Sunday, January 31, 2010

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!
  
 

Saturday, January 23, 2010

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, January 13, 2010

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.

Sunday, January 10, 2010

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, January 8, 2010

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.  

Thursday, January 7, 2010

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, January 6, 2010

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.     

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

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.

Monday, January 4, 2010

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, January 3, 2010

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!

Saturday, January 2, 2010

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.