Because...France?: The mailman

This is the local mailman. Actually, mail woman. Forget the mail trucks like in the US, mail around here is delivered by bike. It's pretty cute seeing all of the la poste workers riding their bikes around the city and it's definitely better for the environment, so score one for France. The downside is that when you get a package delivered by post, you have to go pick up your package at a random location in town. When we lived in Orsay, we picked up a package from the florist once, and another one from the fruit guy.

Because... France?

We love living in France.  It's beautiful, the food is delicious, there is history everywhere, and we have shutters on our windows.  But living in another country, you find things very odd that may (or may not, who knows) seem normal to the locals.  So in an effort to blog more frequently and more about where we live, we're going to post about all of the things we find bizarre about France.  When we see these random things happening and ask each other 'why is ____ going on right now' - and the answer is usually... Because... France?

In today's Because... France? post, see the picture below.  As I was walking home from the grocery store on Friday, this bee-keeper had his hive of bees pollinating just one of the City of Versailles sidewalk flower planters.  He had little traffic cones up on the sidewalk on either side of the planter, blocking pedestrian traffic on one of the major streets in downtown Versailles.  What?

Copenhagen & Malmo

The life of Lilah - being toted through Europe in the baby carrier.

After leaving Germany, Jessie, Lilah and I flew to Copenhagen.  We heard from multiple people that we would love it there, and we certainly were not disappointed.  Copenhagen is a really beautiful and very friendly city. We stayed in Frederiksberg, and were able to walk everywhere we wanted to go. We enjoyed many food markets, did some shopping, hung out at Tivoli Gardens (a large amusement park in the middle of downtown Copenhagen), walked for miles through the city, canals, shops, parks, and saw the little mermaid statue.

Boats and brightly colored houses lined the canals

With my little lady at the little mermaid statue

Feeding the ducks at Tivoli Gardens.  Jessie had a slight obsession with this duck.

Malmo is just across the Oresund (a small waterway) from Copenhagen, it was under an hour on the bus and was a really pretty drive.  There was another post doc opportunity that Chris had been excited about near Malmo, so I wanted to see where we could have ended up!  I was surprised how much I loved it there – it’s a very quaint and friendly town bustling with shops, restaurants, sculptures, a castle, and tons of personality.  I am very happy we ended up in Versailles, but who knows, maybe Malmo is next on our list (avert your eyes, grandmas).

This is the only picture I took in Malmo.  Probably because Jessie's husband is performing in Oklahoma the musical this fall, so we had been singing the Oklahoma song a lot (I had been singing it, she had been rolling her eyes at me), which somehow always turned into the Music Man's 76 Trombones around the second verse.  So naturally I thought it was hilarious when we encountered this marching band statue!

Berlin, Hamburg, and Auntie Jessie

My middle sister Jessie came to visit!  She, Lilah, and I spent about 10 days traveling to Germany, Denmark, and a quick day-trip to Sweden.  We were probably the least prepared two people for this adventure – we had our plane and train tickets purchased along with airbnb reservations in all of our locations, but aside from that had planned nothing.  We even forgot our travel books and camera in France, so we were definitely flying by the seat of our pants the whole time.

We started off in Berlin which kind of felt like what Seattle probably felt like in the 90’s.  Authentically grungy and hip tattooed and pierced people in an artfully-graffiti’d city.  We stayed in Friedrichshain, which is in what would have been East Germany.  We didn’t really realize this until we were at the Berlin Wall and figured out which way was East (I’m not kidding when I say we were unprepared).  I was sort of anticipating a noticeable difference between the two sides of the city, but aside from a small cobblestone path designating where the wall used to be, you would never know this city was once so divided. 

The old Berlin Wall.  The distant wall was the internal wall, and the larger closer wall was the main Wall.  The area in-between the two walls was known as the 'death strip' because even if you got over the first wall you might be shot down by guards (see guard tower in the upper left) on your way to the main wall.  

These pieces of the Berlin Wall are now part of an art exhibition. 

We visited the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, which is about 40 minutes North of Berlin. Among the buildings that are still standing were the Jewish barracks, the isolation cells, and the ‘medical center’.  The grounds and each building are very well maintained and sterile, so it’s hard to fully grasp the horrors of the place when you walk around.  But seeing the cremation ovens, autopsy tables, and readings the details of the types of medical experimentation that went on while standing where it all happened was very intense. Leaving the camp on our own free will was a chilling and sobering moment, we both felt pretty lucky.

This is the front gate as you enter the concentration camp.  The translation is: 'work will set you free'.

Autopsy tables in one of the medical examination rooms

One of the walls of the camp - three tiers of electrified barbed wire leading up to an electric fence in front of a stone wall.  At the very end of the picture is one of the guard towers.  We learned on the tour that many people committed suicide by flinging themselves into the barbed wire.  But if a prisoner ran onto the black stoned area, the guards were instructed to shoot them down - so the guards who successfully shot a prisoner before they electrocuted themselves were rewarded.

After Berlin we headed North to Hamburg to visit one of our old Au Pair’s.  Ute lived with us in 1996, and the last time we saw her was in New York during Jessie’s college graduation.  It was really wonderful to catch up with her and meet her very adorable 3-year-old daughter Nele.  Lilah and Nele loved each other, so that was also really fun to watch.  It was great to have Ute show us all around her home town.  I am always curious to see where my former au pair’s lived!

Jessie, Nele, Ute, me and Lilah in Hamburg

More adventures with Auntie Jessie in the next post! Stay tuned!

Staycation a Paris

Two days in a row in Paris? Busy!

Friday night Lilah decided it wasn't a good night to sleep. So Kimmy stayed up practically all night too, which means Lilah and I (Chris) got the morning together; in this particular case, the early early morning. We headed out to the patisserie together with the dog, picked up a pain au raisins and walked to the Pièce d'eau des Suisses for dawn sun, duck feeding, Wilson swimming, and hay fever.

Wilson swimming half the length of the lake with a tree branch way too big for him.

After returning home we washed up, picked up Kimmy, and headed to east Paris for a beer tasting at a new brewery called Deck & Donohue. We drank our first IPAs since leaving America and quickly bought two for home. Continuing with the American theme we caught lunch at a trendy Mexican restaurant called Candelaria, and had veggie-alternative street tacos that maintained a very authentic taste: carrots and molé,  and citrus salsa fresca shrooms. A few art galleries and baby boutiques later and we were hungry again, so in the next arrondissement over we picked up the "The best on the street" falafel sandwiches at Mi-Va-Mi, and ate in the park. I quickly fell asleep in the grass. Lilah slapped me awake, we got ice cream, listened to Quasimodo ring the bells of Notre Dame and went home. We got home and boy was I tired, but luckily Kimmy took the evening shift and I passed out for the night.

My cute ladies waiting for their Falafels

Post lunch zzz's and scoots at the park

1st taste mama's ice cream...safe to say she likes chocolate!

9 hours later I was having a dream that I was Venom and was snarling at Spiderman, but actually I was just snoring and Kimmy was plugging my nose and Lilah was crawling on my chest. Morning shift again! But, this time I fed Lilah baby-friendly pancakes and took a trip to the farmer's market for picnic supplies. It is the first Sunday of the month meaning lots of museums are free. Since the Picasso museum is still closed for renovations, we went to the next best thing,  the Centre Pompidou (modern art). Its a huge building designed by an architect who thought it was futuristic to make it look like a glorified deep sea oil platform, all tubes, escalator fire escapes, and plexiglass. The 4th floor held an expansive permanent collection of over 1000 pieces displayed in chronologic order from 1905-1970. There is a really good video trailer of it here. I didn't know there were so many different -isms inside modern art. Among the many well-known artists, we also liked some we'd never heard of like Henry Valensi and Louise Janin.

The view from the top of the museum. Do you see Eiffel?

We emerged from the museum and began a long hunt for a patisserie that was open on a Sunday, so that we could buy a baguette for our cheese. Eventually we found one, and our picnic commenced; tasty mystery hard cheese, meaty olives, cous-cous salad, salami, and a Rose drunk out of jam jars (when the park guard wasn't looking). We chose a grass patch mainly populated by fashionable napping homeless people, oh well. Lilah scooted about and played Godzilla on our food spread.

Jardin Des Tuileries

One of my favorite things about Paris are the green spaces everywhere. We spent Sunday at Jardin Des Tuileries, which is located outside of the Louvre. It was a beautiful sunny day and Lilah loved scooting around in the grass.

A Fairytale Easter

We spent Easter weekend in Alsace, a hilly Northeastern French region that borders Germany and is home to the big city, Strasbourg.  We rented a very cute gîte in the small town of Andlau with our friends Trynke and Arne and their son Melle. Our Gite was next to a river and wooded area, and Wilson ran away during one of his daily walks.  Luckily he ran ‘home’ back to the rental, dogs must have really good senses of smell!

Arne and the kids.

Alsace has a rich history of switching between French and German Rule, and because of this the architecture, language, and local food are a mish-mosh of French and German.  You can find bretzels served in the patisseries, alongside crepe stands.

We spent one day in Colmar, which is a very popular tourist destination as the buildings look like something straight out of Beauty and the Beast.  The buildings are all colorful sandstone with timber framing, and they don’t all appear to stand straight.  Some of them are slightly curved or tilted, which really gives you the impression you’re in a fairytale.  We arrived in Colmar on Easter morning and were pleasantly surprised to find the streets alive with food carts, craft fairs, and caged barn animals.  We wandered through the throngs of people, ate the best crepe yet, and took a boat ride down a canal/river running through the “little Vienna” neighborhood.

Typical architecture in Colmar

One of the several squares in Colmar all decorated for Easter and filled with stands selling cheese, candy, toys and beer.

Taking a break at the sausage and beer stand.

Vintage metal toys for sale

One of the busier streets and cafe's in Colmar. Everyone was out for Easter in Colmar while most of the rest of the country was sleepy and deserted.

Me and Lilah posing outside a building covered in 100s of faces (Maison des Têtes).

Family photo on a bridge overlooking the canal running through "Little Venice". We took a boat ride along it right after.

Historically the color of each building designated the profession of the occupant.

Alsace is also known for their wines, so we went wine tasting in Andlau and were surprised to like the Reislings!  We tend to stay away from Reislings in the US because they are so sweet, but the ones we tried in Andlau were crisp, refreshing, and delicious.

The whole group (minus photographer Chris) walking down to the local wine tasting bar.

After wine tasting...