Big Day

Celia and Elise on their Rocking Motorcycles at the Park...check out the new video of Celia below on the YouTube! (especially the little girl who pays us a visit; it's our favorite part!)

So we had a fabulously big day today! We were awarded Le certificat d'inscription for Elise which allows her to officially register for pre-school. Following the awards ceremony (basically all of us skipping out of the local town hall!) my good friend Greg called the lucky school that gets to have us only to find out that there is no space. A little blow to our big morning but no big deal because it is their responsibility to find us a new school. So we are told to meet at the school at 16:00 to discuss our options.

Armed with Greg my interpreter, we arrive to find out that someone has canceled that we are in! It's a great looking school and we start Thursday! Big Day!!! So wish us luck as we venture off Thursday morning. It's an all French Pre-school and Elise is going to be baptized by fire, but I think she is up for the challenge. We will see!

Hope all is well back in the real world! And hey, shouldn't you be working? :)

La Tour Eiffel

I think Elise and Celia have found one of the coolest play groups in town. The games are fun and you can't beat that view!

Monday

Here's Monday. Quite the day...

1. First of all, I am such a city girl! I mastered the Parisian Bus System! I can't take full credit though -- Elise loves the bus too and is very excited when we jump off one, run to the next stop, and jump on another! It's quite the ride; you need to picture me pushing Celia in the stroller and calling Elise from behind me as we hustle from one bus to the other. It's a scene. I've got to give Elise credit though; she is very fast and loves this game!
2. Got our bus passes! NaviGO! I filled out all the paperwork and now we have our very own bus/metro/tram passes that you can recharge with credits. It's pretty sweet and I'm feeling very cool. No more tiny tickets!
3. Celia has passport pictures. I found a little place to take Celia's picture. The rest of the Fischer's were able to take care of our Carte de Sejour pictures in the little photo booth on campus. However we could not get Celia to sit still and look in the scary dark void of the camera at the right time. For all of you that think we're crazy to think that we could accomplish this feat, we almost did get her! So there!
4. Mailed visa information for the ladies. So I went to the post office, struggled through my French with the P.O. lady and was able to fill out the correct envelope. Then, these forms must be mailed through registered mail so I had to find my good friend again. As I struggled to get all that out, she asked if I would prefer to speak in English? Well, yeah!! It was much easier to take care of that hugely important administrative task in English! I still wonder why she waited so long to bust out the English...
5. Struck out at Mairie but at least I made it there! The Fabulous 14th Mairie is our local town hall. I need to go there and register the ladies for school. This amounts to verifying we live here, confirm passports and visas, vaccinations, paystubs, and marriage license. I had a fabulous duo that walked me through the process and started me on my quest for the Carnet de Sejour. Here in Paris, you do not keep a vaccination card on your child. You keep a book! It's huge! So now I have that, I need to find a pediatrician that will look over my USA Vaccination Card and fill out the Carnet de Sejour so that we can complete the ladies maternelle inscription! This will be a fun one! (By the way, I'm calling it right now that it is going to take at least three trips to the Mairie to get this done. I'm 1 for 3.)
6. Got nailed by the rain! We tried to go out and get milk before the rain came but lost! So, in addition to buying milk, we also bought delicious dinosaur crackers covered in chocolate; I was able to convince Elise to run to the tram stop in order to get her cracker! She ran very fast...I don't even think she got wet! We both can't wait for our umbrellas to get here. The next couple days could get ugly. But we'll survive. We have dinosaur crackers....covered in chocolate! Who needs sun?

Paris just can't keep us down! We're off to the Eiffel Tower tomorrow for an adventure with some friends! Should be fun!

Hope all is well!

Flea/Farmers Markets

This Weekend's Theme was Markets! We checked out the 14th Arrondissement's Flea Market (rated 3rd best in all of Paris) on Saturday and the fabulous 14th's Farmer's Market on Sunday!

The Flea Market was pretty standard and nothing too exciting. I was hoping to snag a rug for our living area but only came across a 100E Iranian weaved rug. The salesman was pretty good but I just couldn't bring myself to spending that kind of Euros! Otherwise, there were intersting paintings, lots of furniture, and all the other stuff you'd expect. The Rose Bowl or Paris, a flea market is a flea market!

The Farmers' Market on the other hand was Fantastic! Such great deals and great, fresh fruits and vegetables. I could have spent hours there but the time is limited with the ladies. They have a cheese lady that I wanted to hang with all day, plenty of fish and poultry stands, and lots of fruits and veggies. Plus the prices were fabulous at every stand. We bought a delicious rotisary chicken and pomme de terre!

Otherwise, very low key weekend. We are thinking of some trips over the next few weekends. We are going to start with France until our visas are completed because if we leave the country before completion they are not going to let us back in! Kind of a big deal. So I'm hoping to start researching some stops for us in the home country over the next few days! Any thoughts? :O)

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

The Paris Beach

What? You didn't know Paris had a beach? Right there in the middle of the city? Il est fabuleux!

We meet up with some friends on Wednesday at the Paris Beach on the Seine. Every year for about four weeks they dump 2,000 tons of sand along the "boardwalk" of the Seine for people to lounge in. There are beach chairs, clowns, and fun misty sprays for everyone to cool off under. Elise, and all her new friends, loved running through the shower of water! It was a super hot day so the showers felt fabulous!

• In other news, I successfully confirmed and validated my cell phone. This means that I actually talked on the phone in Englench with a Bouygues representative and validated my order. It was pretty awesome. I had to give my address, date de naissance, and order number. I'm getting very good at my numbers and letters!
• The process of our Carte de Sejour is well underway. The fabulous little man with great suspenders in the HR Department at ENS is filing our paperwork. Who knows if it will work or if we will ever hear from him again? But it's in the works and I think we've done all we are supposed to do at this point???? Keep your fingers crossed!

Hope everyone is doing well! It's been great here and we're all adjusting better and

better every day! Next week we are going to work on schools for the ladies and

hopefully activate my new cell phone! Who knows? I will keep you posted!

Have a great day!

French Kiss

Today I had my first French Kiss!

First of all I saw Charolette for the first time since Saturday and she came in for the kiss and I responded appropriately!

Then, I got to meet Charolotte's husband and we kissed like real Parisians! It was awesome! Cheek to Cheek!

I've officially arrived!

Cell phones and Security Guards

First the security guards: since arriving we have been warned to always keep the windows closed. The other day the ladies and I were hanging out on the couch in the living room and the security guards scolded me from the kitchen window to close it while we were not in there. Thus, once you leave a room, lock it up! I guess it's sound adivce since we're living on the ground floor and there are no bars on the window. (Plus, I learned it is indeed very easy to break in...locked myself out one afternoon and had to break in through the window. Totally no trouble at all! And that was with two kids!)

However, things are getting out of hand with these guys. Three nights ago I was reading on the couch. It was very late and I had the windows open. A guard approached the window and informed me that there were multiple guards doing rounds in the area but that I should still be very careful. Okay, good to know...but why knock on the window at midnight and scare me half to death to inform me of this detail? Do I feel safer now????

It gets better...the last two nights: well into our sleep we have been awoken by tapping on the window by...you guessed it! The security guards! They do not want us to keep those windows open. Now granted, two nights ago we had two windows open and it probably wasn't very safe. However last night we had only one open and it was just a sliver. Still, they got us up and told us to close it. I'm not sure if we've become the big joke around town or if there are serious safety concerns, but tonight I will sweat in my sleep and leave all the windows tightly shut! We'll see what happens...

Cell Phones: Today is day two of my adventure into the world of mobile telecommunications in Paris! It actually has been a project of mine since we arrived to figure out which company to go with and what phone to purchase. The iPhone has won hands down and on Thursday I decided which company to go with! So I'm feeling very good and decide that yesterday would be the day of purchase. It will be so exciting to be able to call my new friends! (The land line in our house allows us to receive calls however we cannot dial out!)

Yesterday did not go well -- no one is open on Monday. I have heard that a lot of shops will do this: too much partying on Sunday so they need to take Monday off as well. Which is totally cool and fine. I just had to learn the hard way.

So today is the big day! I'm ready to go in and ask for a phone. I've got my french worked out and phrases memorized. I'm nervous and sweating and the butterflies are fluttering away in my belly! (all this for a phone?!) I go into Bouygues magasin and request the new iPhone and a contract. The guy responds with nothing I had practiced or could understand! Dang it! What do I do? Luckily the guy waiting in line could speak english and translated for me that the store is sold out of iPhones! The store will not have anymore until September! Well, at least the butterflies in my belly are gone and I can go back to being incognito! It would have been way to stressful to deal with all my new friend if I had a phone! I'd be calling all one of them all the time! It's probably better that I wait! :)

But look at me! I think I ordered one online and I think it should be delivered by Friday. I didn't get Brian a phone yet because I'm not too sure how this whole Internet buying/delivery thing is going to work out. More on that Friday/Saturday....(keep your fingers crossed!)

Okay! Too much excitement for the day. I'm off to practice some francais!

Lost in Paris

Saturday was a great day. I think I made a new friend and she’s actually a bonafied Frenchwoman...born and raised! It was awesome. She has a nine month old and she speaks fabulous English. We conversed in Englench for a while and then she taught me some French in the park as our kids played in the sand. It was very fun and I’m feeling more fluent already!

Today is the 15 of August and a holiday in Paris. It was very quiet on the streets and a lot of places were closed. The best part is that when I asked my new friend Charolette what the holiday was for, neither she nor two other people she asked in the park could explain it. She laughed as she informed me that there are so many holidays in France that it is hard to keep up with why we celebrate! However no one seems to complain. They just shut down their stores, bakeries, and restaurants in the middle of a busy tourist season and take the weekend off. But isn’t that great? I really appreciate how much they love their holiday and don't think twice about taking time off! It's Fabulous!

This afternoon I got out and ran the streets of Paris. It was a great run that turned into a major workout because I got very lost! Once you get in the mix of the city, it is easy to get lost. The streets are running sideways and backwards, nothing is perpendicular, and it isn’t hard to get mixed up in an eight street roundabout! The best part of my confusion was when I did reach daylight from the mess of the city buildings I ran into the Eiffel Tower. Not bad, eh? I can’t complain about getting lost in my strange new city but then running into a totally awesome landmark. Yes, my life in Paris is rough! J

Brian and I ventured out with the ladies tonight for dinner. Brian had learned of the Asian part of town from some friends so we went to check that out. It was a very cool and we found a few different Asian Super Markets as well as one of the best Vietnamese Dinners ever: Pho 14 is a great find. (Aren’t we so French? Vietnamese for dinner…AND it was at 7:00! Tres Mauvais!) But the ladies were well behaved and were awarded a double sucker each from the server. That bought B and I some time to finish our beers! J'adore sucettes!

It was a fabulous day and a great evening! I love getting out into the streets of Paris! This is the life!

Last few days

The last few days have been somewhat quiet. Not a lot of crazy old French people telling me how to parent or attempt at stealing coffee makers! Although I will share how one old lady told me that my baby should not be eating in his stroller while I shop and another did not like Elise eating her bonbon while walking next to me! I guess it's all good advice. However, I live for the bonbon bribe when trying to get errands done! :)

We played in some splash pools and sandboxes the other day with the Message Mother's Group here in Paris. Message is a fabulous find that has probably saved me the last couple days. There are wonderful woman that belong to the group and everyone has been so nice and helpful. Elise has made some friends and it is so huge to have other moms to talk to and learn about the ins and outs of Paris with kids. And it's all in English! Yes!

Meeting those woman at the Jardin de Luxembourg meant that we had to take the Metro up north. Now as easy as it is to use the Fabulous French Metro that everyone raves about, it is not kid/stroller friendly. The ladies are free however it's about 40 steps underground, all three of us (including a stroller) have to fit through a turn-style at our initial stop, and its not very enticing for Elise; the tunnels are dark and scary and what fun is it to ride through that? Luckily my new friend Kirsten introduced us to the bus and the tram for our ride home! They were a treat to ride especially for Elise: there is so much to see from the bus/tram and she got to hold hands with her new friend Jonah while sitting in the back of the bus! (Is this a bad omen? Boys and backs of the buses...what have I started?) I loved it because for both the Tram and the bus I do not have to break down a stroller and hold Celia. She stays strapped in and secure and I'm hands free! :)

Other than that big adventure to the jardin, we have been playing in the yard, riding the tram to the shopping areas, and getting in some good naps. I would like to believe that my french is getting better every day but I still get the butterflies in my belly every time I have to go out! The comprehension is there but I still can't get words out of my mouth. I have had great experiences with the phone guy and the bank people speaking Englench (that's my English/French! It was a great 3 on 1 in the bank. Between the 3 of them speaking their english and me speaking my french I think I can now use an ATM!). But then the cleaning lady came today and I'm still trying to decide if she was offering to clean the ladies or babysit the house! I did understand that the floor was wet in the hall way...I slipped, she yelled!

Next week will be a big week. We hope to get our carte de sejour so we can stay in Paris and visit the local mairie so that we can sign up for school. Elise will probably go to a pre-school for 4 days a week and Celia will go to a daycare for two mornings a week. I'll keep you posted on all that!

Once again, I hope everyone is doing well. The emails and well wishes are fabulous to receive so thanks for keeping that up! Have a fabulous weekend!

Dinner Tonight...just me and the ladies!

....am I crazy?

I took the little ones out to dinner tonight and it went somewhat well. Celia didn't want to sit in her stroller like I had planned and ended up standing on a chair/sitting on my lap. Elise was actually fabulously well behaved. However, near the end of the meal we HAD to leave because Celia had expired!!! Needless to say, I did the biggest faux pas and went into the resturant (we were sitting on the patio) and asked for the bill. Then to add insult to injury, I kept saying "your welcome" instead of "sorry". De rien, Desole! What's the difference!

Luckily I realized my mistake and told the mademoiselle, "je suis bete!". She laughed!

Why having a ground floor apartment sucks!

They came and mowed the lawn today while our windows were open! The guy just kept blowing away with no regard that everything was going inside our place! Fabulous! :)

By the way, check out the video links at the bottom of the page to see a video of our place via the youtube.

Hi everyone! Thank you so very much for the emails and well wishes. We have made it here to Paris and have survived a week. At this time one week ago today, (Central Standard Time J) we were standing in the security line of the Ohare International Airport hoping we were going to make our flight. Well, we did and here is a summary of the last 6 days! Thanks again for thinking of us and I’m sorry I have not been a very good emailer. I hope to get better!

Monday/Tuesday!

Elise was fabulous on the flight and slept almost the whole way. Celia was less than fabulous and would not let me sit down in my seat without screaming on the plane. Needless to say, I spent a lot of time in the back of the plane making friends. Fortunately, once we landed the customs process, luggage, and boarder police were fabulous and pain free. Then as we left the luggage area there was a little man standing with a sign that read our name and he whisked us away to our new home. That was fantastic! Even though we were all exhausted and on 2:00 AM time.

Our Place: we have a fabulous apartment in the Cite. It is composed of three rooms, a kitchen, and bath. It’s only downfall is that it is in a basement so we don’t have great windows and they open to the ground level. Otherwise I have grown quite found of the lime green hallway and spacious place. The bedrooms are very nice and although we have not worked out the sleeping arrangements yet, Elise loves having her own room and “sharing” with Celia. We have great storage space and the hallway-like kitchen is ten times bigger than I ever dreamed of having in Paris! We also have plenty of tables and chairs to accompany all our guests! Start making your plans now!

After a nap, a walk through the area, and Brian finished checking in at work, we all went off together. It was glourious to find a grocery store and buy some goods; including a frozen pizza to make for dinner. However once we got home and discovered we do not have an oven to cook the said pizza, we adventured off again to find food at the Main House of the Cite.

The Cite is a great place to live. We are in an international wonderland. Our place is part of the Deutsch de La Meurthe which basically means that we do not have a nation affiliation like the rest of the houses. (For example, we live right next to the Canada House). We basically live on a college campus in which everyone is a student, there is a great quad area, and a Main House where you can get food and take care of all the administrative things like paying rent and hopefully get a residency card. There is a great open area for kids to play and Brian has discovered multiple weight rooms and an indoor pool. We have really lucked out with this place and are excited to be here…even though we don’t have an oven!

Wednesday!

1. Spanish/French/English encounter: so I get stopped by this couple that want to live in the Cite and are asking me about space and availability. It was fantastic because they are Spanish with little English or French speaking abilities. I am American with little French and Spanish. Somehow we are able to communicate fabulously in English/Spainish/French and I help them figure out that the Cite is for Graduate and Post-Grad students only and there is an application process through their employer. As disappointed as they were, I was very helpful. It was pretty cool!
2. My new favorite people: Pedro is the student worker for th Deutsch de La Meurthe and he helped me get internet! Plus he speaks great English and walked me though a lot of the administrative things of the Cite. Ceasar is our maintance man and also speaks great English. He un-clogged our shower drain and also gave me the ins and outs of life at the Cite. It was very comforting to talk English and learn more about my new home!
3. I learned that you need to weigh your produce at most super markets before going to pay! Most don't have the fancy electronic weighers at the checkout and you need to take care of the pricing! This is good information to know when you’re 15 month old is screaming and needs to go home and there is a huge line at the store! But everyone patiently waited! Nice.
4. We ended the day with dinner with Paulette Geragos! It was so great to meet up with someone from home…especially someone as well versed with Paris as Paulette. She gave us a great tutorial of the city and treated us to a fabulous pizza dinner across the street from our home. It was so huge to have a friend and great food!

Thursday!

1. I bought toliet paper! Aweseome!
2. Discovered the Montsouris Park and played at the playground and in some flower beds. Great find!
3. Cooked our first dinner! Oh spices how I miss the! It's very difficult to shop for spices in French with two kids screaming in a grocery store! Especially when you've run out of snacks and strangers keep touching your babies. The French love to come up to us and say things. I wish I could elaborate more but I have no idea what they are saying! At least they say it with a smile. Elise is starting to get used to the shopping experience and having people smile, touch her head, and talk to her in this strange language. It's quite fun to watch her try to figure out what the heck is going on!
4. Explored some of Paris and found the treasured and most talked about MonoPrix!

Friday: speaking of strangers talking and smiling all the time...

When we left the MonoPrix (bought a coffee maker!!!!) today an older woman approached us and was fasinated with the stroller. She couldn't stop touching it and examining it. She gave it a little push and slowly walked around it a few times as if she were thinking of purchasing it. From the look on her face, I think she was impressed but you never know. I just smiled while Elise froze and Celia gave her baby death ray look at this strange old woman speaking crazily! It was great. When she was finished, I waited for her to make an offer but instead she just slowly walked away; never realizing that we had no idea what just happened!

Oh and coffee makers! I got one and just finished enjoying my first couple cups of coffee while I did some homework and the ladies slept. Today I got to translate our renters contract and it was a very good thing. I got to learn that we should not hang anything with nails! (a project I was thinking of for next week!) Thank goodness for Google Translator! I'm a HUGE fan! It will come in handy for you all once I'm fluent and you need to translate my blog!

This has been such a great experience. Even in the down times I remind myself that very few people get to do this and it's such an amazing experience to live life as a foreigner. It’s humbling and scary but so fabulous. The French really are amazing. Many people speak English and are so patient with me as I try out my own French. Our banker was so very patient with us as he tried to explain our benefits with Celia screaming on my lap and Elise spilling Cherrios all over his office. He stayed patient the whole time and said everything with a smile. Everything always seems to work out! It's fabulous!

The weekend was very uneventful. We caught up on sleep, played at the park, and discovered that Sunday really is family day! The park was so packed with people picnicking, playing, and relaxing. It has got to be my favorite thing about Paris: people love the park. We live across from this huge park that has three playgrounds, a nice little pond, a mini-basketball court, and lots of space to sit and relax and people always are. It’s great to see kids always playing and groups of people drinking, eating, and enjoying one another. I really love this aspect and lesson from the French People.

Well, I promise to be more diligent about this page. This was a terribly long entry and I appreciate all of you out there reading my stuff and wishing us well. I miss everyone very much and think of all my friends often. I also miss:

1. My dad’s custom made shower built for a King. My 2 x 2 cell of a shower with a stinking curtain just isn’t cutting it! J

2. Easy grocery shopping and knowing exactly what I’m buying! Why can’t spices come in one language? J

3. A grill, oven, and my slow cooker!

Take care everyone!