Birthday and Amsterdam

My 9th birthday was on June 5th. I obviously had fun. We went to Centre Commercial de les Ulis 2,
a nearby mall, to get me some clothes. I had some friends over for cake and sweets, and we were mostly outside, working on our fort. After the party, i practiced on my new heeleys.

The next day, we went to a Japanese restaurant with Eve for dinner. The food was good. 

On June 11th, we took a very nice and fast train called THALYS to Amsterdam.
My Dad left on the day before. The train stopped in Brussels, Antwerpen, Rotterdam, Schiphol Airport and Amsterdam. Amsterdam has many canals, and we took the "CanalBus", a sightseeing boat on the canals many times. We also went to the van Gogh museum. Fortunately, they had audio guides for children. I think Amsterdam is a nice city, but Dutch is a weird language.             

Parcs Disneyland!

Yesterday, we went to Disneyland Paris.
This Disneyland has 2 parks: Disneyland Paris and Walt Disney Studios. We went to the park called "Disneyland".  I was really looking forward to riding Space Mountain, but it was closed for some reason.
 But I went to something at least as good as space mountain; Indiana Jones and the Temple of Peril.
It was truly my all time favorite. I also liked Big Thunder Mountain. The best part is when it goes in an underwater tunnel, because you can't see where you're going!
Those were my two favorites.

Star Tours was based on Star Wars (pretty obvious). It was a half roller coaster because:
1. It had monitors to make it look like you were in space.
2. It was in a fake spaceship.
3. It was in a small room and shook itself so it would feel like you were moving.
The reason why it wasn't my favorite was because everything was fake.
 

Wedding and Monet's Garden

Friday May 7th was the day when my aunt got married. I was obviously there. It took place at the Swedish Embassy, in Paris. After the ceremony, we took a walk through Invalides to get to Champ de Mars, a big park by the Eiffel Tower. We had a big picnic there for lunch, and we had bought all the food because we live here.

After the picnic, we split up. My younger cousins, my grandparents and me and my brother and my Dad and my Mom went to a merry-go-round and the others went to the Eiffel tower. After the merry-go-round, we went to an RER C station to Gare d'Austerlitz and took the metro to Bastille and went to a fancy restaurant called "Bofinger" while the others walked there. We stayed at Bofinger for about 4 hours, and when we got back home it was midnight.

The next week, we rented a car since we didn't have school on Thursday and Friday. On Thursday we took the car to Monet's Garden in Giverny. It was ENORMOUS and the flowers were amazing. It's a little hard to explain what it looks like, so maybe some of my pictures can help:

 By the pond, there was a lot of bamboo.

 I would call it the "Bamboo forest"

Can you see the impression my camera made?

The Japanese bridge!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Break ends

My break has ended, so it's back to normal again. I was mainly in Sweden, in the south. I visited my grandparents there.

We met one of my mom's high school friends in Lund, a very old city. We visited the old cathedal. The astronomical clock was built in the 1400s and it had just been renovated. The church itself was built in the 1200s. Did you know that the Swedish regions of Skåne, Halland and Blekinge were parts of Denmark then? Later after a war, Sweden got back Skåne, Halland and Blekinge.

We also went to the pool in Helsingborg to take a swim "badge". In Sweden, the kids can take badges with different designs with different assignments. I have almost completed the gold badge.

Another day, we took a trip to Landskrona. I think it's a really cute city, but there are many people who don' t have jobs there and they make criminal groups and do criminal things. Otherwise, Landskrona is nice.
     
On Friday, my aunt is getting married in Paris so I won't have school.

Hooray for Wednesday!!!!!

Visit

To all S-K readers:
My dad's in the US, so you may see him walk into the office.
The flight was fine. No injuries, no crash.

Luck

A lucky thing happened yesterday:I was a winner of the bakery's chocolate contest.
Look what I won:

I obviously did not win our new MacBook Pro!

Our original flight to Copenhagen was canceled but my Dad found tickets for tomorrow that are hopefully not canceled!!!

Parc de Sceaux

Last Sunday we went to a beautiful, big park called Parc de Sceaux. The town of Sceaux is where the park is, so that is what the Sceaux part of the name comes from. We had a picnic there, like many others. Eve was there and her Japanese students were there too and Charles, a person who works with my Dad and also works at école polythechnique, was also there. Parc de Sceaux has many, many, many cherry trees.

I'm on spring break for two weeks now. Have you heard of the recent volcano eruption in Eyjafjallajökull, Iceland? Well the problem is that the ash from the volcano is in France and all over Europe, so that means our flight to Sweden on Wednesday the 21st is probably canceled. If it is, we'll be going by train instead on Thursday (Paris Gare du Nord, Köln, Germany, Hamburg, Germany, Copenhagen, Denmark, and finally Helsingborg, Sweden). We'll be leaving by 5 o' clock in the morning and we will be arriving in Sweden at at least 10 o' clock in the evening! But, if our Flight is not canceled, it is just good.        

 Cherry trees!

Arvid playing soccer with cherry trees in the background.

My cousins

My oldest cousins are here (Dad's side). Jonas is 16 and Sara is 14. They live in Västerås, Sweden.
We went to Paris with them today. First, we went to Notre-Dame. The line for the clock tower was huge, so instead we went inside the cathedral, which takes no time at all. Then we went to the edge of the Cité island. I noticed that the island is really thin. There is a bridge with a strange name. It is called Pont Neuf. Pont Neuf means "New bridge" and it is one of the oldest bridges in Paris! It was not far away from Palais Garnier, the most known opera in Paris which is not far from the Tuileries park which was our next destination. The King of France had a orange tree green house which was made into a museum. When Claude Monet got older, he got this crazy idea. He would paint pictures as big as walls! There are two round rooms with the paintings. He made 8 of them.

On the way we passed through a flower market.

Here are some of Monet's big paintings. Enjoy! 

These are some models of the orangerie museum from different times.

Here are some Renoir paintings. Enjoy!

Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye

Saint-Germain-en-Laye (French pronunciation: [sɛ̃ ʒɛʁmɛ̃ ɑ̃ lɛ]) is a commune in the "Yvelines" department. On Friday, the CE2 class (my class) and the CE2/CM2 class took a trip in a big bus there to see the castle there. It was once a real castle, but it was made into a museum because it is not used as a castle anymore.
It is now France's national museum of archaeology.
My class is studying the modern stone age.
We looked at some tools and pottery from the modern stone age.
Then, we went into an art room and we learned to make pottery like them!

Easter

We had a 3 day weekend because of Easter.
On the day before Easter, we melted part of our huge chocolate hen that we got from Grandma.
The bakery had a contest to guess the weight of an enormous chocolate hen. I guessed 2kg. Arvid guessed 1kg. I haven't got the results yet.

On Easter, we went to the park to participate in their Easter egg hunt. Me and Arvid only found one egg. Other people got about 2 chocolate rabbits. Since they live here, it is easier for them to get to the best hiding spots.

Happy Easter!!!
Joyeuses Pâques!!!
Glad påsk!!! 


 

   

Orsay, Gif-sur-Yvette

On Saturday, we took a walk to Orsay, the closest city to Bures.
On the way there, we saw some signs of spring.
For example:
The flowers were blooming,
it was hotter,
etc.
In Orsay, some streets were very steep to be a street.

On Sunday, we took a long walk to Gif-sur-Yvette, another town.
In Gif , the market is on Sundays and Thursdays instead of Saturdays and Wednesdays.
Many people were the same sellers as in Bures.
The Market was bigger, and more inside.
We also took a visit to Picard, a frozen food store.
Don't think I mean they just sell that horrible frozen food that you can find everywhere.
They sell real food.
They have frozen croissants,
frozen vegetables,
frozen fruit,
frozen frog legs,
frozen fish,
frozen candy,
frozen sushi,
frozen meat,
frozen desserts
and of course frozen ice cream.
They sell mostly their own products.    

Canal Saint Martin

We went to Paris on Wednesday. There we looked at Canal Saint Martin. It was convenient because it is close to where I have my violin lesson. When I had my violin lesson, my grandma and my brother went back to the canal. They saw the canal locks work (They wanted me to see it some other time).
The canal was built in the 1800's. There were long, high bridges to connect the sides.

It took a longer way to get back because there had been a serious accident at Bagneux, a station that we pass on the RER B to get back to Bures.   
 

Grandparents, Paris and Madrid

Sorry for not writing for a long time. My grandparents (dad's side) were in Paris. They stayed at a hotel in Paris but on Friday, Saturday and Sunday we met. On Friday we had a big dinner with a cheese table with French cheeses from the market and ice cream for dessert. On Saturday they came here and we went to a book festival fundraiser for my school. My parents had a talk with one of my teachers (Mme. Venant). She doesn't speak very good English and the English speaking teacher was sick.
Then we went to the market. We didn't buy very much but we were mostly there to show my grandparents the market.
On Sunday we went to Paris. In the morning we went to Palais de la Découverte. We had lunch at a crepe place. In the evening, we watched the new movie Fantastic Mr. Fox. It was a very funny movie but with a few adult jokes.

On Wednesday we went to Paris again but with Janet, a person who lived in Ann Arbor in my old house upstairs. We went to Jardin des Plantes to look at the zoo there. I felt a little sorry for the animals because they didn't have much room. You know, the Detroit zoo which actually isn't very big you have to walk a long way because the animals have huge landscapes.
For lunch we went to a north African restaurant which we have been to before.
The desserts were baklava (I think one is plenty because they're really oily).

 ***

We also went to Madrid for 4 days. I had a good time there.
We went to the famous Prado museum. We tried Paella.
I have some pictures if you want to see more:

 One day we went to a place with good ham. (The Spanish have good ham).

At one street they almost only had stores with old coins and stamps.

There was a place with good ice-cream and I made this picture with my DSi's Distortion lens.

There were a lot of living statues and other things like them. Look what happens when Arvid puts a coin in the bucket.

You can take a picture!  

One moving statue was a perfect disguise.

One was weirder.

Check this out! Part of the building is graffiti and one part is real!

 

Avoriaz

I just got back from Avoriaz. (So sad)! I had a wonderful time. On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, we went to real slopes with chairlifts and everything with my ski school, so we needed poles and lift passes unlike the previous days when we were in a smaller area. It was like a winter wonderland in the mountains.
 
One evening we went to a restaurant for dinner to try fondue because it originally comes from this area. The fondue was good, and I saw some people getting a interesting looking (probably the original design) of a raclette. A big piece of cheese was hanging on a metal holding thing. Instead of melted cheese you melt the cheese itself and dip the melted cheese on meat. They saw that I was interested and let me try some. It was okay, but sort of bitter. I was happy I could try it.

We stayed at a hotel for a night when we were on are way to Avoriaz. At the restaurant my dad had snails. He let me try one. I did not like it at all. Too much garlic!


 

Skiing in Avoriaz

We're in Avoriaz, a resort in the French alps to try out some skiing. Me and my brother go to a school were you learn to ski better. I like to ski through the gates. In Avoriaz, no cars are allowed. They have snow tracs and horse and buggys with bells for transportation.

You have to drive through the mountains to get to Avoriaz. If they would build the roads straight, it would be too steep for your car and the car would slip off the mountain. Instead the roads are built zig-zag so it won't be as steep. It is easy to get carsick from the zig-zag.

I am having a great time in Avoriaz.

Head on a Plate

Today we went to Cite des Sciences & de l'Industrie.
There was a special exhibit about food. There was something that was like a joke. Here is the picture:

The truth is: I was under the counter with a hole. And there are mirrors that make it look like I am a head. The mirrors hid my body.

Changements des plans

Today we had planned to meet Eve but she had called to say that her sister (who actually lives in Brussels) had gotten extremely sick so she had to help her get to the hospital so it was not a good idea to meet her just today. Instead we looked at Cite des sciences & de l'industrie but you had to buy tickets two days in advance. (The reason is that in France everybody has Mid-winter-break from school now).
So instead at 2 o'clock we took the RER B to the terminus Saint Remy-les-Chevreuse and walked a looooooooooooong way to Chateau de la Madeleine in Chevreuse, another town. I have about a million pictures to show and here are some of them:

This is one of the bridges that leads to a house where somebody lives. I like how this one is sort of old-fashioned looking.

I took this picture to show you that the apartments in Chevreuse are sort of modern looking.

But the churches are old.

This is one of those first bike designs. One wheel is extremely high and one is extremely low.

This is an old poem at the entrance of the castle. This is the translation:

How I enjoy myself in these mountains,

Which, rising up to the Heavens,

With a graceful diadem,

Crown this beautiful landscape.

This may not look like much, but this is a well about 30 meters deep. It was used when there was a war and the people were stuck inside the castle. They made this well to get water to drink.

It must of been very hard to make the well in the 11th century because they did not have bulldozers then.

This is a tower where you could go in. Can you see the staircase they used?

This is the interior of a typical RER B train.

This is the outside of a typical RER B train.

Here is the Chevreuse valley viewed from the highest point of the castle. 

To market

Today we went to the market to get some food. At the end of this post you can see some craaaaaaazy pictures. My dad is keeping a list of the French A.O.C (Appelation d'Origine Controle) cheeses we have consumed.

France is home to the best bread in the universe. Sometimes in the morning, I walk by myself to the bakery and get some bread. It improves my French.

Sometimes in school, the French kids ask me a question that I don't understand. They end with "Oui ou Non" and that is like all I understand. I can't answer because the first part would be too hard to understand. Then they try with"Yes or no" which doesn't help a bit. They probably think it really whatsoever helps me but I just end it with "Maybe."

This is a picture of a dead fish I named "Eyeball". Eyeball looks weird and I never want to buy him.

This is a real Brie de Meaux cheese. There is also a Brie de Melun that has a stronger taste. Can you see some of the whole Brie de Meaux cheeses?

Next to the Brie de Meaux there are some Brie de Melun cheeses. Can you see how Brie de Melun is a little smaller?

This Cheese is called Valencay. I like the look of it because it looks like a green pyramid. There is also a white pyramid cheese that is called Pouligny St. Pierre.

This cheese is called Morbier. I took a picture of it because I want you to see the green line on the cheese.

I took a picture of this cheese because I want you to see the name. Tete de Moine literally means "Friar's head". Yuck!

 

You can see that I took this picture on the DSi because of the frame. This is actually horse meat.

 

In this picture there is something disgusting. Pig snout and pig feet. Can you spot both?

Paris with Percy Jackson

On Sunday we went to Paris and we planned to go Ice Skating at Hotel De Ville but it was closed because it was Chinese New year. I knew it was Chinese New year, but I did not know that they would celebrate it there. Instead we walked to Le Marais and had lunch there. Then we went to Forum- Des-Halles and got tickets for the new Percy Jackson Movie. We had just missed one. The next one was in about two hours. We took a break at a Starbucks and then we went outside.We went to the second floor which is a part outside. It was not very nice there because homeless people tried to live there and the building smelled like urine. There was a tunnel that took you back down which smelled like urine and there was even probably human poop there. I feel sorry for all the homeless people.

The movie was different from the book, because in the 1st book Percy is 12 and in the movie they changed him to 17. But in the fifth movie he can't be 22, he would be an adult! I enjoyed the movie. It was in English with French subtitles. I tried to ignore the subtitles. Right now I am reading the second Percy Jackson book on my mom's Kindle.

 

Friday and the week end

There is just one thing from Friday that you might find interesting.
The English teacher sometimes says to the class in English class when they are annoying and loud "Shut up!" I told her "Shut up is not a very nice word." She said "I know but they deserve it!" Ha!

On Saturday I asked another girl who is 8 if she could come to my house. Her dad was not there so her sister would stay and she would come. We played a short game of UNO and went outside. Outside we made a miniature Waterworld.

On Sunday in the afternoon just me and my dad went to Paris. We did a lot of metro transportation and this is how it went: first we took the RER B to Paris Gare du Nord, then metro line 2 to Pre-Saint Gervais, line 3 to Gambetta, line 3bis (the shortest line with just 4 stations) to Porte des Lilas, line 11 to Place de Fetes, line 7bis to Jaures and finally line 5 to Oberkampf. Then we walked to le Marais where they have a lot of Middle Eastern food (there was a long line to get your lunch everywhere). We had a falafel. Then we went to a chocolate store and got a small box of chocolates. After that, we went to a fancy tea shop and we planned to have something small to eat but the line was too long. Instead we bought some tea for my mom and had a hot chocolate at the chocolate shop. Then we went home.

I brought my DSi and took some pictures:

This picture is of me and my favorite advertisement.

This is me reading a map with a metro in the background.

This is the long falafel line on rue des Rosiers in le Marais. 

This is the chocolate fountain at the chocolate shop.

   

Paris, Versailles

In Paris there is a museum called Musee des arts decoratifs. Last Wednesday we went there instead of playing soccer because my grandparents are here. There was a playmobil exhibit that we went to because Arvid likes playmobil alot. We also went to some other exhibits that were mostly old and new decorative art. There was one with different weird chairs. Then we went to lunch. There was a metro station really close but there was a place that looked interesting there called Palais-Royal so we went through it and walked far to one of the coolest metro stations, Louvre-Rivoli and took the metro to the closest station to the violin lesson and when that was done,we went home.

On Saturday we took two RER lines, first B and then C to Versailles to go to the Palace of Versailles, the world's largest castle I think, larger then the Louvre museum in Paris. The RER C has two floors but they are older, but I still like them. RER C it is a really complicated line. I will try to show a picture of a map of it some time.

At Versailles the king's room was built in a position for the king to see the sunset wen he would go to bed.
Not a single part of the king's room was not decorated. The ballroom is famous for it's mirrors. It is known as the mirror room. The couryard and garden was enormous!
  
 

Computer Crash

Sorry, I haven't been able to post for some time because our computer broke.
I am typing this on someone elses computer we borrowed from someone else because we ordered one to come here and it has not come yet.

So on Wednesday it was raining so we did not play soccer.
Instead we went into the museum Centre Georges Pompidou a.k.a Beaubourg. Beaubourg literally means "Beautifulbourg". It is called that because you know how adults joke and say that something is really good and they mean the opposite? Same reason. The coolest part of it is that there are these tunnels on the outside with escalators to get from floor to floor.
I will try to show a picture of it some time.

At French school they get grades and the next field trip I think is in April or May to a castle known for cavemen.

Today we headed for Paris at 11:00. The part we were in had almost only Japanese things.  We had lunch and looked in some shops.
Then we went to Forum des halles and went into a big store to buy a DVD player and a better antenna for the TV we got.

Wednesday

Today we went to Paris again because there is no school on Wednesdays.
One funny thing about the RER trains is that they have 4 letter names.
Some are called PEPE and once I saw one called IDOL.
The names have something to to with were they stop so they mean something and are not unique.
We just for fun took the RER A in Paris because it has 2 floors.
So we went to Swedish school to meet some Swedish people and took the bus to a Park to play soccer. But the park was closed.
It didn't matter. If the Park was open my dad said we would get too muddy.
It is easier for the Swedish kids because they live in Paris, so if they get muddy they could just go home.
But we have to take a 40 minute train ride to get home.
Then we took the metro to meet my violin teacher David's friend Kyle and practice.
After that we had dinner and went home.

Le Weekend

On Saturday, nothing special happened. After lunch, we went outside to build a snowman. It was not very successful. We went to the local library, checked out a Harry Potter book, went to buy some candy, and went home.

On Sunday, we went to Paris again. The first thing we did was we went ice skating at Hotel de Ville with Zeb and Marion. After that we went to a restaurant for lunch. Then we planned to climb up the Notre Dame clocktower, but it was closed due to ice. So we went inside the cathedral. It was huge. Then at a RER station we went into a photo booth to get pictures for school and my swim team, and took the RER home. The station with the photo booth, Saint-Michel Notre Dame was big. We got on a lot of escalators to get down to the platform.

Friday - first school lunch at the cafeteria

This morning it was very cold. Today I went to the school cafeteria for the first time. It was okay.
We had an extra recess at another part of the playground. That was the best part.
At lunch they had baguettes, salad, meat with cauliflower (I did not eat the cauliflower), yoghurt and sugar, and a slice of gallete des rois.

Today we had English (a thing that the French kids did wrong was that they said 'ouse instead of house).
It was very easy.  

Snow in France and first full day in French school

When I woke up, there was lots of snow on the ground. The radio said that all school buses in Essone, a part of the greater Ile-de-France region, were cancelled. We thought that there was no school, but we went there anyway. But there was school. At every recess we had snowball fights. The first subject was  math.
It was easy because we were doing multiplication. Next was science. It was better. It was about the human body. One hard thing we did was that we had to write what stood on the blackboard. The reason why it was hard was because it was written in fancy French cursive. I got two things wrong. I bet everyone else got it right because in French schools they learn cursive already in kindergarten. Their cursive looks professional.

Petra---French junk food is pretty similar to American, Swedish school really is a school for Swedish children, but I go there on Wednesdays for people that can speak Swedish and don't go there regularly.
In French school there is no school on Wednesdays.

Wednesday in Paris

Today there was no school, so we went to Paris.

We took the RER B to Chatelet-Les Halles and changed to the Metro, line one to Saint Paul and went into a bank my Dad goes to called LCL. We were there to change his bank account there.
While he was talking, I was playing my DSi. Then we went to a cell phone place called Orange to get a french SIMM Card for my mom and my dad's cell phone. Then we went to lunch. After lunch, we took a walk around the area Le Marais. Then we took the metro to Swedish school. The teacher thought I was ten. It was fun, but the stuff was easy. After Swedish school, my dad found out that there was something wrong so we had to go back to Orange and get SIMM Cards that worked. Then we had dinner. We could only go to Junk Food places because fancy stuff would take too long. Then we took the metro and RER B home.     

First afternoon at school

This post is about my first afternoon at school in France.

I could finally go to school today. After we dropped off Arvid at his school, we went to the Mairie and got the paperwork. At the lunch break I went into the principal's office and waited until the principal came.
When she came, she showed me my classroom. I met the teacher I would have today. The teacher could speak English, which was a great help. Specials are different in my school. You get different homeroom teachers on different days.When the kids came in I was told that the class had 28 other kids, which is a lot larger than my class at Summers-Knoll. The first special was French grammar. It was interesting and I learned new things. After grammar it was recess. At recess I played Zombie with the other boys.Then we had Grammar again. After Grammar we went to our parents. In the evening I had swim team again. It was a bit more crowded because another swim team was there.

First day of school - or not

This post is about my (expected) first day of  school in France and the swim team in the nearest city Orsay.

I woke up early, had breakfast and headed to school. There was no problem at Arvid's school. They let him in. But at my school, the principal was standing by the gates, waiting for the kids to say "Bonne annee". I waited  because my dad was talking to the principal about me attending the school. She would not let me in because some paperwork from La Mairie (The french word for the city hall) was missing. So we went to the Mairie, but it was closed. Then we went to IHES (Institutes Hautes Etudes Scientifiques) where my dad works (This is the reason why we are here). You also needed some paperwork from where your parent(s) work. But the person who was in charge of that stuff was on vacation. We left dad at work and went to the library, which was closed, then to the boulangerie, which was also closed. Finally we got milk and bread in a small grocery store.

Later in the evening, we walked rapidly to my new swim team in Orsay. I was actually in the older group, everybody was older than nine! I did not understand a bit, but a boy heard that one of the languages I spoke was English, so he helped me understand. His mom was French and his dad was English. So swim team was pretty good.  

 

Sunday in Paris

This post is about my third day in Paris.

We did not bring an alarm clock here. When I woke up, I found a watch. But it was my mom's watch, which has no numbers on it. I saw what the time was, and I added 6 hours to the time. The sum was 6:30 AM. Just after that, my dad asked what the time was. I said 6:30 AM. He looked at his watch. No, the time is 10:30 AM! Our plans changed. We had planned to get to Paris after our normal breakfast time, but since we woke up so late, we had brunch instead.  When we had eaten, we took the RER B to a place in Paris called Denfert-Rochreau. We transfered to the Metro, line six. We took the metro to a station close to the Eiffel Tower called Passy and met Eve, one of my dad's French friends, and went to her apartment. There we had a special cake called Galette des Rois. Arvid was asked to sit under the table and say the order of the people getting the slices of the cake. There was something hidden in the cake that the one who got it would keep it and would be called the king or queen of the day. Arvid got it. It was a figure of Donkey Kong. He also got to wear a crown. When we left Eve, we walked to see where the American Library was and then we walked to a restaurant on Champs-Elysses where we had dinner. I had moules et frites. The avenue was beautiful with lots of lights. From there, we walked to the nearest Metro station, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and took Line 1 to the worlds largest underground transportation terminal, Chatelet-Les Halles, where we took the RER home.  We have to wake up early tomorrow, because that is our first day of school!

Our first day in Bures-sur-Yvette

For the next six months, my family and I will be staying in the tinyish town of Bures-sur-Yvette translated (Bures on Yvette), in France, about 40 minutes from the center of Paris. Yvette is a river that goes through Bures and other towns and cities outside Paris. There is a town right next to Bures that has a very similar name. Gif-sur-Yvette (Gif on yvette). We are lucky. The RER B, the commuter rail line can go to the city as well as to the airports Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle, and a smaller airport called Orly. On the first day nothing exiting happened. We landed in Paris, took a taxi to our apartment, and unpacked. The second day was more interesting. We went to the market, which is open on Wednesdays and Saturdays and bought some food. One gross thing I saw at the meat place was a whole dead baby pig for sale. We obviously did not buy it. But they had good stuff too, like candy and chevre, fish and vegetables. In the afternoon, we took a taxi to the gigantic shopping center in Les Ulis. There, we went to a huge store called Carrefour to buy more food and other things we needed. To get home we took a bus to Orsay and took the RER to Bures and walked home.