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!