Glorious Paris and Snowy L'abri

One would think that I with the time I have I would be able to crank out almost daily reports to my blog. However- I seem to have found myself busy these last couple of weeks and realized I was several adventures behind on the blog.

Several weeks ago a friend from Seattle, named Jim, came out to Paris for his company’s trade show. I have been anxiously waiting for a reason to go to Paris, so I decided to coincide my visit with when he was going to be there.

Paris was absolutely Glorious! It started for me very early on a Saturday morning, as I think I had the first flight out of Geneva. I got in to a very dreary and rainy Paris, but I didn’t even care. I was so happy to be there. The first day I went to the Paris Expo where Jim taught me the wonderful world of Electric Mirrors. Sadly my vision of having working the trade show and orchestrating a half a million deal for Electric Mirror with an attractive French man never became reality. ☺

That night we did Landmark #1: Eiffel Tower.
Amazing- it was bigger than I thought it would be. I was thinking it would be relatively the same size as the Space Needle in Seattle. I was wrong, the base of the Tower was massive. Myself, Jim, and three other guys that work for Jim all decided to climb the stairs to the second level of the tower- and than take the elevator the rest of the way up. It was great and the stairs were manageable. I think I could have climbed the whole way to the top if they would have let me. At night the Tower is illuminated with blue lights, but on the hour it would glitter with white lights. By the time is was said and done, we saw the lights glitter three times- hence letting us know we were there three hours.

Sunday- turned into ultra tourist day. Jim and I were quite on a mission to see Paris. We started with the Opera House- (which wasn’t open, so I’ll have to go back). From there we went to a pretty church called Madeleine, Place de la Concord, The Louvre, Arc de Triomphe, and the famous Notre Dame.

Highlights from that are definitely The Louvre, and Notre Dame. It is almost impossible to do all of the Louvre in one day, but it was so beautiful I wouldn’t mind living there a week. One thing that started to become quite comical during the visit to the Louvre was the difficulty of the ‘guided tour’ headset Jim and I rented. You would think that in a place like the Louvre it would be just bursting with information to tell you through your headphones. However that wasn’t the case. The actual pieces of art that had commentary attached weren’t as many as one would think. You knew that whole place was just bursting with history and stories and we couldn’t access it. All the literature was in French on the walls, so there was a good deal that went over my head. Don’t ask me about the history of the Louvre because that section of the museum was all French descriptions with no audio. Still a little upset about that. Haha

Good news is, I am going back in a week to explore more of that city, as well as discover some of its famous shopping!

The following weekend, European traveler Jim and I, headed to mountain town in Switzerland called Aigle- more specifically Huemoz (way-mo). We went to discover a place Jim knew about called L’abri. In French L’abri is known as “The Shelter”. A Christian philosopher/theologian named Francis Schaffer created this place called L’abri as a place where Christians or people looking into Christianity could get away and really study and dive into some of their questions to get some answers. It is quite the getaway spot in this Chalet up in the Mountains. After we got there Friday night, we got a foot of snow! It was exactly what you would expect this mountain house in Switzerland would look like with a lot of snow and the Alps all around you. We were near a little town but nothing too big. So for most cities in the U.S. this would have caused at least some school delays. Not for the Swiss- they have this snow removal thing down. The roads were clear by morning and everyone had snow tires. Even the buses weren’t afraid to go on the steep roads. Amazing.

The weekend was great, and I met a lot of neat people who all were staying and studying at L’abri. (there was roughly 25 people living in and around the house) There were several other houses around the main house called Chalet Bellevue, as well as a chapel.

Sunday night I returned safely back to Geneva where I have unpacked and hopped right back into the weekly routine. This week I am starting to help plan the 4 year olds 5th birthday party for next week. Lucca very sweetly decided he only wanted one friend to come. After we reminded him that the more friends you invite to a party the more presents you get- he said- “Your right, I’ll invite 2” haha oh the innocence.

French Countryside and a little Halloween Fun

There is plenty to update on and this blog while it may seem long to some, will be very edited down. I have been pre-occupied with several things
1. processing through my next stage of life. (as I mentioned in my previous blog the family and I have decided that it is better for them to find another au pair after the first of the year. With that I will be staying home after Christmas, and God willing moving back to Seattle.)
2. I’m not going to lie- I am hook line and sinker into the tv series 24. I have been through 2 seasons in about 3 weeks. Yes folks, that is about 48hours of Jack Bauer. I am in love.

So mid October the kids were on fall break, so I went with Sophie and the 4 kids to the middle of France. Now when I say countryside in the middle of France- I am neither joking nor exaggerating. I can’t even really tell you what town I was in nor was it really near a major city. There was a lot of farmland and you would go through small cities that had a common thread of the building and houses being from the 1800’s and the towns based around a gothic style church. The church was needed in the olden days to inform the people of an attack or any other important message that needed to reach the people. It was neat to see such old buildings. With that the country houses where we were are about 15% occupied by farmers and 75% vacations houses. So the week we were there, the only other living things I would see on walks were the cows.
It was 10 days with no internet, 6 kids, three other adults, and plenty of time to try to understand more of the French language.
(it was here I finished season 4 or 24, and became officially hooked.) I also had plenty of time to watch some classic 80’s movies.
Due to the rain we ended up coming home a day early- in which Sophie and I were more than happy to get back to civilization.

Our first couple days at home were filled with us preparing for our big Halloween Bash with 4 extra people staying in the house. I was in charge of the games- and decided that I would do some classic favorites like wrap your friend in toilet paper and let them run and of course a Scavenger Hunt. The chaos and noise of 6 kids really prepared me for the chaos that walked through the door that night which was a total of 13 kids ranging from 4-11yrs. Good news we moved some of the breakable things out of the big room- so we were just hoping for no hospital visits.
We promptly started serving the sugar at 3pm and I don’t believe that table was without a child until they left at 6pm.
Overall it was a success, the kids all became a little closer with their new friends, and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves (at least the candy)
Afterward I went out for some much needed wine with a couple of other au pair friends.

Now the day before the party was the American Holiday you may know as Halloween. Well that holiday is not as popular or known about as it is in the states. I helped the kids carve their first pumpkin. They were not keen on touching the insides- only on directing me where to put the goo. Afterward we decided to go to a couple of house and ‘Trick or Treat” Now the kids had been wearing their costumes every night for a week- so the 6 of them didn’t need to spend much time getting dressed when I agreed to take them out.
I layed down the ground rules before we hit the first house. Ring the bell, say ‘trick or treat’, and than say thank you when your done.
Here is what followed on the learning curve:
First house- rang the doorbell, when the neighbor answered the door proceeded to ask in French ‘ we would like candy please’
(laughing behind- had to remind- no you say ‘trick or treat’)

Second house- knock on the door, no one answers, the middle boy proceeds to open the unlocked door, stick his head in and say ‘trick or treat’. (again laughing and scolding, used this as a teaching moment)

house three- under control!

I think they had a good time, bc the oldest informed me that the next night we would be going again to more houses- I had to burst her bubble by informing that this great night is but once a year.

I don’t think the neighbors would have known the difference. We got mostly confused looks when we came to the door, and all had to rummage through their cupboards for something to give the kids. The loot included oranges, fizz drinks, and an opened bag of chocolate covered peanuts. The night made me smile.

This weekend I am preparing for a weekend in Paris. Pretty pumped to visit the one city in Europe I have been most excited about seeing since I first decided I wanted to do this crazy au pair thing.