SUNDAY

First off, the last few days, in photos:

As you can see, I've been busy. In addition to lots of pastries, the past few weeks have also been full of a lot of spontaneous music. It's been hard lately not having an iPod lately (see: post about getting mugged), but it's not that uncommon to stumble upon ridiculously gorgeous music playing in public in this city, so that makes it a little easier. A few weeks ago, Sarah and I were walking in the Marais, and we realized we had never been in the church St. Gervais-St. Protais before (it's a VERY tall church surrounded by a nice courtyard full of cafes), so we stepped inside. It happened that Mass was going on, and normally we would have just left so as not to disturb the people inside, but we were so entranced by what we were seeing that we just couldn't leave. There were about 30 nuns and priests at the alter, all dressed in all white, and they were singing (in four-part harmony, based on the research I did after) and it was so moving that we stayed and listened to the Mass for a while because we had never heard anything like it. The music coupled with the incredibly tall cieling made for impressive experience. I have a video that doesn't want to upload, but I can show anyone who's interested.

Then yesterday I was walking through Luxembourg to meet my sorority friend Charlotte (for pastries), and I stumbled upon a whole orchestra playing a medly from Sound of Music. The surprise of hearing that in particular in Paris and because it was so good made me almost cry. Again, I have some video if anyone is interested.

And a few days ago, I was walking through the Tuileries before meeting my friends in the Marais, and there was a fancy orchestra set up playing a concert near the entrance. I couldn't stay too long because I didn't want to be late for my friends, but whatever they were playing was literally the most GLORIOUS THING I HAVE EVER HEARD. It sounded familiar too, but now I can't remember the melody. I did some research and saw that that night they were playing things by Leo Delibes (?), Debussy, Offenbach, Bizet and Saint-Saens, but I don't know who wrote was I heard. A million thanks to whoever figures out whatever piece of music I am so vagely describing (more help: it was big and loud and fast and was not the Can Can). Running into music everywhere is definitely something I'll miss about Paris. 

Also, today was the kids' last day in Paris because they flew to their grandparents' house in Nice today. They left in the afternoon, but we spent all morning together and it was a perfect last day. I had left them some photos of us together in a box with cupcakes on it, and when I woke up this morning, the photos were already in frames, and Lise even said thank you, which I didn't expect. Juliette and I watched some Tour de France coverage together, and Lise and I spent some quality time on the trampoline together before Eric called to us that it was time to go :( It's weird that I'm still here, but they aren't, since they make up so much of my Clamart experience.

Our last lunch together :)

Me with the kids and Anne before they headed to the airport.

One last "monster face" before they left :)

Lise hugged me before we were even out of the house, even though I was coming to the car with them, which was really sweet, and then once she was in the car, she took my hand and I had to finally to finally make her let go so that the car could take off. Apparently she did enjoy my company this year after all. It's really weird that they won't be here tomorrow, but I think it will probably take a while to sink in that I'm not going to see them everyday. 

Last Saturday in Paris

...Now THAT I really can't believe. I am officially freaking out about the short amount of days I have left here before Friday morning, when I fly home.

But today was a really good day, and a perfect way to spend my last Saturday here. In the morning, I met up with my friend Charlotte, who's an AEPhi from Stanford, and we got coffee and pastries at this place near the Pantheon that I had walked by once a few weeks ago. It was ridiculously inexpensive and ridiculously good. I'm still kind of suspicious. Of COURSE I should discover it right before I head home, grrrr.

Then we met up with Robert and Pat and headed towards Montmartre so that they could see Sacre Coeur before they head off to Nice tomorrow. Montmartre was fun, and we were having a good time taking the stairs down from the Basilica, when it started POURING rain like never before. We decided to keep on walking towards the metro, but apparently we were the only ones, because literally everyone else was standing still, hudding under any cover they could find. There was one street in particular where we had to walk in the street instead of on the sidewalks because the water was coming down so hard from the awnings, and everyone was just staring at as making a mad dash for the metro because we were seriously the only ones not taking shelter in a souvenir store. Even with our umbrellas and hoods, we were all still soaking wet, as if we had been in a pool with all our clothes on. I had the good fortune to be wearing my Converse today for the only time in 10 months (on account of my blisters), but I felt bad for everyone else who expected today to be a normal, nice July day. I really didn't think I still needed my trench coat at this time of the year!

Last Day of Work!

I had a really perfect last day of real "work" today, especially because things hadn't been as picture perfect as I wanted them to be lately. I picked Lise up from gymnastics at 4, and we decided to buy some candy to celebrate her last day of gym. We walked home with it and played the game where we each choose a candy for the other and they have to guess what flavor it is....much better than our recent walks to gym, where she's walked in complete silence the entire 15 minutes. Then when we came home, instead of running to The Disney Channel, she wanted to finish watching the movie we had started on YouTube yesterday (Barbie's Christmas Carol), which I was happy about because it was in English. We were watching it in my room and having fun and she was being cuddly, and only when the movie was over did I remember that this morning Anne had told me that she found LICE EGGS in Lise's hair...I jumped up and grabbed the pillows that Lise was leaning on, and of course the one time I do NOT want to cuddle or want her anywhere near by bed, she proceeded to rub her head all over it. Oh well. If I come back with lice, you all will know why.

Then, because Juliette had gone on a massive shopping spree at Hollister today with her friends, we had a lengthy fashion show, in which Juliette tried on about a million different combinations of things for us, and Lise and I held up score cards after each with our own rating (Most of Lise's were 19 or 20 out of 20...I was a little pickier). And then Anne and Eric got home around 9, and we had Italian food together (mmmm, my last salmon pasta!).

Also, today was super fun because my friend Robert and his friend Pat are in town, and we climbed the bell towers of Notre Dame! It was great, I highly recommend it, even if you have to wait in line for an hour and half like we did.

Gargoyles!

Great close up views.

That's the Pantheon sticking out on top. And in the right corner just above the little park is the tiny church St. Julian-le-Pauvre in the Latin Quarter, which I think Aunt Sarah said she liked (correct me if I'm wrong). 

Thursday

Today was very hot. I stayed home for most of the day because I have a shorter free day than usual since Lise is at gymnastics rather than school, but I did run into Paris for an hour to grab some ballet flats -- I was trying to avoid buying new ones before I left, but my two pairs here are so worn thin that I didn't want to risk stepping on glass and spending my last week in Paris with a bandage on my foot.

Tonight made me feel better because the girls were being cuddly again. Thank God I decided to stay up with them and watch Master Chef Junior as they curled up on either side of me/on me, or else otherwise I would have gone to bed assuming that they were totally over me. And I wasn't going to bake again since it's so hot, but Thomas actually asked me to make my chocolate chip cookies again before I leave, and since that's probably the biggest compliment I'll ever get from him, I definitely couldn't NOT make those cookies.

Lately I've been documenting little things I see all the time, since those things are are important to my 10 months in Paris as are the photo of specific things I want to remember:

It's weird that now I can pretty much say "See you in a week!" to my friends back home...and mean it!

Last Week of Work

Our Wifi ("weefee") has been going in and out over the past few days, which is why I couldn't blog last night.

Yesterday, Lise and I made our last cupcakes together before we part.

Apron over her leotard.

Lopsided but delicious.

She was in pajamas by the time we were done!

This week has been a little strange. Tomorrow is my last day of work, and then the kids leave for Nice on Sunday. Obviously I wanted to have a fun last week together, but Lise and I have barely had one full conversation since last week. Anne has been home in the mornings lately, and Lise misses her so much when she's gone that she hasn't been paying any attention to me when she's here. And after school, Lise now only wants to watch TV (either crappy Disney channel shows or the MTV-like reality shows that Juliet now watches). Obviously I'm more sentimental then they are, and I can't hold that against them because they're 8 & 12 and, but it kind of sucks. Lise was great a few weeks ago, but she's been particularly not good lately (flat out "NO!"s for homework and showers, etc). And both girls are SO distracted by the TV, that they don't even answer me when I ask them a question. It's the end of the year and I know they're exhausted, and I hope that's what this is, so I'm trying to not be upset because that will just make me exhausted too. 

Tuesday

I stayed home today because Lise is in school but Juliette and Thomas aren't, so even though I can go out if I want to, I like to be here to make lunches most of the time so that they don't think I don't want to be here.

I've been wearing ballet flats the whole time I've been here (except for in rainy and cold weather), but the soles are so thin that the other day I got really fed up and decided to wear my new platform wedges in the city because they were sturdier. I don't regret it -- the shoes themselves were comfortable and I love being taller. And it's a good thing that I like them, because I'm pretty sure that stores don't let you return merchandise with bloodstains on the inside. There are two chunks of skin missing from one of my feet. I'm hoping that doesn't end up being as bad as it sounds.

I keep reading about exhibits I want to go to and I don't want to spend my last four days here packing, so I am literally all packed up as much as I can considering I'm still here for 10 days. But I keep getting antsy, so every day since I started to consider myself all packed up, I've managed to find at least one thing still laying out that I can put in my suitcase. I knew the end was near when I packed up my favorite red flowered scarf -- I'm probably wearing it in 75% of the photos on Facebook, and folding it up and putting it in my suitcase was when it really hit me than I'm leaving. Sarah and Rachael are now mid-air as I type this, which also makes everything for me seem very final.

10 Days!

Today was strange because it was Sarah and Rachael's last day in Paris since they leave tomorrow morning. The three of us and Mariene met in the morning for coffee and to help Sarah move out of her apartment (she and Rachael have the same flight tomorrow so she's staying over there tonight). It was kind of a struggle (three very heavy suitcases and other miscellany down 6 floors from near the Eiffel tower on a bus that took us to the Arc de Triomphe where Rachael lives, and then through the lobby's multiple doors and up two flights of stairs). And of course when we got there, instead of finding an empty apartment as she had left it (Rachael has a complicated situation where she pays discounted rent to live in a large apartment owned by the family she babysits for), there was entire mystery family running around who she didn't even know -- her own host family obviously didn't bother to tell Rachael that she'd have guests (i.e. and that Sarah wouldn't have a bed). Annoying.

Anyway, it was kind of upsetting that they were leaving, obviously. But before we parted we all walked to Marks & Spencer together one last time and bought English food. I'm not as sad as I could be because I know we'll see each other sooner rather than later. I'm not worried about that. It's amazing how fast ten months went buy because I can remember the first time I met each of them perfectly.

Tonight at home wasn't great either because Lise was being Very Difficult. I let her stay up until 10PM, which is super late, and even then I couldn't for the life of me get her to go to bed. After one struggle, we ended up in a different part of the house, wrestling on the stairs. I'm sure we looked ridiculous...there were arms and legs flying everwhere, and I couldn't just pick her up because we were on the windy stairs and if I fell I was going to drop her and I didn't want to. And while our arms and legs were flying everywhere as she tried to slide down the stairs and I tried to push her back up, she managed to keep her eyes shut the whole time while "sleeping" with her head on the pillow from the couch that she had held on to as I initially dragged her from the living room. But it was great because she knew she was supposed to be in bed, and at one point in this struggle, by some miracle the front door opened by itself, but of course Lise thought it was Anne coming home so she instantly let go of the railing and was upstairs in her bed before I knew what has happening. Yesssss.