Birthday bash

Everyone is turning 2.
Yesterday we went to a national park in a town called "Villeneuve-Loubet", between Nice and Antibes, for the birthday party of Thomas, member of our little clan.
There were lots of cakes and drinks, a long boules tournament for the four papas, and a long afternoon of chasing kids around the playground for the four mamas.
Here are a few photos.
You'll recognize Elliot, still blonder and tanner than usual after 3 weeks in Brazil with his parents, the birthday boy wearing a cap, and another little girl with curly hair named Manon.

That's Elliot's dad Arnaud crouching down next to him, and Celine, mother to the birthday boy sitting in between him and Estelle.

Laurence, Manon's mom, poses in front of a heart-shaped "chocolat fondant" she made. To die for. For you champagne buffs, the flutes hold something called "Cremat". A special division of champagne or something like that.


Couldn't catch these kids!

Lots of exciting climbing/sliding/fall-down-and-terrify-your-mother structures all over this big fenced-in playground. Needless to say Elliot, even wearing flip-flops, could master it all with very little assistance needed. So of course Estelle tried to follow him.

This is Fransiska "showing" Elliot how to climb a climbing-ramp. He didn't need any help. He just walked up the thing, at an angle!

Estelle discovers swings. Anyone who knows me from my childhood knows I have a thing for swings. My dad built me a natural set of swings, complete with a tire swing, in our meadow hanging from two huge maple trees for my 7th birthday. I have very very fond memories. This wasn't quite the same idea, but it's a start.

Every single toy or truck with wheels that belonged to anyone in this playground got a test drive by Elliot at some point in the afternoon. Literally, you can't catch this kid!

Estelle discovers a paddle-ball.

We got home LATE! 8:30! And all 3 of us were filthy so no question of skipping the bath. Suffice to say it is 9 a.m. Sunday morning and he is still fast asleep! So much for an early morning trip to the beach as we had planned! Oh well, it was worth it.

Le Monument des Morts

Built into the side of the chateau hill is Nice's War Monument. I remember the first time I stumbled onto it my first year here - stopped me in my tracks. It's around the corner from the "bay" side of the city, and the extension of the famous Promenade des Anglais (Nice's celebrated seaside walk) from the bay to the Port (where we live) has brought much more recognition to this monument because people walk, run, ride or blade past now. Quite nestled and set back from the humming tourism that surrounds it - it is amazingly calm and solemn, and, as you can see, larger than life.
It has hommages to WWI, WWII, Indochina and all the branches of the military who fought, as well as the beloved Resistance.
One day in July we puttered around it with Estelle and I must admit it was a bit like being at the Vietnam Wall in DC. So many names.

Thomas took this photo of Estelle and I sitting down to try and give some perspective as to the size of this monument. He was not even "backed up" all the way to the Promenade when he took it.

If you look closely at these wide "steps", you will see something carved into the face of them in the center. It is the longhand wording for each year of World War One. Example "Mille Neuf Cent Quatorze" (for 1914), etc. Thus the steps were a choice, each step representing one year of the war, leading up to all the names of the lifes taken.
What looks like just the cut of the rocks is actually names. Look carefully at these photos and you'll see.

Some striking sculptures hovering over all those names.

"Outremer" is the French word for "overseas". As France has/had colonies all over the world, these are now referred to as "Les DOM-TOMS". This means "Departement Outre-Mer and Territoire Outre-Mer". I think this means places like La Reunion, Martinique, Guadeloupe, etc. I could go on and on listing them because the tentacles of France are/were long and tenacious!

This is the view towards the sea, looking out from the monument.

One section dedicated to the Resistance. It says "The time of Oppression came, and Freedom found here on our soil, men and women who, so that she (=Freedom) could live, would accept torture and death"

All a bit humbling on a Sunday afternoon. I did think of all the families of all those dead men, and wondered how they all made it through their grief. The French thankfully are not dying in Iraq, like my own unfortunate countrymen and the countless others.

Film Shorts

A few short films to keep you occupied:
Estelle and Ines:

Estelle's shoe fetish:

Calvinet soccer tournie day

Visits from Friends

In between Estelle's birthday and now, we've had quite a few visitors. Some for several nights, some just for an afternoon.
Here's photos of visits from friends:
July 23-28 Annual visit from Simon. Simon is one of my best friends from my very first year in Nice, long before I ever imagined meeting Thomas and staying here! (People who came to the French wedding remember meeting him there.) We struggled thru that first year of teaching together. He lives in London. Simon comes every year for a visit. Usually he comes with Amy, another London friend from the Fulbright year. But Ames couldn't make it this year, so Si came with Hamza, another friend from the same year but who was teaching in Salon de Provence, not Nice. Hamza's name, and I mean his real name, like on his passport, is Hamza Hamza. He was born in Syria and lived in Kuwait until his parents moved him and his 3 brothers to London at age 9. He says he's heard every joke there is about his name. Si and I tried to come up with some new ones during their stay but to no avail. I really enjoyed getting to know him better and learning LOTS and LOTS of things I didn't know about Syria, Kuwait, the Middle East in general, and being Muslim. I only forgot and tried to serve him pork one time - he says that is pretty good considering I am American! ha ha After that I went to the Hallal butcher for the remainder of their stay to make sure not to screw up again - for anyone who might not be familiar, Hallal for the Muslims is like Kosher for the Jewish.
Anyways, they of course got sunburned (how does a Syrian get sunburned?), which we expect from Simon every year, despite me being more vigilant about his sunscreen application than I even am about Estelle's!

Estelle loved having them around. And I loved having 2 people speaking the Queen's English around Estelle for 6 days. We did Eze, Villefranche, Antibes, and lots of strolls in Nice with lots of memories of the old days....
Here we are buying cookies for Hamza in the old town. Hamza has something called Addison's disease, which means he can't drink a drop of alcohol. He compensates with sweets.
I brushed up on all my English expressions, like "right mate", trousers instead of pants, lift for elevator, and fun expressions such as: "quality" and "ledge" (Ledge is short for "Legend", which is what the boys said when I made them pancakes. It's a one word expression the Brits use to mean 'This is the stuff of legend". I felt quite international.)

3 days later, the night before we left for our Auvergne/Cantal vacation, we had a nice visit from Thomas' old hockey friend from Angers, Francois and his GF Valerie. Francois and Thomas were on skates together at age 3.

After returning from vacation, Estelle had a play date with Ines, whom readers have seen in a previous post. She is 5 months older than Estelle. They met at the municipal day care where Estelle goes a few afternoons. Sadly Ines is moving to a different kind of day care nearby where the kids can go all day long = ours is technically something called a "halte-garderie" - which closes between 12 and 2 p.m. You know the French, they like their lunch hour! At any rate, Ines lives down the block, and they really enjoy each other's company.



When I was pregnant with Estelle, teaching friends from the University threw a fun shower for me and gave me a fantastic old wooden high chair with decoupage on it. That was all orchestrated by my good friend Larissa, who is from Toronto. My last year teaching at the Uni was her first year, and she and I were "twins" - had the same schedule. We had stayed in touch and she is back in France for the first time since she left, just after Estelle's birth. Her BF, Laurent, is from Cogolin, near St. Tropez. He has moved to Toronto, and he too just recently got his breakthrough papers for Canada - similar to what just happenned to me here. He got his working visa. Larissa is a 3rd and 4th grade looping teacher in a French immersion private school in Toronto. It's so interesting to hear about the school program.
We got to see Laurent for one evening and then Larissa came back and stayed with us for 3 days. I only have one photo? How is that possible? I think because she took all the pictures!

August 15th - Assumption. This is a national holiday is France - yet another Catholic holiday that means everything is closed but my own husband is incapable of telling me why August 15th is a holdiay - couldn't even identify Assumption. Gotta love the French.
Who cares - the important thing is it is the day our little friend Maxence was born here in Nice, in the same clinic as Angelina Jolie/Brad Pitt's twins. She was down from Paris with her parents and we went to her birthday party in Grasse, perfume capital of France, past Cannes but not on the coast.
Here's Melanie with Maxence and Estelle


The little girl, Ambre (in the middle) was another Parisian friend at the festivities. She is 3 1/2 and a cracker!


On Sunday we went with Larissa to the well-known Plage Paloma in St. Jean which you saw photos of Thomas & Estelle on from the previous post. While walking there from the car, we discovered benches shaped like whales' tails. This was REALLY interesing for Estelle.

Yesterday Estelle and I took the train for 30 mins to Biot, which is right next to Antibes. We went to visit my friend Chantal. How I came to meet Chantal is pretty crazy. Read or don't read this story, your choice:
In 1999, when I was doing my master's at AU in DC, I had to do a short 40-hour observation practicum in a middle school as part of my program. I wound up doing this in Bethesda, Maryland, near to where I worked for Michael (everyone who knows me know who I mean when I say Michael). The teacher, Marie-Claude, was a French woman from Amiens, France - this is a nice city in the northern part of the country, about 2 hours northwest of Paris - WWI and WWII country.
Anyways, a year and a half after I did the observation period, the teacher asked me to chaperone an exchange trip with her students to Amiens. Free trip to France? Count me in - when I said yes I was still in the Fulbright application process. In June of 2001, we got on the plane. I almost cancelled because it was just weeks after we lost my Dad. But in the end I went. One the last night of the trip, the private school we exchanged with hosted a little banquet for us with all the students involved. A woman came up to me and said "Someone tells me you have 10 brothers and sisters, is that true?" It was Chantal, who, like me, is one of 11 children. She was the school nurse at that private school in Amiens, and attended the banquet that night because she has always enjoyed cultural exchange and Marie-Claude was an old friend of hers. At that point I knew I had the Fulbright and was coming to Nice. She gave me her phone number and address and said "I have an apt near Antibes where I go in the summer and on most of my school vacations. We could get together when I am down there and you have arrived in Nice."
That was 7 years ago. I have seen Chantal countless, countless times. She came to my wedding and to Estelle's baptism. She introduced me to lots of things my first year here when I didn't know I'd be coming back for so long! I've met all her children and grandchildren. One time she saw me on a date with a French guy my first year and after she said "That guy's an idiot. Get rid of him!" I did. We've gone to the Citrus festival together, the beach, the Carnival, and had more than one chat about being from a family of 11. We are different in personality and age, for sure, but on a very primal level, she gets me, and I get her. It's a big family thing.
Here's Estelle living it up on the train. This was a big deal for her!

Here is Estelle having the time of her life with Chantal's grandsons, Pierre and Paul. She really enjoyed eating an adult-sized pain au chocolat with Paul. This was really fun!


Thomas came to join us after work and take a dip in Chantal's pool. Then we went into their apt for champagne to celebrate Chantal's retirement - 30+ years of nursing!
Estelle enjoyed her escorts of Paul (left) and Pierre on her right, plus on the far right 2 other little boys at the pool in Chantal's "residence" - this means like a private gated apartment complex. The boys were fascinated by this little girl who could understand her Mommy speaking to her in English and yet talked to everybody in French.

In this photo you see Chantal's daughter, Nathalie (mother to P & P), who works at the CDG airport, and Michel, Chantal's husband.

Lots of Friends! Lots of fun!

True Love

Sometimes just a little piece of paper can make all the difference.



This is the "ticket" from the Prefecture of Nice that was put into my hand this morning. With this ticket (numbers started at 500) I was able to meet with an immigration agent and, after 20 mins, get handed my temporary 10 YEAR visa. This is an amazing thing. Not many people can appreciate the level of trauma that non-Europeans experience in the French admin and the Nice Prefect in particular - so it's ok if faithful readers have a lukewarm reaction. I don't mind. Suffice to say that today is a monumental day in my life. It means I have at least 10 years before I have to go thru the humbling and humiliating experience again that I have sadly had to submit myself to about a dozen times over the past 7 years. Many tears and many sleepless nights and stomach upsets have been provoked by these experiences. So, as Mammy says to Rhett, "Today shoe iz a happy day."

Who made it possible? This charming man below:


This man, my husband, got up at 5:30 and drove to the Prefecture (on the other side of the city) to start waiting in line for me at 6:15 a.m. At 7:45 our bbsitter arrived and I took the bus out to meet him, a 50 minute ride. He was 3rd in line.
I then had to try to get to him - impossible to "cut in" as the whole place in barricaded. Only one thing to do - try to get to the front of the line from the back of the line. We are talking a couple hundred people.
I just stepped up to the end and started hollering (in French) "PLEASE LET ME THRU. I AM NOT CUTTING THE LINE. MY HUSBAND IS AT THE FRONT OF THE LINE. PLEASE LET ME THRU. THANK YOU. I AM JOINING MY HUSBAND AT THE FRONT OF THE LINE. HE IS ALREADY IN LINE. PLEASE. THANK YOU." I repeated this, politely but loudly, and as I was dressed all in white, started to feel a bit like Moses. Little by little people let me thru, and eventually I saw Thomas, waving to me and hollering out "IT'S OKAY. IT'S MY WIFE." One smart aleck guy said to me "Yeah, my husband's at the front of the line too." But nobody tried to attack me so I can handle a few mean jokes.

We waited together about 20 mins, they opened this 2nd set of doors, the security guards let you in 10 at a time. They scream at you "DON'T RUN. NO RUNNING."
Then you get to the 3rd barrier, a large metal overheard door, which opens like a garage door. Some people try to crawl under and cut the line, but they got barked back by some Algerians and Moroccans. Then you wait behind a red line until the Ticket Man motions you forward. For 6 years it has been the same Ticket Lady. She must have retired because there was a young guy today. Or probably she is on vacation and this is a substitute. He didn't ask me any questions, just gave me my ticket. Which Thomas and I both found odd. Normally Ticket Lady won't give you your ticket until she sees that you have all your documents and photos and copies. But Today's Ticket Man just gave me my number, 502. Incidentally, he is now protected behind a huge fiberglass partition. That's new from last year too.

The big LCD screen beeped "502", "502, Station 6". It's loud. Makes people jump. and we went to meet our maker. One would say they're not exactly a friendly lot, these civil servants. All business, no pleasantries, little eye contact. I thank god had every single thing she asked me for. Passport, Visa, 3 pay stubs, 3 months of bank statements with my name, 3 months of bank statements with both our names, various things with both our names: gas bill, electricity bill, landline phone bill, lease, marriage "livret" (kind of the French version of the family bible), Thomas' passport, 3 passport photos, my original form that I rec'd with my national health insurance card 7 years ago. All of these things she wanted to see the original and you have to bring your own copies. Then Thomas has to go to a different line and pay 70 euros (like 100 dollars) for a special stamp (looks just like a postage stamp). He comes back with this dinky stamp, and she slaps it on the whole file. We sign in 200 places and then she gives me a temporary piece of paper and says in about 6 weeks I'll get a notice in the mail (let's hope the mail theives don't strike that day) to come back and pick up the real deal. This does not require the crazy line-staking out nonsense, hallelujah.

Thomas heads off to work, and I get back on the bus into town.

If that's not love, what is? The man stood in line for me for 3 hours.

As Prince says, I would die for you!


And he doesn't just do nice things for me...here he is with Estelle Sunday morning on the beach at St. Jean Cap Ferrat, peninsula sticking out into the sea - this famous beach, Plage Paloma, faces northward back towards the mainland. These photos are looking east, to the cliffs next to Monaco.

Today I was reading this book to Estelle.
And, in a nutshell, this book sort of represents my own day today.
In short (and I mean SHORT),
we got up at the crack of dawn for my annual DREADED pilgrimmage to the Prefecture (home to immigration and visas and all that).
Only to find out that the way it used to work is no longer how it works (despite my repeated phone attempts yesterday to confirm), and so all was for naught.
Now tomorrow we will pay 50 dollars to have someone take care of Estelle in the morning so Thomas can go get in the line at 6:30 and I will join him shortly before the doors open at nine so fight our way thru the process one last time as this time we THINK I get a 10-year card finally.

Then I tried putting underwear on Estelle after she had peed and pooped several times, only to have her pee all over the floor 30 minutes later.

Then I had to go to the Police Station to report our mailbox being broken into the day we can back from vacation. The vandals made off with 9 days of our mail (including checks made out to me by various teaching establishments, thus complicating my life to high heaven and god knows what else) AND the keys to our neighbors-the-musicians apartment. They had put the keys in an envelope and left them for us to water their plants, and put the envelope in our box the very day of our return. Within 6 hours, on a Sunday, someone got into the building, opened our box, cleared it out, and closed our box. It is bent and needs repair. How do they do it? This means locksmiths for the neighbors, insurance companies involved, etc etc and the need for a formal report filed with the police.

Thus the part of my day today called 'Nice Police Station is Anything but Hill Street Blues". Don't even have the energy to type out the whole story, but it involved one of the female police officers deciding that the moment I entered the male officer's office was the time to use his phone to call HQ and completely verbally freak out on her captain about the "quality of their work environment". Only after insisting 3 times that I did not see the reason why I and Estelle should have to sit and listen to this woman's tyrade did the officer relocate us to another office - where the woman followed us. Then they both lit into me about being American and how my country is no better and "just look at they way your government handled that situation with the hurricane Katrina".

Then Estelle got stuck in between two filing cabinets and started to holler whilst I was being beraded for my imperialist nation. Then she decided to poop in her diaper for a 3rd time today - which she never does.

And so on and so on. You get the picture.

Thus, Julie Alexander and the no good, very bad, blah blah blah.

Tomorrow will hopefully be better! :-)

Phew! Vacation

One week later, I'm finally posting up some more photos from our Calvinet/Auvergne vacation....
Agnes arrives the day after us by train from Paris. This is instant fun for Estelle.
The day after we arrive, Thomas is pounced upon by cousins to play in the village soccer tournament that just happenned to be while we were there. This was a fun occasion to see the village playing fields and discover a little playground I didn't know about.

On the same day as the soccer tournament, there also just happenned to be a large event happenning in Calvinet to honor the centennial anniversary of a historic and controversial thing that occurred that very day 100 years prior - the Mayor of Calvinet removed a cross from the top of the central fountain and replaced it with a statue of liberty (not the same as the kind in NYC). This was a huge scandal in the region and he was blackmarked as anti-clerical. A long story but very very interesting and superbly presented the the regional historical society, involving several different parts of a "day-long" celebration. I went alone with Riri and even got my photo in the local paper the next day!

Papie Guy and Estelle enjoying a family dinner on Sunday afternoon

Sunday walk at Thomas' cousin Marthe & Bruno's farm. This is Bruno's prize-winning bull. He literally weighs a ton. He is one big animal. That's Bruno leaning against him!

Here is Estelle going for a walk on Bruno and Marthe's farm, aided by 2nd cousins Lalie and Aubin.


Monday canoeing down the "Lot" river - Me and Thomas and Agnes and her friend Romain. What a glorious day we had.


After canoeing, we hooked up with the family in a nearby village called St. Projet, home to Thomas' great grandparents and the Ouillade family origins. Sylvette, Thomas' godmother and his dad's first cousin, has inherited the old family home up in the village and uses it as her summer spot. This view is from her window of the village and the Lot river below.

In St. Projet, Thomas' godmother Sylvette and her husband Gerard (who is actually quite lovely but looks scary in this photo! :-)

Wednesday was a lovely dinner at Tata Josette's, the butcher's widow. She made a traditional dish called "Aligo" - mashed potatoes mixed with famous local cheese called "Tomme". You serve it by cutting it with scissors. It should be stringy. And it was, which means it is fabulous!

Josette's entree - ham filled with a mayonnaise vegetable filling.

Playing with cousins out on the patio.

One day we stopped for a visit with Thomas' mom's cousin Nanette and her husband Jean who live in the village as well. They are 95 years old. And still driving! Yowza!

The night before we left there was a wedding in Calvinet of a young woman related to Thomas' uncle DeDe, who is married to his aunt Yvette, which is from whom Estelle got her middle name. Anyways, this bride is connected via various ways to a number of Thomas' cousins. So here they all were walking thru the village after the civil and church ceremony, on their way to the vin d'honneur and the big party after that. We lay in waiting for them on the corner in order to say hello and see them in all their finery. TaTa Yvette and Tonton Dede, us & Agnes, then Jean-Luc, Sylvie and Pascal, Joelle and Theirry, and Jean-Luc's wife Marie-Andree - all cousins on Thomas' mom's side.

Thomas and Estelle and I walking around the village.
Holding Estelle is of course Manou Andree, with her two living siblings, Yvette and Tonton Riri. Riri lives in Calvinet on the property of their parents. Yvette now lives in Salon de Provence.

Thomas' cousin Francoise lives with her family in the original family home of her grandmother which they have recently renovated, next to her father Riri. This is her daughter Annaelle, Estelle's favorite person in Calvinet.

Estelle and Annaelle in front of the fountain on the main square in the village.

Here is Ocean, the horse that is in the pasture flanking Francoise' property. He was a large source of interest.