glace, sorbet, gelato, etc) can come in an amazing variety of flavors and while some unfamiliar flavors are really tasty, like lavender, others are just nasty, like tomato basil. 

The markets were great, the narrow winding streets fun to navigate and there is a wonderful park overlooking the city, but the number one attraction in Nice...the beach.

When they weren't splashing in the water or building fortress walls, Rivi and Kyri decorated the rocks with marker. The problem of course was that the girls wanted to keep every rock they decorated.   

After a few days in Nice, we traveled up the Cote d'Azur to Menton.  Menton is special. First of all it is as Italian as it is French - in the architecture, in the food and the language. This is because it borders Italy. Second, it has a very mild climate, which gave us spectacular late-October temperatures. 

Third, the gardens are beautiful. They are tropical and full of citrus trees, particularly lemon trees, which Menton is apparently known for, though we didn't know this until we visited. 

The girls made bouquets from falling blossoms.

But again, the beach was the hot spot. 

And one of the beaches was even sandy!

Science et Arte

At the Natural History Museum in Aix observing not-so-healthy-or-happy-looking goldfish.

Place des Cardeurs

Mes Parents

My parents just left this morning after a two week visit. It was so nice to have them here and to see France through their eyes. We spent some time in Marseille, probably our favorite spot so far in southern France.  

Before we were even out of the Metro station, we could smell this fish market.  Local fishers had parked their boats along the old port and were unloading and selling their morning catch.

On a second visit to the city, we came up out of the Metro to a puppet show. These are huge puppets from Morocco. After a dance performance along the old port, the puppeteers paraded through Marseille. It was outstanding.

We browsed the pier side markets, bought saucisson and macaroons and enjoyed this cardboard replica of a Marseille building.

We also took a bus to Vallon des auffes, a small fishing village within Marseille, where we watched passing sailboats.

And then walked down several steps into the village. We missed the fresh seafood of the day, so we settled for pizza.  

Mom and Dad spent some time in Aix-en-Provence too. 

Here they are at City Hall, known in Aix as the Hotel de Ville. 

Mom and I managed a trip to Arles too, where the Ancient Romans left their mark with an amphitheater that is used today for bulls and matadors.  It is also where Van Gogh painted several of his works and spent time in the local hospital. 

 

A highlight of the Arles trip was the cryptoporticus, long underground hallways of ancient Roman support arches.

Mom and Dad, we already miss you. Thanks for visiting. 

THOLONET AND MONT SAINT-VICTOIRE

Last weekend we took a bus to the outskirts of Aix toward a small ville named Tholonet where we could access the hills around Mont Saint Victoire. It was a lovely walk with really great views. We saw skydivers drifting down near the mountain and a dam (Barrage Zola) designed by Francois Zola (Emile Zola's father). 

This is Mont Saint-Victoire in Aix-en-Provence.

Made famous by Paul Cezanne.

Provence Landscape

We meant to go on a short hike, but ended up walking for at least four hours. 

The girls were super troopers as always. 

On the way home after the hike.

SCHOOL

The girls have finished their first week of school. No tears! French public school has been our number one concern since the day we set foot in Aix (really since the day we started talking about a sabbatical in France). We had heard stories of children having difficulty in French schools, and lots of tears after school. And so on Tuesday, the first day, with all of our nerves on high alert, we were ready and out the door ten minutes earlier than we planned. Mind you, this will be the only day that happens. We were not the first to arrive, but we were ahead of most.  We waited in front of a locked gate, watching other families arrive and watching for signals to proceed. Looking through the bars of the gate, we could see a building and a courtyard, but not much else. Finally, at 8h20, the directeur (principal) of the school unlocked the doors and welcomed everyone in. We introduced ourselves and the girls to him, but he already knew the girls’ names and situation and kindly introduced us to their teachers. He also explained (in English) that the girls would spend some time each day in a class designed for foreign students. There are three other students in the class.  We waited until the girls were lined up, then I kissed the tops of their heads and we waved good-bye.  I left relieved, but still nervous about their day and how they would feel about school. When the bell rang at 16h30, our girls came out smiling, happy and very willing to give full reports. They had a good day! And then, they had a day off because there are no classes on Wednesdays. Thursday and today they came home still happy with school, if a bit tired.

A little about the school:

L’ecole de Cuques is small with 120 students in 5 grade levels. This means there is one teacher per grade. School starts at 8:30 and finishes at 4:30 with a break from 11:30-1:30 in which the girls can sign up for extracurricular activities like gymnastics, theater, library or mixed sports. In addition, lunch is provided during the break. Hot lunch! Tuna and beans and tarts today, ham and fries and salad and custard yesterday. The school gate is locked at 8:30 and unlocked at 4:30 and it is very secure with a tall fence encircling the school grounds. There isn't a playground, but Rivi happily reported she was allowed to climb the trees (a little) and to crush rocks. It does sound like the rules are stricter, but mostly by the staff in the restaurant. Kyri was asked not to sing and the girls were shocked at one student being sent to a corner of the room to face the wall for talking and laughing too loudly to her friends at the lunch table.       

And now the list of supplies. We sweated over this list after hearing it was a nightmare to gather. It’s a long list, but I wouldn’t say a nightmare. Especially since so many stores carry everything on the list.

Here is Rivi’s list (Kyri’s is a bit shorter, but not by much):

Dans une trousse – In a pencil case:

2 stylos bleus – blue pens

1 stylo vert – green pen

1 stylo rouge – red pen

1 Gomme + un crayon gris – eraser + a pencil

1 Feutre - felt tip pen

1 Colle – glue stick

Ciseaux - scissors

Regle de 20 cm - ruler

2 Surligneurs fluo (2 couleurs differentes) – highlighters

1 Taille crayon – pencil sharpener

Une trousse de feutres – case of markers

Une trousse de crayons de couleurs – case of colored pencils

Un cahier de texte  - homework notebook

Agenda – agenda/calendar

Ne ardoise velleda avec feutres et chiffon – slate with felt and cloth

Un paquet de 100 pochettes plastiques 21/29.7 – plastic paper sheet covers

Un classeur souples transparent de 2 cm – transparent flexible binder

Un classeur de 4 cm epais - workbook

Deux porte-vues 60 vues (chorale et maths) – workbook for choir and math

Deux pochettes cartonnees a elastique – cardboard covers

Ne ramette 500 feuilles blanches 80 gr – ream of paper

Un boite de mouchoirs en papier – box of tissues

Dans un boite a chaussures maquee au nom de l’enfant (relerve pour l’annee) – in a shoebox labeled with child’s name.

5 stylos bleus – blue pens

2 stylos vert – green pens

3 feutres - felt marker

2 gommes - erasers

5 crayon gris - pencils

4 colles baton – glue stick

1 regle - ruler

3 surligneurs different - highlighters

Now compare that to our supply list in Canada:

For grade 3:

Sharpened pencils

Erasers

2 glue sticks

Pencil case

Box of Kleenex

2 Highlighters

Sharpened pencil crayons

Knapsack

Gym shorts/t-shirt/running shoes

It was a good week. Whew!