As is to be expected, now that it is a week and a half till we have to go (and I don't know, really, who's reading this, but I have a hunch some of you, my faithful readers, are smiling again at the melancholy sound of my voice as I say this, given what the first few months of this blog sounded like), there have been more signs of the end: the boys also had their school fête: there was a wonderful concert (all the kids, from first to fifth grade were completely involved in singing complicated songs, some of them with harmony, many in foreign languages--it did confirm for me what Magdalene has been denying since we got here--French education asks more of kids, and so gets more from them, than American education... or, maybe I should make only very modest claims: Jean Jaures Elementary school gives better concerts than Parkview). We also had a combined party for all the kids to say goodbye to their friends (and us to their parents)/birthday party for Matthias. I had great success by making only American treats (for some bizarre reason, american desserts are very popular in France, in case I haven't mentioned that yet), and the party degenerated into a wild water fight, with a few of the little girls Matthias had invited feeling a bit shaky. At this point, we had our first real goodbyes, although we've been saying goodbye to everyone for weeks it feels: Our friends Stephanie and Xavier, the parents of mateo (Simeon's good friend) who let us stay in their house in the north of Brittany, left for a vacation in Italy as soon as school ended, and we won't see them again until 2012, if they do come visit us. This year really is coming to an end, and look how sad the girls are! (I hope Magdalene doesn't read this, because she's really the only one unreservedly happy about coming back, and she would probably be annoyed at me for misportraying her like this).

The boys had their first and last Judo competition where (thanks be to God) they both won bronze medals and there were only a few feathers to be smoothed (because the older one didn't think he should have the same medal as the younger one).

Then, like the good french patriots we've become, as soon as school ended, the various parts of the family began to fly in all directions for various vacations (although that's not very French, what I'm describing here, that's more American. The French take their vacations as a family, and were very shocked when they heard that we never do that, and as a result of the shock, to try and fit in better, Sean and I decided that we must do it soon, all together, maybe camping, maybe with some friends...)

Vacations then: Magdalene, who had been complaining within ear-shot of her friend's mother that here, she had been in France for a year and had not seen Paris, got invited for a quick Paris tour. I never heard how that went, because she got back from Paris on Sunday at noon, and then left again for Chenonceau with Maura and Julia (yes, from Bellingham!) at 12:15. I hope I get to hear about it when she comes back on Wednesday, but since Julia will be there, as well as Magdalene's American-bashing friend Clara, I may not hear about it till another day, sparks might fly instead!

Me! I had my little vacation too. Annette (my neighbor and friend) and I have been joking over e-mail about a bike-wine tour of the Loire Valley. Well, I didn't think I had it in me, but I organized it! Me, who's always too afraid to make phone calls and would rather pay more than have to speak to someone I don't know on the phone, well, I got us train tickets, bike rentals, hotels, a route (about which, more later), and a wine guide--no, I didn't get that, I figured that would sort itself out on its own. So, if you want to pull out your map (since I haven't yet figured out how to include one here, though believe me I would): Annette and I took the train from Nantes to Tours, where we visited the cathedral and the old city center, of which the dog here is a detail. Then we picked up our bikes and rode to Amboise (in 95 degree weather, even after 7PM). After that ride, we realized that the much much longer ride I had planned for the next day was too much, but no worries, instead of biking all the way to Chinon, we just caught the local train with our bikes.

Now, on the ride to Amboise, we had both bemoaned the fact that we had not brought hats (hem, I guess that sort of outs us as not wearing helmets, doesn't it. Well, no one does it here, really, we were only obeying the fashion requirements of the locals... and the children never saw us). So upon arriving in the center of Chinon and realizing that it was market-day, we went shopping for hats, so that ever after, we rode our bikes with silly twin hats (Annette wouldn't let me take a picture). We also bought other things, it felt very lovely, somehow, to bike into an unknown town and pick up a few things for our wardrobes at the market. After that, we were feeling so very French that we had lunch for about two hours on the central ancient beautiful plaza, accompanied by accordion music (until the police came and shut the guy up because he didn't have a permit). I had seen this plaza before, the time where I had gotten lost in the countryside and arrived four hours late... well, I think that

was why Annette had to ride back to Chinon, so I could stop on that plaza with no one blaming me for being late and no one whining at me about being hungry and thirsty. Well, it's good to satisfy one of your desires in life, even if it's a small insignificant one like drinking Chinon wine on the central plaza of Chinon.

Another desire I had acquired in that long ago trip with Sean and his parents and all the kids where I had gotten lost (note: I never got lost this time, well, except for the very first day coming out of the Tours train station where I

made a wrong turn, but Annette learned quickly to second guess my retarded sense of direction, and we did quite well after that) was to sleep at the hotel inside the Abbey of Fontevraud. Well, I satisfied that one too on this trip. The really cool thing about sleeping inside the abbey is that you can wander the grounds at night when there's no one else around. It's really beautiful. There's no wine specifically named from the abbey, so we had to compromise a little and anticipate: we drank Saumur wine that night, though we were only biking to Saumur the next day: Annette and I were very proud of our adaptability and our spirit of compromise.

We rode to Saumur the next day along the Loire: the photo below pretty much sumarizes our trip: there are the vineyards to symbolize all the wine we drank (ah, but only from within a 30 km radius or where we were, we were purists), and a church steeple to symbolize poor Annette's martyrdom as I

dragged her into every church we came across (that's one per village, multiplied by about 5 villages a day. She took it stoically. It was cooler inside the churches, and some of them had gems like painted carvings from the XIIth century or gory tapestries about tortured saints). Another place we stopped to cool ourselves down (the trip really was very hot) were caves. All the villages there on the banks of the Loire are built from a cream colored stone that is fairly easy to dig out of the cliffs, and then hardens when exposed to air. So there are caves and tunnels and houses inside of caves (some of them with cave balconies), and wineries inside of caves, and restaurants inside of caves and museums (our bike path went right through a museum that had been built from a 10th century tunnel which they said had been a shopping center). The villages are beautiful, all uniform and glowing creamy in the sun (we passed through one, Candes Saint Martin, which is classified as one of the most beautiful villages in France, what an honor, I thought I should mention it here)

and the caves are very cool. Even the front porches of the caves (where we ate lunch on the last day--no, no wine that day, well, until the champagne-like Saumur Brut in Saumur) are cool, even the bathrooms built into the caves are very cool!

Anyway, enough about the bike-wine tour, Annette will be embarrassed with all my bragging. Sorry Annette! I don't know whether I'll write again, as this was my last adventure in France. The men and bigger children (Sean, Steve, Simeon and Steve and Annette's two oldest) are off in Spain walking part of the pilgrimage to Santiago, but those won't be my stories, so Sean will have to tell the tale on his new Facebook page. So, a warning to all of you who are addicted to looking at this (all three hundred of you), I will be closing it soon. It's been a nice way to force myself not to rewrite history too much once it's over--I can't at all pretend that the whole year was wonderful and that all the trips were lovely. Still, it's a weird way to write, with an unknown and extremely public audience, so you always have to be careful what you write in case the wrong person somehow finds the blog. Soon, it will be me talking instead of this page. Less neat and organized, but probably just as entertaining.