Summer Camps

The kids each attended a summer camp the same week.  The little man did a theater camp where they learned a short musical play called Yertle the Turtle, based on the story by Dr. Seuss.  They made the sets, learned lines and songs, and had a great time.  At the end of the week, family and friends got to see the show.

They made their set by recycling materials

and they had some extra turtles for effect

Here are the kids, including that cute tall kid playing the part of Yertle.

and a closeup

Hey.  Who invited them????

He had a great time.

The camp that Morgan went to was a creative writing and drama camp.  They went around the city with their teachers doing various projects all week.  They wrote short stories and poems, they created skits and songs, did sculptures... and at one point, they were in a park and decided to have a water fight.  One of the kids decided it might be fun to include 2 passing police officers in the water fight.  Surprisingly, they didn't mind and joined in.  Crazy kid.  I blame the parents... specifically, my wife. :)

At the end of the week, they also had a presentation of all of their creativity.  It was in the Champs de Mars park right beside the Eiffel Tower.  Everyone brought food and drink while the kids supplied the entertainment.

At the end, there were hugs for the other kids, as well as for their teacher.

Man, do these guys show up to everything????

La Fete National

Known to us non-French people as Bastille Day.  Don't call it that to the French, though.  They don't like it.

There are a number of activities around Paris to celebrate the day, but one of the biggest is the parade down the Champs Elysees.  Bryan and I headed out early that morning to get spots up close so that we could all see.  They had barricades lined up along the street and we weren't allowed in quite yet.  We brought blankets to put down to sit on at the curb.  Yeah, right.  This is Paris.  Nothing is as you expect it to be.  There would be no sitting down for many hours.  When you went into the barricaded area, there were guys checking bags to make sure nobody had drinks, which is good.  Who would want to have drinks while standing for several hours in 85 degree weather?

 

 

Thankfully, Sandy, Andrea, and the kids showed up before it got too busy.  And by busy, I mean...

People were standing 8 or 9 deep and everyone pushed forward to see when the parade started.  We had to stand our ground to keep people from pushing ahead of us.

I had never been to a military parade before.  This was impressive.  There were over 5000 infantry, 200 mounted units, airplanes, helicopters, armored vehicles, motorcycles...  With all of the jokes that are out there about the French military, I was surprised by this.  As a coworker of mine said, "Yes.  That is the one day we remember we have a military, and we promptly forget it the next day."  Very true.

The infantry units assembled along the street in front of the crowds, so we were able to watch them get lined up and ready.

 

It was a little hilarious to see the troops having snacks that consisted of juice boxes and candy bars.  When they were done, they had some left over and threw some of the juice boxes to us.  Nick got one.

Bryan and I were going to rochambeau for it, but decided it was just a juice box and definitely wasn't worth it.

At the start of the parade, President Sarkozy drove by.  We had no warning, so I'm very surprised that I was able to get this picture.

The parade officially started with a fly over.  This consisted of 53 different airplanes in various waves.

The mounted units came next, however, most of the mounted units entered the parade at a point past where we were standing.

The troops had such a wide variety of uniforms.  The group in front of us had a very traditional uniform.  Then, there were the 2 guys with leather aprons carrying axes.  I have no idea who these guys were, but a lot of the soldiers in front of us were getting their pictures taken with these guys.

French Butcher's Brigade?  Quite possibly.  Then you had these guys.

It was difficult getting a good picture of them because they were never close to us.  The huge white berets weren't even the craziest part of their outfits.  Their pants ended just below the knee and they had on long, white socks and black boots.  Their shirts... were hoodies.  Seriously.  Click on the picture to see a larger version of it.

You had the guys in camo with the bright yellow shoulder sash.

The dress whites

And the guys that you really didn't want to mess with

Then came the fire brigade.

Finally, the part I was waiting for.  The armored vehicles.  I'm not sure how many there were.  Maybe 100?  Maybe more? 

They finished the parade with a flyover of over 40 helicopters in various waves.  Again, it was impressive.

It was a hot morning of standing around, but it was worth it. Like I said, it was impressive.

Later that day, we heard a lot of noise on the street outside of our apartment.  We looked out and a lot of the vehicles (including tanks) were driving up and down our street honking horns and waving at everyone.  We probably had 30 or 40 go by that we saw.

Bryan and Andrea

In July, we had our nephew, Brian, and his girlfriend, Andrea, come for a visit.  It was really great that we could become tourists again.  We'd gotten settled into "living" in Paris, but guests mean that we have an excuse to go see all of the famous touristy places. 

Here they are:

We had a lot of fun for those 2 weeks, starting with....

Those unforgettable moments

Well, I guess I needed something to prompt me to start blogging again.  The last 2 nights have definitely pushed me in that direction.  There are some memories that would definitely fade over time but it would be great to remember them. 

Two nights ago, I worked in the evening until almost midnight.  As with every night, I take the dogs out before bed. We have a guardien in our building, which is a woman that looks after the common areas.  She sweeps, takes the trash to the curb, etc.  Her apartment is right inside the main door.  As I was coming in the door, I was trying to be quiet; however, you have to turn on the big light and the 3 sets of doors you go through sometimes make noise.  As I was closing the last set of doors, I hear a ruckus coming from her apartment.  ("Can you describe the ruckus, sir?")

She came tearing out of her apartment in her pajamas screaming at me... in French.  She speaks no English.  She went on for about a minute straight, hardly taking a breath, pointing wildly around the foyer area.  I did pick up the word "chiens" (dogs), though.  As she was finishing up her tirade, she immediately turned around and stormed back into her apartment, slamming the door and loudly locking it.

Let me just say that she is an exceptionally nice lady.  In the last 10 months we've been here, we've had absolutely no issues with her at all.  This was totally unexpected.

The next day I contacted the rental agency about it since I had no idea what was going on.  I figured she was upset that I'd taken the dogs out so late and had woken her up.  Yes, that was the case.  She can hear every noise in her apartment and I'd been taking the dogs out after 11pm a number of nights in the last few weeks.  I said I would do my best to get the dogs out earlier.

So the next night, I take the dogs out before bed and... I was yelled at again in French.  No, it wasn't by the guardien.  It was by the homeless man that sleeps the next block over.  Seriously.

On the next block down from our apartment, there's a recess in the wall.  There is a homeless guy that has been sleeping there for probably 5 months or so.  I've never spoken to him, but I've seen some people talking to him.  Last night, I did see someone standing about 10 feet away from him talking to him.  As I walked the dogs in his direction, I noticed that he was talking rather loudly.  Once I got near him, he turned toward me and started shouting at me.  I was probably 15 or so feet away from him and just kept walking, paying him no mind.  He kept yelling... until I was all the way at the other corner.  That was about 100 feet or so.  As I turned the corner, I turned in his direction.  he was still turned toward me screaming and gesturing.  All in French. 

So, what have I learned?  Apparently, me walking the dogs is a bad thing.  I'll let Sandy take care of that for the next 5 months.

Slacker?

Am I a slacker?  Very possibly, but I have good reasons.  It's been... wow... 5 months since I last posted.  All I can say is that I've been buried with work since the end of July.  Yes, seriously.  I spent just about all of August, September, October, and November on the road.  In the last month, I've wanted to get back on track with the blogging, but it's daunting to try to catch up on months of backlog.  But I'm going to do it.  This is my pre-New Year's resolution.

So, I'm going to try to remember the last half of this year as best I can.  It will still be as clever and witty (at least in my mind) as the rest of the posts, but probably won't have the depth.  And after the next few weeks, I'll be back on track.

Wait, is anyone even looking at this anymore?  Well, it doesn't matter.  I've been doing this for me anyway.

Normandy Beaches

My friend Bob's brother was visiting Paris, so we had Sean and his girlfriend Amy stay with us.  They were going to Normandy for a private tour and invited us to join them.  Free tour?  What's the catch?  There's no catch.  So I got a day off work and got train tickets.

The driver was going to pick us up at the train station about 1pm.  We got there a little early, so we went into the restaurant right at the station.  This is what we saw on the front door.  It's not what I was expecting.

We grabbed a semi-average sandwich and headed off toward our first stop, which was Pointe du Hoc.  The tour guide gave us a great history of France and WWII.  It was a perspective we don't hear much in the US, including occupied France vs. free France and how the Resistance operated.

I'd never heard of Pointe du Hoc before the tour.  I was amazed.  The short story is that 225 Rangers were the first to hit the beach, had to scale a 90 foot cliff wall and take 6 guns that could shoot at Utah and Omaha Beach.  They succeeded, but only 20 survived.

Prior to the push on the morning of D-Day, the Allied Forces heavily bombed the area of Pointe du Hoc.  It had been flat prior to the bombing.  This is how it looked when the Rangers made the climb to the cannons.

There were craters 20, 30, or more feet deep.  It was amazing to see, especially the blown up bunkers.  Here is the main bunker where the Rangers made their climb and a look at the size of the cliff they faced once they hit land.

From Pointe du Hoc, we headed to Omaha Beach.  As we stood there, I tried to imagine running from the water toward oncoming fire.  I couldn't.  I'm not sure I could do it.  The way the tide was, it was close to 300 feet from the water's edge to the base of the incline.  With all of the gear on your back, the many obstacles that were on the beach, and running straight at well hidden enemies firing at you, it's amazing more people weren't killed.  With this picture, look at how small the people are at the beach near the parking lot.

Omaha was a very sobering experience.  From there, we went to the American Cemetery.  Our guide walked us around and gave us a brief history of the cemetery and then let us roam around for a while.  The grounds were beautiful.  Over 9000 are buried there.  The tombstones were amazing, and the surrounding greenery was spectacular.

There is a chapel in the middle of the graves that was beautiful.  Here is the ceiling.

The Spirit of American Youth is centered around maps showing the Allied movements in Normandy that continued throughout occupied France.

Behind this statue was an area dedicated to the missing.

Here are the kids sitting on the wall at the cemetery with the beach in the background.  For it not being a "fun" outing, they did well, learned a lot, and said they enjoyed it quite a bit.

And here are Sean and Amy.

We ended the trip at Longues-sur-Meir, which was a German gun battery containing 4 150mm guns.  Two of the guns were still in very good shape, so we got to go in and see it up close.

Here are Sean and Amy.  Even though we only got a day to spend with them, we had a blast.  They are very fun, and we're very grateful that they decided to share this day with us.  It is an experience I will never forget.

I'll finish this up with a photo taken by my wife.  I took many pictures of the tombstones at the American Cemetery.  I knew the shot I wanted to get, but just couldn't do it.  She took what I consider to be the perfect shot of the day.  She's awesome.

To everyone that has served in the military, or is currently active, I want to say Thank You.  Thank you for doing what I know I couldn't myself.

God Bless You All.

Dali Museum

We took time on Saturday to go to the Dali museum.  Dali spent a lot of time in Paris and his museum there is a collection of a number of great works of his.

Before heading there, we wanted to see where the Moulin Rouge was, which isn't too far from the museum.  It was a cool building, but the surrounding area was... interesting. 

Just across the street is a giant vent that the little guy decided he would jump up on.  He's huge!

From there, we started walking up toward the top of Montmartre.  The top of the hill used to be covered in windmills, but there are only a few left.  Here is one looking up the street we were on. 

And as we kept going, we found another one atop the Moulin de la Galette. 

And just a little further up, we found a man pushing his bike while carrying a glass bowl of fish on his head.

Eventually, we got to the Dali Museum.  It was a great museum, featuring his drawings, sculptures, glassworks, and paintings.  They were arranged in groupings according to various series that he did, including The Bible, Alice in Wonderland, and various others.  His work was amazing.

The kids enjoyed seeing some of the craziness that Dali is known for.  We headed back down the hill and had some ice cream.