There hasn't been very much going on these days, just trying to create a routine, which is difficult with no constraints aside from Mimi's nap.  No one has to be anywhere at any time, so no outing feels necessary, and now we've seen all the main tourist attractions, we're struggling.

This week-end we went to spend Sunday afternoon with someone who works for the institute for advanced studies, where Sean has his fellowship for the year.  There was delicious food, very welcome friendly adult company after so much time listening to the melodramas of 4 children cooped up together in a foreign city, and, oh miracle, a girl Magdalene's age.  They hit is off right away talking about Twilight (Tentation, in French, and I thought it might not have been translated, what a fool...) then Harry Potter, then who knows what in a mixture of French and English.  The other girl, Juliette, had to teach Magdalene to 'faire la bise', the little cheek touching kiss in the air that French people do to say hello and goodbye.  Funny thing was, Juliette and her friend Ariane, who came over to our house for about 2 seconds when they walked Magdalene home, also presented their cheeks to all the adults to be kissed.  Boy you forget a lot about a culture when you're away for 25 years.  Magdalene is going to the movies with those girls (and a boy) tomorrow.  The girls go to private school, so they won't be able to show her around, but the boy will go to Magda's school, so I hope he's nice and takes a bit of care of her.

We're having a terrible time with things being closed.  Monday, we tried to go to the bank (closed on Mondays), then the running shoe store (closed on Mondays), then we looked for a photobooth to get pictures of the children for their school registrations, found none, but this merry go round was open on Mondays, fortunately, though it was really ugly and loud.  Then we planned to go check out the huge 'Mediateque' (basically a library, but since it has other media, it can't be simply called a 'bibliotheque', that would not be precise enough)--on Tuesday, mind you, having learned our lesson about Mondays, but it only opened at 2pm, so we found a photobooth instead and occupied it for an hour taking pictures of all of our kids.  They start school on Wednesday Sept 2, how scary for them (hmmm, and liberating for me, the outing is necessary and I don't have to come up with it).

Later on the boys and I took Tipomme for a long walk up the Chezine river (easier to say than the Erdre) where she got mollested by a dog (male dogs don't seem to be neutered here, I'm sure that's an interesting cultural phenomenon), and to a large beautiful park where the boys found a (paying) playground thing called a babybob--a little cart that goes down a little hill.  They were both too old for it, but they had walked so long without complaining I paid for them to get on.  Now, in Bellingham, and probably anywhere else in the states, there would be an orderly line of kids waiting for carts, and everything would be easy.  But here, no, there is a mob of kids with their parents pushing other kids out of the way to grab the cart for their own kid, it's horrible.  And my two savage boys were completely undone.  They stood there looking embarrassed until their somewhat french mother got into the fray and got them each a cart.  They were so tentative and polite, really, these two little anglo-saxon boys in the middle of the french throng, it made me proud to be an american (can anybody believe I'm saying this?).  Even at church, for communion, there is no order, and everybody almost fights to go in front of you.  Anyway, I was also proud of my Simeon who bravely took my money and went to pay for the babybob, though he and Matthias have been very shy of speaking to anyone.  They were so shy and well-behaved at our Sunday lunch, it didn't seem like the same kids.

Well, that's all for now, I must free the computer for Sean who wants to check out when Inglourious Basterds is playing, despite reading a French review saying it was film-making for backwards adolescents.