French food or Chinese food - Vacation in France - IX

Holy cow, I am 10 days behind!  There is no way I can really keep my diary as a daily activities record!  So, here is the glance for the last week day activities.

June 10, 2013.  Monday

We all had only about 5 hours sleep.  A cup of coffee later, Rousset took us to train station and we hopped in without breakfast.  The kids were amazingly resilient, they didn't make any fuss and went to school happily after lunch.  A mini vacation cost them missing half day school in the morning, although we got in town at 8:15 am.

June 11, 2013.  Tuesday

Another school day for the kids.  I sent to le Marche in the morning with the grandma and got myself a pair of shoes, a zipper for Niuniu's sideman jacket and few other items for lunch.  Then I spent the rest of the day to sew the zipper BY HAND - that's the biggest accomplishment today and while sewing, which seemed to be a perfect thing to do while other people sitting around chatting in a language that I cannot grasp.  After lunch, the Grandma prepared 3 big bouquets of flowers for Zhuzhu, Niuniu, and Leone to bring to their school teachers for no reason.  The flowers are home-grown and beautiful.  I was a bit of a surprised but apparently it's normal that little kids bring flowers to teachers randomly without any specific reasons.  Ha, this never happened to me when I was teaching!

June 12, 2013.  Wednesday

School is off, Fabrice and I had our morning run and then we took the kids to have a lunch that lasted until dinner time at Emma's house.  The menu is shown in the following photos.  Our brother-in-law chef who has become a manager in a great restaurant a while ago does not take his job lightly - the items in the following photo are served in a single meal.  Starting from 12 pm, we had our aperitif drinks, which was accompanied by salmon and tuna based snacks, and a pink wine for adults and grenadine or organ juice for kids.  At about 1 pm, salad was presented, it is the regular amount of food that I would eat at work for lunch - look at the thickness of the dried pork and the size of the foie gras, you will have to eat 3 oz of baguette with them, right?  And that appetizer plate goes well with the white wine shown in the tiny photo insert.  So, should we stop here now?  I had no room for any additional food.  But no, the main entree was not even served yet.  After a short break, a new set of plates were presented.  We tomato pork wrapped with turkey breast as a main dish, which was served with 2 pieces baked cheese-potato and baked creamy vegetable.  The main entree goes along with 3 kinds of red wine.  The 2006 one was our gift to the chef/manager.  I surprised myself by finishing all the meat on the plate and then I announced that I won't touch anything else, regardless.  Well, I did not touch the cheese yet could not resist the dessert plater?  No, I guessed it.  Not only had one cup of each, freshly cut fruit mix, home-made cream brûlée with a cherry on the top, and samoule au lait with a raspberry on the top.  Thank god the cups are not gigantic.  After that, I fell in asleep in a big sofa in the living room.  But guess what I saw when I woke up from my nap about 1 hour later?  The kids were happily digging in the large container which was full of freshly fried beignes!

My god, this meal alone requires me to run 10 laps of the lake in town!!! - I have only done only 6 so far for the whole duration of our vacationing!

We concluded a day of food fest with a swimming pool fun in the olympic sized pool.

June 13, 2013.  Thursday

A school day.

June 14, 2013.  Friday.

I went for a run of 50 min in the morning and 1000 meter swimming in the afternoon.  Yay to me!

After the school, the Grandma took the kids to do some shopping without the parents.  Zhuzhu insists that she needs a bikini as her new swimming suit just as what cousin Leone has.  I explained to her that a bikini is not for swimming.  But Grandma could not say no to her precious granddaughter.  The Daddy explains to his tiger wife that the Grandma sees Zhuzhu only once a year at the best, so it would be wise for her to keep the mouth shut.  Guess what happened when a tiger listened to a rat?  Zhuzhu came back home with a white dress and 2 tight-pants, and 8 little colorful bracelets in addition to a set of hello kitty bikini.  And Niuniu who meant to go shopping only for accompanying his sister to enjoy the fun got a pair of spiderman swimming shorts that were tighter than a pair of underwear and a set of sporty clothes!  The daddy did not have any objections.  I am totally shocked by how wasteful the French can be, the boy has 3 sets of swimming trunks and the 3 new sets of soccer uniforms that he received when he arrived France!  On the top of everything, all the clothes they got are either for age of 3 or 5, which is one size smaller than their ages.  In France, all the clothes are already made smaller than what the Americans do in the U.S..  These new ones would only be useful for exactly one time use!

"Here in France,"  the Daddy said, "we swim with real swimming gears and we wear clothes that fit."
    
Well, we are in France, we do what the French do.

June 15, 2013.  Saturday

In the morning, we went to the Marche in Town for a handbag.  I don't use handbags in my regular researcher life, therefore, there is no point to spend big bucks for a known brand named ones.  Somehow it always seems much more practical to have a handbag when I am in France so that I can carry camera, wallet, cell phone, folded shopping bags, and my glasses, of course.  I have been using my mother-in-law's handbag since I got here this time and fell in love with it.  Her bag has 3 major compartments with 3 top zippers and 2 smaller compartments with smaller zippers and finally 2 additional divided compartments for cell phone and wallet.  It was perfect for my "organizational need" and easy to reach.  So I decided to "chercher" myself one just like hers, because I have never seen people carry such well-designed hand bags in the U.S..  For only 30 euros, I got a fashionable and well-designed handbag.  Great deal!

Speaking of Le Marche, you know about the Farmers' Markets in the U.S., well, in France, they call it Marche, where you buy things from real people.  We love to go Marche in France mainly for local food, but sometimes we can get good stuff, such as the handbag, shoes, and cloths.  Our town has Marche on Tuesday and Saturday mornings only.  But in China, we have it everyday and we go Marche at least twice a day for super fresh vegetable and meats.  

On the top of sharing their love for shopping at le Marche,
the French even live a life as we Chinese do.  They go to local bakers in the early morning to "checher" fresh baguettes or/and croissants for breakfast, then go supermarket or the local Marche to "chercher" fresh vegetables and even more fresh baguettes for lunch and dinner.  Often later in the day, they again go get fresh baguettes, processed meats as appetizers.  Similarly, we Chinese eat our breakfast on the streets for freshly made Baozi, Mantou, Doujian, and Youtiao.  Chinese of my generation don't care too much about lunch, so we often eat quick and simply, either the leftover from the night before or a bowl of rice noodle soup on street restaurants.  Dinner is the most important meal and a regular family of 4 usually will prepare little banquet of 4 dishes and 1 soup (四菜一汤/Sìcàiyītāng).  Look at what I have to give up in all these years in order to living in "the land of free"!

French schooling - vacation in France - V

June 4, 2013.  Tue.

Today is the first day that Zhuzhu and Niuniu start their French school.  We have been preparing them for this day way before we took the flight to Paris.  The Daddy showed her school photos featuring colorful and spacious classrooms filled with happy schoolers doing various activities, playgrounds, running field, and even green gardens.  But Zhuzhu remained unimpressed.  She had not been happy because our vacation would start 3 days too early, which made her miss her yearly ballet recital.

"I want to go for my ballet recital.  I am not going France with you."  She cried one day after her ballet class.

Zhuzhu loves to dance on big stages.  We have enrolled her in 2 different dance classes: one is Chinese Dance Academy and another is Ballet Dance School.  She has gotten many opportunities to dance on big stages to show what she learned from her Chinese dance class early this year because of the Chinese New Year cerebration.  However, she only has one opportunity to perform on the stage to show what she learns from the ballet class at the yearly recital event, which she has performed once at the end of last May so far.  Thus, we felt quite sorry that our summer vacation plan indeed made her miss what she has been looking forward to for an entire year.  We even allowed her to cry for a long time the day when we erased her name from the recital list on the wall at her ballet school.  

However, things began to change when the Summer was approaching.  She complained less and less and then fully stopped.  In the mean time, she began to discuss with us more about Summer plans.  Thanks to her K school teacher who took the opportunity to introduce her class the monuments of France in Paris, Zhuzhu became more and more anxious and excited to get on the Eiffel Tower, walk through the Arc de Triomphe, and draw a picture of the Notre Dame Cathedral...

So she did not shed a single drop of tears at the last ballet lesson at which she had to practice on the recital performance that she would miss!

We know then that she was ready to give up her beloved ballet recital for French vacation.

Although Zhuzhu and Niuniu have been going to Tavin and Leone's schools every school day ever since they arrived France, they have not had a chance to get inside their classrooms.  Unlike American schools, the French ones are quite closed.  Parents and siblings wait outside the main school gate (in Tavin's school) or classroom doors (Leone's school) at pick up and drop off times.  Thus, Zhuzhu and Niuniu are quite curious about what their cousins are doing inside those mysterious classrooms.    

Well, today is the day to find out, kiddos!

The Daddy and I got up early to get the kids ready for their big day.  The school brunch director (manager) who happens to be the cousin of Fabrice received us at the door of Zhuzhu's classroom and then she took us for a tour.  When we reached Niuniu's class, the teachers were ready to embrace him, so Niuniu followed his teachers reluctantly but not unwillingly to join his new classmates, while the rest of us continued our tour.  At the end of our tour, the director took Zhuzhu to her classroom.  She cried as if she would never see us again in her life, even though her cousin Leone was standing right in front of her!

The girl's tears at drop-off get me every single time!

Fabrice attended the same elementary school, but he cannot recognize any room, building, nor teachers.  The school has been expanded, which has also been remodeled accordingly.  The elementary school has 3 distinct parts for kids under 3 (toddlers), 3-5 (preschoolers), and 6-11 (grade schoolers), respectively.  Although related, the 3 parts are run as independent entities, each of which has its own play yards and facilities for kids of appropriate ages.  We only visited the classrooms and facilities in the preschool part, since that is where Zhuzhu and Niuniu go.  The preschool part has 4 classrooms and each has about 25 kids and 2 teachers.  The classrooms are bright, clean, and colorful.  Each classroom has its own toilet area with 6-10 petite-sized toilets.  Impressively, there is a large gym for little kids to have their PE classes.  At the end of the building, there is a special room containing about 30 petite beds covered by neatly folded light colored blankets and little pillows.  We are told they are for toddlers but this preschool does not h toddlers.  I have not found out who are sleeping these beautiful beds.  Outside the main building, there is a big yard with a large play set that has slides and climbing walls.  A small room detached to the main part of the building stores the outdoor play equipment for little kids to check out their bikes without training wheels and soccers.  After our visit, we followed the director to complete a formal registration, which allows Zhuzhu and Niuniu to receive a life time French student ID from the French Educational System.  That means Zhuzhu and Niuniu can come back to France to enter any public schools at anytime in the future, for free!  

Let me emphasize once more here, Education in France is Free.  The kids can start from free public school as little as infancy!  Even for the French live overseas with a foreign address!

Compared to Fraance, China as a socialist country is a sham!

After properly deposited the kids to a safe and fun place, our real summer vacation finally has begun!

Yahooooooooo!!!!!

The idea to put Zhuzhu and Niuniu to a French School is brilliant!  They will learn at least French if nothing else.  We, on the other hand, will enjoy our free time as adults.  Now we can do whatever we want.  The first choice for us is to have a run regularly.  So, quickly got into our running shoes, Fabrice and I went for a run.  The man led me to run through a forest and then to make a short cut through a tunnel under a highway bridge to reach the center of the town.  I was surprised by how close it was from home.  On the way back, we circled through his middle and high school, swimming pool, recreation center for the youth, and finally a grave yard!

It was an enjoyable and relaxed morning.  I have not felt so spoiled by him for a long while - Fabrice is the one who taught me that good exercises are much better than bad sexes.  No, you have not known that?  Then get out more often with your lovers so you will know the power of endorphin.  Indeed, running with Fabrice sends me into orgasm.  I love to watch his butt moving up and down, smell his scent, and inhale the vapor of his sweat while running behind him.  I love even more the stretches that he leads me to do after each run.  But even knowing how much I enjoy this, the man usually would not grand me such pleasurable moments.  He at best only uses me as his warning up partner and then dumps me in the middle of the run so that he can fly in the air.  But today is special, we are in the town where he has many memories of his growing up to tell.  So, he accompanied me all the way through his hometown in the mean time to tell me what he did at each of the places by which we just ran pass.

In the end of the day, I cannot help but thanking the French government for providing me such pleasant adult alone time during our summer vacation for free!!!!

Yay to French government!!!

_____________________
June 5, 2013.  Wed.

Zhuzhu and Niuniu don't have school today.  So we took them to the park where there is a huge playground to let them dissipate some of the everlasting energies.  Then they feed some farm animals...

Niuniu and Tavin

Climber in Training Zhuzhu 

Niuniu on a Slide

 ________________________
June 6, 2013.  Thu.

Kids are at school, so Fabrice and I enjoyed another morning run on the tracks around a large lake beside the house.  In the afternoon, we all went to Emma's house for another aperitif where the kids played soccers at the backyard and the adults got drunk socialized a bit.