This picture doesn't at all represent reality.  In reality, there are at least 30 other people trying to walk by me, some on bikes, some with strollers, some who are afraid of dogs and some who have scary dogs off their leashes, etc.  I think this is more a feature of big cities than of France in general and even Nantes in particular, but every time I try to go and exercise, it's like hell out there (if you accept the very French view that hell is others).  I mean, I went swimming with three other mothers from the boys' school.  We met at 9:30pm, and got in the water about 10:00pm.  And it wasn't just hard to swim, it was so crowded it was hard to see the water.  I think there were maybe 7 lanes for swimming, and every one had about 20 people in it.  Now, of course, this would never happen in Bellingham.  And the last time I lived in a big city I wasn't interested in exercising, so I can't compare.  But at least in Bellingham, the lanes have designated speeds, so that the extremely slow swimmers are not in the same lane with the aggressive males who were swimming, not around me, but in fact over me, so obnoxiously that I had to change lanes to get away from them (although the guy who was swimming breast stroke by crossing his legs over one another, and therefore was hardly moving at all did not seem bothered by these other males).  Anyway, although the swimming was a complete nightmare (added to the terrible overcrowding was the fact that there's a wave machine that pushes you to one side, so that you're always ending up getting kicked or scraping your knuckles in the wall) the social side of things was nice.  The three women each have three children (and each child has three cats, and each cat has three kittens, etc.  How many were driving to the Petit Port Pool?) in various classes with my three younger ones, interesting jobs and lives, and are quite friendly (aside from being fiercely competitive in their swimming, which is something I remember between friends from my youth, but have gotten less used to in the states, I don't know why, since competition is supposed to be at the very heart of American society, but it's frowned upon, say, in school, whereas here it's absolutely everywhere, at the Judo class, in school where some mothers were explaining that they want their children to get grades so they will know where they stand compared to the others in the class).  One of the mothers, in particular, is married to an Irish guy so they speak English at home, and we've been doing more things together.  Yesterday, for instance, she saw me with my embarrassingly big shopping bags and then joined me at the market, where she showed me the best merchants, and then we had coffee together again.  I'm a little tentative, since I'm rusty about French social clues, but it looks promising.

Anyway, running is almost as bad as swimming.  I usually go around 4:00pm, and I have to pass several boulevards with cafés on them to get to the Erdre river (the one in the non-representational photo up there), and those cafés are so packed at that time, I can barely get by with Tipomme, and often have to run in the street.  And then, I don't know if this is a big city thing again or a Nantes thing or a French thing, but people walk in groups on the tiny sidewalks and the tiny running path by the river, and even though I'm huffing and puffing behind them, I have to actually tap them on the shoulder before they will make way for me (unless they are afraid of dogs, thank you Tipomme), and then they give me such looks!  Anyway, exercising here is such a pain, I might have to give it up.

The photo above, there, is the Mediatheque (it's a library, only because it has things other than books, like DVDs and CDs, it gets called this very fancy name).  I am proud to say that, so far, my two Wednesdays entertaining my children alone have passed very educationally.  Last Wed. we went to the museum of natural history (where Matthias and Mimi ran around the balcony where all the birds and shells are displayed and squealed while a very very serious class of high school students were being taught some obscure points of evolutionary theory that I'd never heard before).  This week, we went to the Mediatheque and got cards, and took out books!  And why didn't I think of that sooner, stupid me, they've been so much happier this afternoon, now that they have books to look forward to (most of them in English, but some in French... the comic books).

Now, the biggest news of all, which I was not going to talk about because I was so annoyed that I couldn't put in a picture, is that we went to visit my brother and his wife and 2 children in Poitiers this week end (I did figure out how to download my sister in law Ramona's pictures from her web-album, though, so this entry is extra-long).  They are looking very cousin-like on this picture, which they were (I guess this is a picture that does represent the reality of that day) especially the younger ones.  Matthias and Josephine (5) got along famously, both because they were such serious horse chestnut collectors (they filled many of the freely dispensed poop bags in the lovely park near my brother's house), and because they are both a little zany (hopping and singing down the sidewalks of downtown, holding hands).  Mimi and Josephine got along well, until Mimi got less shy and started protesting Josephine treating her like a doll.  And both Matthias and Magdalene read to Gabriel (who is 2 months younger than Mimi, and told me he is a queen in the pink dress on the picture).  

We took a long walk in the city which is beautiful (but Sean's camera died, so you do not get to see any pictures).  There were medieval buildings everywhere to console us of the desperately 18th century Nantes, both government buildings (like the city hall and the Courthouse) and incredible romanesque churches.  The Cathedral has a large stained glass window of the crucifixion dating from the 11th century, and on the central square in the town (where the market is and lots of little cafés) is a small 12th century church called Notre Dame La Grande which looks like its roofs are pinecones.  The whole inside of the church is painted in bright colors (only since most of the paint dates back to the 12th century, it HAS faded a bit)  it looked so joyful when I peeked in, but had to go back out after about 2 minutes because there was a wedding taking place, and Mimi on my back was beginning to scream.   In any case, aside from Magdalene's being sick and so missing the walk and so missing the fact that her favorite accessories store (Claire's) is smack in the middle of downtown Poitiers, the day was just wonderful.

Now the children have two more days of school before the week-end, when we hope to find bikes for the whole family at a used bike fair in our neighborhood (actually, everything that happens in Nantes happens in our neighborhood).  If we do, we will explore the Sevre river more fully...  with many more photos to show for it.