Almost done...

Hi!

It's been so long since I last wrote, so I decided to post a little something about my last days in Paris. So, the day I got out of school, I was bursting with joy(and the two cakes I made for my class), but, sadly being dragged down by my million school books. I decided to make a list of things I should do in my last days(not forever, of course):

Go to the top of the Eiffel Tower(fail, we were going to, but the line was about a 2 hour wait, and I thought,'What's so special about going to the top of some building? It's better to go up to Tour Montparnasse and SEE it,' thus, the epic fail)

Go up Tour Montparnasse

Walk through parks, have picnics, etc.

Eat pastries and FRENCH FOOD!

That was all I had on my list, so I hope we can get that all done. Not much else is going on, my books are all packed up, so that leaves me with about 6 books(possibly 7, if mom takes me to the bookstore) to last me at least 5 days, and a whole plane ride! Other news... I'm a finalist in the YAFf (Young Authors Fiction Festival) contest, there were 88 entrees in my grade, 5 get honorable mentions, and 5 are nominated as finalists! Other than that, I have nothing to say, except wow, I can't believe this blog is almost over. Please comment! It makes me feel like people are reading, and I hope people are... Until next time(which may or may not be on the blog)! ;)

Adios Amigo!

And this post has nothing to do what-so-ever with us leaving France! (Which you may have surmised by the photo above.) I just had to post abut the pseudo grill that came with the apartment. When the last director handed the keys over to us last July she said (in her french accent because she is actually french), "You have no sofa, lamps or chairs but you have zis... it is for you to burn your meat." (Did I mention she was a vegetarian? I know, French Vegetarian??? C'est pas possible!) Anyways, it took us almost an entire year to work up the courage to use it. Mainly because you fill it up with water and plug it into the wall (240 volts, remember?), doesn't that just sound wrong? And coming from the states, it looked super tiny. Last July we didn't even think it would fit one chicken breast. However, being in France for the year has given us a new perspective on size and apparently a new fascination with risk taking because a few weeks ago, we plugged the sucker in and gave her a whirl. For a weird indoor grill that you plug into the wall, it's not too bad. We've done chicken, burgers and veggies and it does give the food a slight charred flavor. Not because it has smokey coals or wood chips underneath but because it is actually catching fire from the heating element below. The water actually catches the drippings so there is less smoke but I wouldn't light her up in a small enclosed space. I just had to share this little jewel with all of you because this will most likely be the only opportunity you have to witness the brilliance of The Amigo. Yes, it's called The Amigo. It's all starting to make sense now, isn't it. In your face George Foreman.

13 Days (but who's counting!)

Departure date: June 8th. Passengers: Tracy, Lili and Noa. Destination: Chester, Connecticut. Yes, this is earlier than expected. No, the school year will not be finished. Yes, the girls are ecstatic. No, Ethan will not be able to join us on the 8th, he needs to stay in Paris until July 15th. Yes, he will be visiting us for a week in June and depositing the dog. I know some of you have already gotten an advanced copy of the headlines but for any of you who haven't, this is the news. Why are we leaving 5 weeks earlier than expected? It's a long story. One, that if you have been following us for the year on What's that Smell?, you can probably figure out all on your own. In short, Lili got sick... again. For a long time. As a family, we were trying to figure out what to do. We were getting close to the end but 6 weeks of school still remained. Six weeks of stress, anxiety and depression for Lili. At the same moment we were contemplating our next step we received an email from our tenant in Chester that she would be moving out at the end of May instead of the end of June as planned. We took it as a sign. We needed to go home. It wasn't an easy decision but we came to the conclusion that it was the best decision for us to get the kids home, let them spend some time in CT before we head to Cali, get things organized (a little) and get started on our project for next year (and many years to come, I suspect) which will be the house. We are sad to be leaving Ethan for several weeks on his own. But he will be in Paris, where there are plenty of restaurants and bars to avail himself of, should he wish. So at this point we have a very limited number of days to fit in the things we didn't do yet. Number 1 on the list: Top of the Eiffel Tower. I know, I can't believe it either, but there you have it. Other than that, walking in different neighborhoods we love and eating as much as we possibly can, come in at a close second. I'm surprised to say that I actually have friends who want to have going away celebrations for me (which, of course, makes me more sad to be leaving). Ethan and I spent the day together today and because I have a nasty cold, we decided to do something low key. We saw the new Woody Allen movie, Midnight in Paris. What a great film. Go see this movie and see it soon. There are some surprises in it, that if you wait to long, the secret is sure to get out and it will take away some of the fun. I'm so glad I saw it before we left because I would definitely miss Paris too much if I saw it when we were home. And pretty soon, we'll be home.

Noa, the sweet smell of success!

I wanted to take a minute and add a post about La Petite Noa. As Lili has been posting herself, you all have heard about what is going on with her throughout the year but I've now realized that maybe we haven't spoken enough about what is going on with Noa. In short, she is doing great. She has lots of friends, mostly American and she doesn't mind going to school... too much. Noa's biggest problem has always been waking up in the morning, and it remains the same here but once we are out the door, waiting for the bus, she is fine... usually. She is understanding a lot of French. The things she understands the best are command type words you would hear in the typical French class room: Be quiet. Get in line. Move back. Put your things away. No Talking. I'm running out of patience. You're getting on my nerves. Etc. She is still struggling to express herself, although she is speaking up more and more in class because we have now started a small reward system for such efforts (totally unfrench of us). She is a very attentive student mainly because she is scared of getting in trouble (French system working like a charm). Because she is in a French school with some British influence, she has started using words like 'bin' for trash can and 'prefer' when telling me what she wants to do, as this is the word you would use in French. In the beginning of the year, when she was just learning how to read in French and she was tying to write at home in english, she would spell things the phonetically correct French way, like 'snel mel' (accents on the e's) for 'snail mail'. She is also very keen on correcting our pronunciation. And she is right to do so, the little stinker has the best accent in the family. It would be kinder if she didn't laugh at us though while she was correcting us.

Oh, and Noa has developed a love for the extreme sport of Parcour. It is based on a military technique developed by the French Foreign Legion that involves jumping. climbing, scaling or running over all obstacles in one's path. In Noa's case this means climbing up walls, hopping on and off traffic barriers, jumping about the edge of fountains and just about any endeavor that would make an average parent cringe. This of course has turned many of our walks through Paris into an adventure worthy of an American reality TV show. Lili even suggested we start filming Noa for that purpose but this was because when I asked her to go get dressed she came back out wearing her green laundry hamper turned upside down as a "disguise." Yes, she is truly profiting from all the cultural bounties afforded by a year in Paris!

Happy Mother's Day!

Here we are, Sunday, May 8th, Happy Mother's Day to all of the rockin' mom's out there! So last week we booked our tickets home. July 5th for me and the girls, July 15th for Ethan and Chloe. We have a little less than 2 months and I'm starting to have that feeling like we need to do everything Paris has to offer before it's time to go. However, as you might imagine, Paris is getting very crowded with tourists so some things are becoming harder and harder to do. Yesterday though, we did something we've never done and that was go to Parc Floral next to the Chateau de Vincennes just outside of Paris. It was super gorgeous, as all the spring flowers were in full bloom. Plus there is plenty of grassy forest area for you to enjoy a picnic or in our case, an ice cream. I think the girls would agree that the most fun thing we did was rent a quad type bike/carriage thing and pedal around for a half an hour trying to avoid running into french people who refuse to go out of their way to get out of the way (or get their small children out of the way). It was still fun, maybe even more fun with the added challenge of dodging the frenchies. Then last night, while the girls got to chill with a babysitter, we went out to a cool new resto called Grazie. It's actually a cocktail bar with a wood burning pizzas for dinner. Behind the bar was a super talented, super tanned, super tattooed Italiano mixing up the goodies. I had an awesome martini: vodka, basil, grapefruit juice and honey. I had to use much restraint in not ordering a second. Ethan also had a fancy martini, followed by a sazerac, which the bartender was almost overly excited about making (Ethan said it was good but not a real sazerac because he didn't use rye). The pizza was delicious. We both ordered pizzas with arugula on them, so we decided it was healthy. And Ethan even reasoned that there were antioxidants in the basil in my drink, not to mention all the vitamin C in the grapefruit juice. I had to tell him that just because it's green doesn't mean it has antioxidants. And usually if it has vodka in it, that would cancel out the positive effects of the antioxidants, that are not present in basil, anyways. And we've all heard the vitamin C argument before, sounds good on paper but I'm not buying it. Anyways, Grazie, in the 3rd, near the Bastille, if you are in Paris and want to feel young and cool for one night, look it up.

Having only indulged in one cocktail and one glass of wine last night, I wasn't in horrible shape this morning to greet Mother's Day. My kids, with a little help from dad, made me a gorgeous breakfast of crepes, baked blueberry french toast, eggs and fruit salad. Everything was fabulous! French mother's day or La Fete des Meres isn't until May 29th but I'm pretty sure there was enough food there this morning to last us until then so at least they won't have to go through all that trouble twice! Happy Mother's Day!

Toscana Bella!

As you can see, Lili has essentially taken over the blog. I thought I should add something about our Italy trip since it really was fantastic. I'll just start by saying the place we stayed was amazing. It's called Cretaiole Agriturizmo, in case any of you were thinking of traveling to the Val d'Orcia in Tuscany, I would highly recommend it. The really wasn't a whole lot to do, which was part of the whole idea of going to Tuscany. We drove from Paris, which saved us some cash but I don't think I would want to do it again. We stopped overnight at a charming Campinile hotel outside of Torino but you're talking two 7 hour days of driving. Basta! The real problem was that when we finally got there, no one was particularly excited about getting into the car again. And when you're in Tuscany, you need to do a little driving (those tiny towns aren't going to come down the hill for you!). Aside from a lot of driving, we did a lot of eating... mostly pasta, gelato and peccorino cheese. And of course, we drank a lot of wine. I was surprised we didn't see more vegetables, except for a few tomatoes here and there. We went to a cool sulfuric thermal spring in the forest, where we splashed around in milky white warm water. We had a tour and lunch at an organic farm, where we saw a one day old lamb and two day old goats (plus a few wild peacocks). We toured Siena, which was overcrowded but we found a secret spot to eat, on a terrace, overlooking Il Campo and it's hundreds of loitering tourists. We ate home made whole wheat past with mushrooms and truffle oil at a Monastery where they filmed The English Patient. After our relaxing week in Tuscany, we went for 2 nights in Florence, which was much less relaxing. It was very crowded, our hotel room was noisy and our kids were just not into it. We had a children's tour of the old palace which ended with an interview with the Royal Dutchess Leonora de Medici. The kids actually quite enjoyed meeting with the Dutchess as she was very funny asking questions like when Lili would be getting married? Had her parents picked out a husband for her yet? And she asked Noa about the strange substance she just chewed and chewed in her mouth like a cow? The next day we went to the Galileo Science Museum, which was actually totally awesome but the girls had given up by then. Too much travel and culture for one year I guess. So we spent the afternoon wandering the gardens of the new palace across the river but by then we were all just ready to get back on the road to Paris. Paris greeted us with a continuation of fabulous weather and a fairly empty city because of the Easter break. We are now starting to plan our reentry to the US, which as I look back, I can't believe it's already time for but I'm looking forward to seeing what our last two months will bring for us!

Good Food, great gelatos, and amazing cappuccinos!

We are back from Italia, where the food is good, gelatos are great, and the cappuccinos are amazing! So we got in, and I walked out of the car to stretch my legs(after a 5 hour car trip, the second one... the first day was about 7 hours...) and it was rEEEally warm!!!! We go into our room, and it's not just a room, it was about the size of our apartment! I called dibs on the biggest room... tee hee. The place (Cretaiole Agriturismo) was amazing, and the woman who runs the place is REALLY nice, and she spoke English. The first night, she made us reservations for dinner, so we go there, and Noa's stomach starts hurting. Now, I am no stranger to aching stomachs, but she was like, crying, so we had to go home! That night, Noa fell asleep on the bathroom floor. The next day though, she was good as new! That morning, we went on a tour of the "working farm" at the agriturismo. It was actually quite interesting, even if the meat curing room made me feel kind of sick. They had a big pig, and these adorable ducklings, some baby chicks, and a baby bunny... By the time we got to the wine making/processing part, Noa and I were feeling tired, so we just went outside and played with the dog, until the tasting session. The cheese was SO GOOD (peccorino). The olive oil was SO GOOD. It was delicious! On Monday, we went to an organic farm, and it was just beautiful. There were pigs, and sheep, and goats, and peacocks, just kind of walking around, doing their thing. We saw where they made the cheese, and we saw the kitchen. There was actually a baby lamb who was born earlier that day! We tried to take it out, but the mother started freaking out, and tried to climb over the little fence that was holding her in. After the tour, we had lunch there. Boy, was there a lot of food, a salad here, some artichoke here, some pasta there, a bean salad, some asparagus, some more vegetables, there was so much food! It was so good, but I think I ate too much. Oh well, that's the price you pay sometimes when you have such good food. (oh yeah, and on Monday for dinner we went back to the place we had to ditch because of Noa's stomach, it was yummy!) The next day, me and mom went to a private water color art class, and took home somethings that actually looked good! On Wednesday we had dinner at a Monestary, pasta+truffles=yummy! Thursday, we went to Sienna, and boy was it crowded! That night we learned how to make "pici" a really good pasta that we ate with pesto, and yes we have the recipe, so we can teach everyone who wants to learn. On Friday, dad and I went horse back riding, I had a really nice horse, although I'm not sure if he/she was nice because she was just nice, or because she knew I knew what I was doing, and I knew she knew it. Dad's horse, however, steered him into every possible branch, ate when he wanted, and trotted when he wanted. But it was beautiful. That night, at dinner I ordered a special pasta. After it was cooked, they put in a big bowl made of peccorino cheese, and scraped it around so the cheese melted on the pasta, it was pretty cool. We went to Florence the next day, and we went to the old palace, to go back in time to meet a Medici Duchess! The rest of the vacation isn't worth describing, we went to some museums, gardens, typical tourist stuff. It was a beautiful vacation, but I missed being able to understand people! Now, before I change my mind, I'm going to say... "Until next time!"

Lili(an) Belle in PARIS!