...to report about our visit to France. At the rate I'm updating our blog, it's going to take me a while to get to our present day life, so I want to talk about it now, while it's still fresh on my mind!
A couple of weeks ago, we finally took our highly anticipated trip to France with our friends R and C. It was even more wonderful than I thought it would be. We flew into Geneva (Jim in business class and sending champagne back to the commoners in economy. Supposedly he 'accidentally' purchased business class tickets, but he got to hold Millie the whole trip, which slightly cramped his fancy pants style) and were met by Bernard, who drove us in a van to our chalet near the village of Duignt. We opted not to rent a car because of the expense and with wonderful cycle paths and various other transportation options (boat, bus, bike, foot, taxi) it worked for us. But Bernard thought we were crazy not to have a car. Probably he wasn't considering how limited one is when traveling with really small children. It would have been really hard for us to have done much more than we did while we were there.
The house we were staying in was surrounded by the French Alps and overlooked Lac D'Annecy (Lake Annecy), which is an amazing turquoise blue color. Above, in the mountains, multicolored para-gliders (about 20 at at time) sailed around and on the lake, people water skied and kayaked and occasionally we would see swimmers bobbing along in the evening. On the beaches (grassy patches) people swam and picnicked and for our first few days, the weather was warm and almost summery. Evie and R immediately started splashing in the pool and Millie was mesmerized by the grass.
The house was stocked with toys for everyone and bikes with baby seats and carriages to pull behind. Jim used one of the bikes and carriages to go to the grocery store on our first evening:
And Evie and R made good use of the sand/water thing (sans sand and water at that point):
While Millie lolled around in an inflatable inner tube play center:
By our second day, Evie and R were playing house:
and the rest of us were basking in our pasty whiteness and aversion to bathing suits next to the pool.
We also decided to go for a bike ride, which turned out to be a bad idea. Maybe we should have taken a hint from Millie, who looked less than pleased about her position in the chariot before we even got started:
After a little bike juggling, we settled on Jim pulling Evie and Millie, Claire pulling R and me on the bike with the kiddy seat on the back (empty). We cycled along to Duignt, through a tunnel and down into the town in search of toilet paper, which we were rapidly running out of (as a side note, I never knew I had such anxiety about running out of toilet paper before this trip, but now I know that plentiful toilet paper is something that is very important to me). As luck would have it, no one in Duingt sells toilet paper AND Jim got a flat AND Millie got hysterical. After more juggling, we decided that I would put Evie on the back of my bike and Claire would take Millie and R and we would haul ass home while Jim walked back with his flat tire (and some kleenex that we bought to replace the toilet paper). Evie had no helmet (I got looks) and Millie was still shrieking, which upset R who then started shrieking, too (Claire got looks). So it was all a slight disaster and then we had to somehow get them all up the steep hill leading to our house, which was really hard work. And yet, and yet...we still were in good spirits and just planned not to do the bike thing again. While we were cycling (and walking throughout the week), we saw lots of serious cyclists who obviously took the bike path up into the Alps and we saw people commuting and families riding together. The cyclists were old and young and they all had really nice legs! If we hadn't been spooked by our first bike experience, we could have ridden all the way into Annecy and if the kids had been older, they could have cycled themselves without the added anxiety of traffic.After the hard work and the stress of attempting to find toilet paper, a relaxing swim was definitely what everyone (but Millie and I) needed:
Jim was the man of the hour, only messing up once when he splashed R a little too enthusiastically. Evie and R raced in the pool and afterwards everyone warmed up in the still warm (at that point) sun.
The following day, Jim, who was not scarred by our cycling mishaps, and Evie, who is always up for an adventure, took a ride into the village without the rest of us.
When they got back, we thought it would be a good idea to walk to the grocery store, despite extreme heat (which our families in Texas and Louisiana will laugh at because extreme heat in the French Alps is nothing). It was a few miles away and before the trip, I decided not to bring our double buggy with us, thinking that it would just be an extra thing to worry about. I regretted this decision many times throughout the trip, as it meant that I had to carry Millie...and carrying 18 pounds of baby is no easy feat...especially not in the heat. But even with the sun beating down on us, she stayed in a happy mood as usual and definitely wins the prize for being the most easy going kid on the trip. Evie, worn out from previous adventures, actually fell asleep in her hot buggy.
When we finally got back, hours later, there was still time to relax in the back yard and hang out with Claire and R:
Tuesday is market day in Annecy, so we gathered up kids and all the mass amounts of stuff that comes with them and headed into town. The first challenge was calling a cab. We didn't think the phone in the house dialed out because it said it didn't...but actually it did, only we didn't figure that out until after we had made a ton of calls from my cell phone (looking forward to that bill). When we finally did figure out the number for a cab (because Bernard didn't answer or call us back for some time, due to a bad connection in the mountains) we couldn't tell them the address, because it was seemingly listed nowhere. Luckily someone found an invoice for something around the house and we were finally able to tell them where we were...thanks to Claire, who was the only one of us who could speak enough French to communicate (she is fluent, actually). Of course I forgot to give Evie car sickness medicine, so we had to make a premature exit from the car in Annecy to prevent mass vomiting. But we did make it...and then it started to rain.The market was colorful and very French with cheeses and sausages and fresh veggies and beautiful baskets and flowers. Here's Claire purchasing her favorite kind of French cheese, which comes from the Annecy region:
And me, attempting to keep everyone corralled for a picture:
Evie is an avid olive eater and was very excited to get her hands on some of these!
Some wild purple garlic:
Eventually we had to get lunch and settled on a pizzaria, thinking that it would be an easy place for Evie to get something she liked (R brought his own lunch). As you can see, she chose not to eat pizza:
Millie helped Daddy pick out something delicious!
And R was a good sport about it all and even got to eat a few frites with his homemade lunch:
Finally, after walking around in the rain for a few hours, we decided to head back home again and get warm and dry:
The following day, Claire and R had to make an emergency trip to the hospital, so we Avants wandered around without them and missed them lots. Evie took up her favorite position on Jim's shoulders:
Millie rode on me, as usual (still, despite the fact that we have been using it for almost 2.5 years, Jim refuses to wear what he terms the 'ridiculous sling' and mocks me for looking like Princess Leah when I wear it):
We wandered through Duignt, which has lots of beautiful little houses and old barns and steep streets. At the top was a church with an interesting graveyard. The graves had plaques set up like picture frames on them and also some glass flowers (and a great view):
Then we went down by the Lake, where we managed to get a couple of decent pictures of me with the girls and we also managed to keep Evie from getting in (even harder than getting a couple of decent pictures!).
On our way home we walked past what Evie is convinced is Cinderella's castle. So determined was she to go in and see Cinderella that we had to tell her that the famous princess was on vacation just to get her home. In reality, the castle is privately owned, so we couldn't go anywhere near it, but it was pretty from a distance!
The cycle path goes through a long tunnel, at the end of which there were people rock climbing. I was pleased to see that Evie (and maybe Millie?) gets as excited about going through a tunnel as I always have. Finding all the "E's" in the tunnel's graffiti was also a fun past time for her.
Lying on a hill along the bike path:
When we got home, Claire and R were back, looking very weary and hungry. Somehow, even after his long day at the hospital, R managed to muster the energy to play with Evie for several hours at high speed. Two year olds are really amazing and these two really do have a lot of fun together and really just accept each other almost completely. It was sweet to watch.
Sadly, Jim had to go back to London for work on Thursday, so Claire and I and the kids continued our French adventures by ourselves. We tried to take the boat to Annecy, but missed it by about half an hour (one of two that ran all day), so we just hung around on the boat dock taking scenic pictures instead.
Then we ate a delicious restaurant which was very much not child friendly. All around us people were having their quiet and sophisticated lunches, while we tried to quickly eat our yummy fish and keep Evie and R from causing mass destruction and/or tripping up the staff. Somehow we got out of there without anything breaking...barely.
After all of the sitting at the restaurant, it was definitely necessary to let the kids do some free ranging, so we went to the 'beach' near Cinderella's castle and they played by the lake and, at points, dangerously close to the lake. It seemed, on a few occasions, that one or the other of us was going to get wet, but luckily we managed to keep the adventurous two year olds on the shore. Millie also enjoyed sitting in the grass, but had to borrow Evie's shorts because her diaper leaked (yes, she fits into Evie's shorts).
We also were entertained by these curious ducks until the male called in one of his friends and they brutally raped the female. Luckily the kids are young enough that they didn't have any questions about this horrifying behavior and, although I've seen it before, duck mating is always very disturbing to witness.
Later, we took a walk along the bike path to a nearby village, so that we could go to a pharmacy, but, alas, everyone was on strike about something so the pharmacies were closed.Fortunately, the scenery was beautiful and we found a much anticipated playground (Evie had been asking for days to go to the playground. As Claire pointed out, she's an urban girl and she needs her urban fixes). She also made friends with a little French girl and I spoke pidgin French with her mother (enough to ask her how old her daughter was and to say that my French was really bad...obviously). After the playground, we got very lucky and managed to get to the once an hour bus stop right when the bus was pulling up, so we rode back in style and comfort.
On our last day, we got organized and took the boat to Annecy. It was very crowded and 11:45, when it picked us up, is about when everyone in our group starts to get hungry and grumpy. I would say that the only person who really enjoyed the boat ride was Millie, who ate her lunch and then happily smiled through the rest of the trip. Evie was constantly kicking the guy next to her, so I spent my boat ride trying to keep that under control and wishing, for the millionth time, that I had the double stroller, if only for containment purposes! So, we didn't really get to enjoy the scenery, but the upside is that somehow we managed to take the trip without paying.
When we got to Annecy, we hung out in a park, where Evie and R were able to run free for a while and Millie, once again, enjoyed the grass. Then we went to get crepes and wandered around Annecy, before heading back home on the trusty bus, which was less trusty because it was a school holiday AND because we got on the wrong one, which didn't quite get us home with our three tired and hungry kids.
The next day, after a slightly stressful ride to the airport (car sickness again), our flight home was uneventful once Claire managed to get a seat next to R, whom they had put on a different row from her. For some reason the flight attendants (British Airways, by the way) didn't think it was a big deal that a mother was seated away from her 2 year old, but thought it was really unfair that the nice couple who offered to sit separately so Claire and R could sit together, were seated away from each other. At Heathrow, we had to spend a lot of time filling out paperwork for our car seat, which got lost in transit, so it seemed like an epic journey home after a wonderful week. I hope we'll get to go back someday!
