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After a lovely, touristy weekend of visiting the Panthéon, the Madeleine church, a long walk through Bastille, macarons from Ladurée on the Champs Élysées (insanely expensive, and not as nice as the cheap ones from the bakeries near my house, but in a beautiful box!) finished with a lovely, long cycle through the Bois de Vincennes (the huge woods just near my house) and of course some shopping!
On Monday morning I made some chocolate chip shortbread with the kids (delicious!) and then headed to the beautiful Luxembourg gardens for a play in the huge playground there, as well as a turn on the merry-go-round, which is beautiful and the kids get given small metal sticks with which they try to hook the keys a lady stands holding, very cute to see how much trouble they had, and how proud they all were when counting up how many sticks they had collected in the end! Luxembourg is probably the cutest of all the parks in Paris, with the the huge fountain where children play with the miniature sailing boats you can hire, the merry-go-round (it is a lovely old one too, not all flashing, neon lights!) marionette theatre, and so many beautiful trees, all in the shadow of a stunning chateau!
Our beautiful day was marred somewhat when I asked Louis if he wanted to help me cook dinner and took his non response as either he actually wasn't listening to me, or didn't want to, only to be greeted with screams and tears when I informed him half an hour later that dinner was ready and it was time to eat.... it turns out that apparently he wanted to help... after repeated apologies/distractions/bribes from me he was still slightly hysterical (obviously I wasn't the only tired soul after our trip to the park!) and I had to feed him his soup while he sat on my knee with tears streaming down his face. Needless to say it was quickly to bed for him and of course on Tuesday when I told him it was time to help cook, he hadn't the slightest interest and told me he would rather keep 'working' on his metro maps.
Tuesday's delicacy was chocolate truffles (aka a block of butter melted with two blocks of chocolate...) which were delicious, although I had to stand guard by the fridge to stop little fingers from delving into the bowl for 'just one more taste' and funnily enough the mixture didn't make any where near as many balls as it should have. They were a big hit with Mathias and Caroline too - so fortunately for me, I didn't eat too many!
We later walked through the Bois de Vincennes, past the huge lake to where there are pony rides! Aurore was too big, so we just took Louis - who absolutely loved it! It was very cute to see him go from being rather frightened of the pony, to wanting to go faster and faster once he was on. As usual in France there were no helmets! Having to wear a helmet has been drilled into my head so well that I nearly wasn't going to let Louis get on the horse, but had to settle for holding him firmly around his waist the whole time (his pony was so old that it probably couldn't have moved fast enough to hurt him anyway). I still get surprised at how different so many laws and customs are here! I think I will definitely suffer culture shock when I get back to Australia!
Wednesday was not a good day! With any visa for France, you are obliged to go for an appointment within the first three months of arriving, for an x-ray, medical, and to fill out a billion more pieces of paper than should be necessary! My letter arrived last week giving me an appointment for Monday in a couple of weeks time, but of course I cannot go because it is during the day and I have the kids! So after days and days of calling the telephone number, only to hear a message explaining the opening hours of the office (apparently just like the French Consulate in Sydney, this place does not like to make communication easy) I went there in person only to line up for forty minutes to be told by the extremely unfriendly man that it is absolutely impossible to change an appointment no matter what the reason was. Of course after talking to Caroline and then to my contact at the au pair agency who assured me that it is possible, I trekked all the way back the next Wednesday prepared to battle it out with the grumpy man, only to open my mouth and say 'I need to change my appointment because...' and then be interrupted by the (lovely) lady to ask when exactly I would be free to have it! All of this while the same grumpy man was standing right next to her - a fine example of how ridiculous French bureaucracy is, it all depends on the mood of the person you are dealing with!
On Thursday we had a lovely trip to the small zoo in the Jardin de Plantes, Louis. was completely disinterested in all of the other animals, he only wanted to show me the wallabies! He repeatedly said to me 'Estelle I think you must be very content now you have seen some wallabies', my response was 'Oh yes very, it is just like looking out my bedroom window in Tasmania' which he found absolutely hilarious. On Friday we had a stay at home day, with Aurore declaring that we should have a picnic in the park just up the road and stay there to play for the entire afternoon (she thought that should be about five hours...) I had managed to contract a horrendous cold and was feeling terrible, so had to lie on the rug and watch Louis and Aurore play instead of playing with them, until it fortunately started to rain and I could suggest that we head home to watch a movie. Aurore is currently obsessed with the Saddle Club, which she watches dubbed in French, and I love watching it with her (I still remember all the episodes from my Saddle Club phase!) It is also a bit of a role call for the actors currently on shows like Offspring, Home and Away, Winner's and Loser's etc and it is funny hearing how different the French dubbing is from their normal voices!
On Saturday I met up with my friend from South Africa, Omphile, to go to a small cocktail bar in the Latin Quartier to meet up with some of the French people we met last week - a common joke is for them to make us speak in French to them and for them to answer in English (Good for my French, but terribly embarrassing for me as their English is great) Delicious cocktails made with fresh berries too!
On Sunday I had a big sleep in followed by a big walk in a direction I had never been before - I love living in a city where I could live for years and still have so many new places to discover!
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