and England to America...

Well, this is it: the final post about our year away. The last leg home.

We struggled to find an economical way back to the US after our year away. With a specific window to travel between vacating the French rental house and getting into our own home after the tenants moved out, we couldn't follow our usual rule of flexibly traveling when the price was right. Airfare from Europe to the US during the height of summer is steep. After a few months of searching, we began to wonder if there were any other options out there. Could we get home by...boat?

Turns out the answer was yes. With an unbelievable sale (and the encouragement and assistance of my most wonderful in-laws), we ended up booking passage home on the historic ocean liner Queen Mary 2 for a price not much different than most of the available airfare. Jesse and I had never stepped foot on a cruise-type ship before, and let me tell you, eight days of all-inclusive travel at sea beats eight hours stuffed back by the toilets in coach on an airplane!

We wondered if eight days would feel interminable. Um, no. Given our usual self-catering, totally low budget travel, I hadn't before experienced what it's like to have someone else making my family's beds, preparing all of the food, and caring for our every need. Within hours of boarding I told Jesse that he'd better start strategizing for how he'd drag me off of the ship when we eventually arrived in NYC!

And it's not just that we were cared for. The experience really was over the top. We enjoyed white gloved tea service every afternoon; there were harpists and string quartets just, you know, playing in random spots; there was a team of British-trained nannies running activities and care for the kids; there were movies and lectures and plays and concerts and talks; there was a planetarium; the meals were amazing and served impeccably on bespoke Wedgewood china and real silver; there were thousands (yes) of works of art and museum-type displays in the corridors and rooms; there was an enormous, beautiful, burled wood library; and basically we'd never seen anything like it. Of course at nights the four of us were tucked into the smallest interior room available (four bunk type berths -- it was like camp!), but it swallowed all of our luggage, and frankly, I've never slept better in my often sleepless life. No stress, no internet, a pitch black room, and the tiniest sense of rocking movement? Yes please. We also arrived to the US without jetlag since we crossed timezones one by one, with several 25 hour days en route.

The median passenger age was 70, we were told, and all of us had to step up our maturity game a little. Indeed, many evening meals were black tie, and even the informal nights required jackets! Fortunately Jesse bought a used tux about a decade ago, and he managed to get that to France on his trip back to the U.S. last May. I bought used three-piece suits for the boys off of UK ebay. Look at those men of mine! Be still my heart!

In the dining room one evening, we decided that William may have been the first passenger ever to follow his starter of a beautiful, chilled, blueberry yogurt soup with....a hot dog.  :)  

It had been "pirate day" in the kids zone, and we decided to let him keep the face paint.

It was often really windy with crazy high seas. The first few days you could hardly even go out on deck given the gusts and cold. I suppose we were traveling across the North Atlantic...   But on board we could hardly feel movement, even when cutting through 15-foot crashing waves. The ship is an ocean liner, not a usual cruise boat, so I guess it was made for it!

The icing on the cake was slipping into New York harbor at dawn on Thursday, 30 August. We got up before 4:30 a.m. with hundreds of other passengers to watch from the decks as the ship made its daybreak journey into NYC.

Jim was ready and waiting when we got off. A joyful reunion! And back on US soil!  Wow. 

We began the drive home to Lancaster and the boys caught a few quick z's en route.

As we turned onto our street, Josiah and William weren't just excited, they were screaming (literally) with joy and recognition and emotions. 

Home...at...last...

France to England...

We've now been home almost a month, so I'm well overdue to post a wrap-up to our year abroad. This is my journal and family record, after all, and I don't want to wait and forget too many details!

Traveling back to the U.S. was a protracted affair that began on Saturday, July 18th. Well, it began a lot earlier than that in the form of goodbyes, days of packing and cleaning, and the difficulty and paperwork that is closing out one's physical presence in France (insurance plans, bank accounts, cell phone contracts, etc.)

But! July 18th indeed arrived in the fullness of time. We were up at 5:30 a.m. to pack our final toiletries, eat a little breakfast, and load up the rental car. By 6:45 a.m. we were closing the door on our little courtyard. What a blessed year we spent there...

There wasn't much time to waste on nostalgia. I sat absolutely squashed and crooked in the back between the boys so the passenger seat could be loaded with bags. Naturally we'd rented the smallest, cheapest car that could possibly fit everything...and it only barely did so! Six+ hours later found us in Calais at the ferry port. Jesse dropped me and the boys with all of our luggage and went to return the rental car nearby, then we somehow got onto the ferry as foot passengers. None of this was easy as we had far more luggage than we could carry on our own at one time: 2 mid-size roller suitcases at ~40 lbs each, 2 car boosters (one with a back), 3 small carry-on size roller bags, 3 backpacks, 1 briefcase, 1 pocketbook, 1 ~40 lb duffel bag, 1 ancient non-rolling suitcase, 1 enormous shopping-type bag, plus a 4-ft poster tube box and—because we're SO smart—an antique plaster ceiling medallion that's probably 28" in diameter (too big to go in any of the suitcases so was bubble wrapped and cardboarded as its own thing). I'm laughing as I type because it was all so ridiculous! We had to keep explaining to people (going through the x-ray scanners, border control) that we were moving home after a year...that we don't usually travel quite so heavily!

Gazing back at the French coast from the passenger ferry...   Goodbye, France!

The ferry crossing was easy. Oh, we also were carrying a bag of food, so we had a picnic lunch as we crossed.  :)

Jesse enjoying his very last French, chocolate eclair on the ferry.
It had gotten a little mashed but was nonetheless delightful.  :)

Getting off the ferry nearly broke us, though. The car rental place in Dover, England was only open until 4 p.m. We were meant to have a couple of hours of leeway, but with the ferry delays, we landed with minutes to spare, and we sure didn't want to be stuck in Dover until Monday. It's a long story (remember all the luggage? and there was a shuttle bus involved...) but in the end I was outside in a restricted access area with all of the bags and the two boys while Jesse was sprinting 1.5 miles to the car rental!! My task was to move the pile in 10-20 yard increments from the restricted shuttle drop-off point into the ferry terminal itself, through the ferry terminal, and out to the front pick-up area where Jesse hopefully would arrive with the car, assuming the person he'd talked to on the phone indeed kept the agency open late. But within seconds of Jesse leaving, as if things weren't bad enough already, Josiah was nearly in tears because he had to find a men's room so suddenly and urgently that he feared a unpleasant accident. I couldn't leave everything sitting outside, I couldn't leave William in charge of it alone, Josiah couldn't wait --- so --- I told him to just go and find a bathroom, urging him to look carefully as he ran so he could find his way back again. William and I then began the pile moving process (and you can guess how useful William was). Eventually an employee came through and saw my plight (the area I was in was otherwise unpopulated) and —hero!— she rounded up a few guys AND a huge trolly thing to help move it most of the way. But at this point nearly 15 minutes had passed since I'd seen Josiah, and the staff confirmed that the one bathroom we came to was the only one in the terminal. Josiah was not inside. Again, long story, but he'd done the best he could to find us ----- he couldn't get back the way he'd come (no entry) so had exited the building and worked his way around outdoors to find us!! He was successful but by then we were gone (mommy fail, but in my defense, I'd assumed we'd encounter him retracing his steps while we were en route with the trolly). A uniformed somebody found him and got him reunited with us, so happy ending. It was an even happier ending when, another 30 minutes later, Jesse appeared with a car! And it had a big enough trunk to swallow almost everything so I could sit up front with just my purse at my feet!

Phew. We made it out to the curb! We were waiting for Jesse here, and I'd told the boys to guard the pile and look threatening while my attention was distracted. :) You can't see the second layer of stuff between the boys and the visible cases...but boy, we were traveling heavy.

We drove 40 minutes to Maidstone where we'd booked in at a very inexpensive B&B, then headed out to find some dinner. Showered two very grubby boys and finally got into bed, late. What a long long day.

Next morning, Sunday, dawned beautifully. We got up early and had a great cooked English breakfast at the B&B, loaded the car back up, and made the 2.5 hour drive to Holtwood Methodist to join the family for church. We were a little late but nothing to worry about, all things considered. We stayed on at church all afternoon for a huge family reunion picnic. It was wonderful!! There were around 40 of us there altogether, some family members I'd never met, and we played and visited until after 7 p.m. The boys were in heaven with so many kids (and daddies) to play sports with the entire time.   :)   We eventually left with Kara, Matt, Carter, and Micah—who were visiting England for the first time in years!—and headed to Grammy's nursing home to have a very quick visit with her before going off to locate our airbnb room. It was 9 p.m. before we were out to find some dinner, but the boys were troopers.

Most of the reunion crew. A few had already left.

Of course in England, even outdoor picnics involve multiple rounds of tea!
Gosh I love it there...

Cousins! Adam, Tasha, Kara, Chessie, Danni, and me. Just missing Tim (US) and Tom (Oxford). 

Monday and Tuesday were lovely days of enjoying England. We went fossil hunting on the Jurassic Coast on Monday and enjoyed a terrific meal at Colin and Ann's that night, then Tuesday was busy with errands, repacking, and hitting the beach in Bournemouth (walking distance from our place).

We were only going to "walk along the beach." You'd think we'd been at this parenting thing long enough to realize how ridiculous that was. Of course it resulted in soaking wet boys enjoying the ocean in very sandy underpants....

Saying goodbye to Grammy. I love you!

And I think I'll leave it at that for now. The next day, Wednesday 22 July, we made the short drive to Southampton docks and boarded the ship for the crossing home! Eight days at sea! I'll post about that tomorrow.

Money matters

Several times we’ve been asked how we funded / afforded / managed such a grand adventure as we've had this past year, so I've decided to do a post for those inquiring minds.

Chocolate euro money!

The unexpected reality (surprising even to us!) is that our expenses for the past 12 months were lower than in a normal year. Crazy, I know. Probably the biggest factor in this was housing. We rented out our furnished Lancaster home for almost exactly the same price as we paid for our furnished French home. Right off the bat we experienced substantial savings, though, because all of our French utilities were paid by our landlord (telephone, internet, electricity, gas, TV, trash, water, sewer), whereas our US tenants paid most of their own utilities. As any homeowner can imagine, those monthly savings added up big time. Within a few months we saw even more savings as the euro unexpectedly began dropping in value relative to the dollar. Our French rent effectively fell by a few hundred dollars a month because although we kept paying the same euro amount, it required fewer US dollars than we’d expected out of our US bank account. Between these two unusual and fortunate factors (no utilities and an increasingly favorable exchange rate), we netted enough to cover, well, most of our food, discretionary, and travel expenses each month.

It didn’t hurt that our everyday spending was extremely low. We only ate out a handful of times the entire year, as is typical for us; we maintained our usual frugal habits (like cutting our own hair); and we bought most of the toys and household items we needed on the cheap at the local thrift store. Purchasing a car was a significant expense, but we were fortunate to find a used one that we then sold before leaving to recapture some of the original cost. And Jesse’s a tenacious genius at finding the most cost-effective ways to do things, whether that’s insuring a vehicle, arranging international money transfers, or getting to a destination. He’s got a hound’s nose for sneaky hidden fees, and far be it from him to pay even 1% more on a transaction than the rock-bottom possible price. He and I were made for each other. ☺

Let me see…other expenses…

Gas (or diesel, in our case): Due to the “walking lifestyle” I’ve written about before, we used the car relatively little. Indeed, in periods where we didn’t have any trips, we’d fill up our little Fiesta’s tank once every four to six weeks, so our gas costs were a fraction of what they are when Jesse and I are driving two cars to and fro each day.

Health insurance: We paid for a bare-bones international health insurance plan for the year through IMG—we chose the minimum coverage required to obtain our French visas—and it cost dramatically less than the withholdings would have been for our normal health coverage at home. Of course we were lucky that we didn’t have any big medical/dental problems. Our choice of insurance plan came with huge deductibles, so we gambled there.

Visas: We had visa fees both before leaving America and upon arriving in France, plus there were associated mailing costs and the expense of driving to the French embassy in Washington, DC a year ago. It turns out that our documentation was not checked even once (??) so it sort of felt like a waste of around $700, but of course we wouldn’t have gone in the country illegally!

Sightseeing and travel: We did many wonderful excursions and mini-trips this past year and never felt like we were operating on a shoestring budget. Yet when it came to travel and sightseeing, the reality is that we almost always chose destinations that were within driving distance and/or were inexpensive to visit. Having an entire year at our disposal meant we could travel in the off-season, which was great. Likewise, since everywhere was new to us, we didn’t really mind where we went and happily took advantage of whatever special offer was afoot. Plus France does such a wonderful job of arranging free events; there always seemed to be some festival or spectacle running somewhere nearby.

For trips requiring overnight accommodations, frequently we arranged our itinerary to enjoy visits with family or friends, which of course was a treat in itself. If we needed to book up housing for a few nights, then we’d go for economical, self-catering options. We’re not fussy about housing arrangements—beyond being basically clean and safe—so even renting a single bedroom in someone’s home suited us. Often we’d find that the amount we saved by avoiding hotel costs and cooking our own food more than covered all the rest of the costs of a trip. Those choices aren’t for everyone, I realize, but they suit us well. We felt like we got to see and enjoy all sorts of amazing places in Europe without going broke over it.

Transatlantic travel: Getting across the ocean last summer and back this summer was a biggie. We were fortunate to snag one-way tickets last year for less than $500 each. The trip was Philly to Boston to Reykjavic to London, so not exactly an easy itinerary with two young kids—and the airline lost our bags for days—but it was fine in the long run. In fact it was better than fine when, months later, the airline unexpectedly reached out and refunded us $400 because of our baggage woes! We weren’t as lucky with finding cheap airfare this summer so came up with an alternative plan…but that’s a post of its own later this week. And anyway, we save up for a trip to England every 2-3 years to visit my English family, so the international airfare was an expense we would have incurred no matter what.

Bottom line, we have wrapped up what feels like the most luxurious, adventurous, delightful year of our lives. We’ve seen another part of the world, we’ve spent all sorts of quality time together as a family, we’ve learned a ton, and we’ve made so many wonderful new friends. We saved up and went into it believing that such a year would be worth some expense, and we realize we were incredibly lucky that we had the resources to consider undertaking it in the first place. So now to be on the other side knowing we spent less than we would have at home in Lancaster for the year? We’re shaking our heads in amazement and thankfulness.

What we won't miss

After waxing on in the last two posts about what we’ve enjoyed this past year, I thought I’d follow up with two additional lists today. 

First up: What we won’t miss about France.

1. French beef. I seriously struggled with beef in France. It’s cut differently, it’s not aged as much or the same way as US beef, and it just never seemed to cook up or taste the way I anticipated. I'm sure the problem was all me, but I’m not sorry to be done with it, that’s for sure. I also can’t wait to come home to the land of boneless skinless chicken thighs, a useful item in frequent rotation in my American kitchen but unseen in my French one! 
2. Fishy smells. The French adore seafood and have open mountains of fresh mussels and counters of fresh fish in the back of every grocery store. This is great, but even the largest grocery stores greet shoppers with a fishy odor the moment you walk through the doors.
3. Loud engines. I mentioned in the last post that loud diesel car and motorbike engines were constant and became very familiar. They also became very annoying, especially at 1 a.m.!
4. Monday (and other) closures. A decent proportion of businesses in France are not open on Mondays. We struggled to get used to this, and we frequently found ourselves caught out when we couldn’t buy something, go to the bank, or what have you, on a Monday…after already waiting through the weekend! And that’s not to mention the frequent “fermetures exceptionnelles” (special closings), when we’d arrive somewhere to find a little card in the window saying they were closed for an hour, or a day, or a week!
5. The customer is always wrong. In many ways, the French are on to something in how most people prize leisure time and family time above work, in contrast to America’s workaholic culture that too often puts relationships and wellbeing after jobs. But yikes, the downside was how frequently we felt like we were annoying or inconveniencing folks when trying to make a simple purchase or accomplish a task! Don’t get me wrong, most folks were lovely, but there’s certainly a different set of cultural expectations for customer service. 

And here’s a random top ten list of things we’re excited to return to:

1. Family, church, friends, and colleagues – of course!!
2. Our big backyard, porch, and plenty of outdoor space where the boys can play, hooray!
3. Having the Atlantic back where it belongs, to the east. We never quite got used to the notion that the Atlantic Ocean was west of us…
4. Appliances of convenience like a larger washing machine, a clothes dryer, a dishwasher, and various kitchen appliances. 
5. Extended hours of business so we can procure groceries past 7 p.m. or stop by the bank on a Monday, what luxury! In some ways, once we got used to the limited business hours, it was rather nice; you’re forced to have family time in the evenings and weekends. But I think I prefer convenience…
6. Lancaster life. We’re definitely looking forward to visiting favorite places like Central Market, Fulton Theater, Lapp Valley Farm, Conestoga House, and Long’s Park. 
7. Certain foods. While overall I preferred the available food in France, we’ve been missing certain things like corn on the cob and black beans, neither of which we have had in a year.
8. Shopping carts that work. Every shopping cart I encountered this past year had all four wheels on a swivel. Ridiculous. I mean, if I have to insert a euro for the privilege of using the crazy thing, the least it could do is steer sensibly, right? I never knew I’d one day want to weep with gladness in a WalMart parking lot over the sight of shopping carts with their precious fixed back wheels...
9. The ease of using English. How awesome it will be to competently take care of business and chat with people without sounding like cavemen and/or getting utterly confused!
10. Easy access to meds and basic pharmacy items. Medicines in France, even basics like ibuprofen or eye drops, have to be bought at a proper pharmacy and require interaction with a pharmacist. Pharmacists were always helpful, but of course talking about meds and illnesses is a little tricky in a foreign language. I usually found it intimidating and wished I could just look over options and prices on a shelf and make a choice without a line of people behind me. Plus costs were usually three to five times higher than at home (crazy costly), which was a bummer. 

What we'll miss - Part II

Yesterday's post covered half of a top ten list of things we'll miss about France. Here's the second half. 

• • • • •

Our courtyard: Oh, how much joy our pretty little courtyard brought this past year! I’m always smitten by aesthetically pleasing surroundings with character, and our rented home delivered big time. Although we experienced more than our fair share of old house issues—plus living without a dishwasher, clothes dryer, any air conditioning, etc. sometimes was a serious drag—the rose bushes, honeysuckle, and old exposed stone had a way of making me forgive any such hassles.

I keenly remember the “secret garden” feeling of delight as we pushed open the door from the street last August when we first arrived. And yes, my eyes were teary as we closed the door on the courtyard last week for the final time in the still-misty dawn hour that saw our departure from Thouars. Throughout the year we ate countless meals outside, watched the boys play there, and found it to be a place of peace and respite. On hot days, it was always cooler inside the stone walls when coming in off the street, and on cold winter days, the high walls blocked the wind. Outside of November to March, the courtyard hummed bee-loud from sunrise to sunset; they apparently were equally enamored with the spot. The small courtyard was a physical sanctuary and, I think, became a symbol to me of the year as a whole.

I quickly turned and snapped this, teary-eyed, just before closing the door for the last time.

The temperate climate: No doubt part of the reason I loved the courtyard so much was because we could enjoy it almost year round. We have a perfectly lovely piece of property of our own in Lancaster, but I sometimes struggle to appreciate it fully; several months of the year it’s too bitterly cold to spend much quality time outdoors, and many other months it’s too miserably hot and humid! As someone who heartily dislikes hot weather and flat-out shuts down in wretchedness when humidity builds, the climate of the Loire Valley was pretty much perfection. It was almost scary how quickly I turned into a scowling, headachy, grump of a woman the few really hot and humid days we got in Thouars…the same “delightful” person I realize I am for about four steamy months straight in Lancaster! So, I know the weather is a silly thing to miss, but for me, it feels like a real loss in quality of life!

Ah, the magnificent gardens of Chateau Villandry.

Clearly plants and veggies thrive in the Loire Valley climate.

French places and history: It’s not just me who appreciated the climate of the Loire Valley. It’s known as the “Valley of Kings” because centuries of royalty and nobility, both French and English, built their castles there to take advantage of the region’s mild winters and lovely summers. We visited so many sites—castles, churches, museums, parks, exhibits, caves, rivers, gardens—and yet didn't scratch the surface of the area’s history and offerings. Separately, I also was struck by how different it felt to be in a place that lived and breathed the presence of WWII. Given how many millions of Americans were involved in the war, I’d always thought of it as being an important part of US history—and of course I still do! Yet it felt somehow very different to live in a country where bullets actually flew, where Germans physically occupied, where resistance efforts were secretly planned, where families were ripped apart, deported, executed. It was sobering and eye opening and felt like a still-very-present part of the cultural psyche.

 The war memorial at the bottom of our street in Thouars

The Louvre in Paris

Fireworks over the Thouars chateau on Bastille Day, just a few days before we departed.

We went into countless cathedrals and churches through the year. This one is Notre Dame in Paris.

 At the beach, Les Sables d'Olonne

 We were astonished at the marriage of exquisite art and brilliant engineering at the Island of Machines in Nantes. For instance, this enormous, gorgeous, wooden, mechanical elephant carried people around the grounds, spraying huge blasts of water at passers-by! 

Great food: Food is certainly something else we’ll miss. We ate our bodyweight in fresh bread and patisserie on a near weekly basis, and I have a newfound love of good cheese that will be difficult and costly to support when we get home. (The cheese and bread was sooo good and so inexpensive!) I also will miss the fact that on average, prepared foods had shorter and better ingredient lists than what is normal in the U.S., with fewer chemicals and preservatives and a lot less added sugar and salt. On the flip side, though, I should note that I’d often be frustrated by feeble packaging; it seemed that the cardboard was always thinner, the aluminum always more prone to breaking, the plastic always more easily torn. I can’t tell you how often I broke off pitiful tabs from pop-top cans of diced tomatoes or whatnot, no matter the care I took! With that said, I’d sooner the problem go in that direction; in the U.S. it seems we excel at high quality packaging around heavily processed food, whereas in France they sported maddeningly poor packaging on better quality food. ☺

I believe we had guests the day I took this picture, but it's a very typical lunch: bread, cured meat, fresh fruit, lots of cheese, little pickles...

The soundtrack of our days: I already mentioned the humming of bees in our courtyard, and there are so many other sounds that became a familiar backdrop to our lives. Chief among them was the tolling of bells from Saint Medard just behind our house, chiming out the hours and half hours from 7 a.m. until 10 p.m. year round. We especially enjoyed when the bells would peal at length during special events. Other familiar sounds were loud diesel car and motorbike engines; the brightly uttered “bonjour!” and “au revoir!” at every turn; shutters banging each morning and evening as houses opened to greet the day and closed up for the night; hearing Josiah and William chattering to their friends in French during play dates or after school; the squeak of the ancient staircase in the house; and the rather terrible but oh-so-enthusiastic playing of Thouars’ aging volunteer brass band at a dozen outdoor town events through the year!

Here's a little video file of the church bells:

Tolling bells of Saint Medard from Krista Casler on Vimeo.

What we'll miss - Part I

We're BACK!! But more on that later.  :)  While transitioning and traveling at the end of July, we were without internet for the better part of two weeks. In that "in between" space, I wrote up several final France reflections that I'll be posting here over the coming days. 

•   •   •  •  •

Repeatedly we’ve been asked this past month, “What are you going to miss most about France?” Sooo much! Some things are particularly French, others are simply related to my being away from work for the year. Here are the first five of a top ten list of things we loved and will miss. (I'll elaborate on the other five tomorrow.)

Family time and margin: More than anything else, time is what I will miss when we get back into normal life at home. The past year away was a massive gift to our family from start to finish. We spent so much time together, which we all benefited from and needed more than perhaps we’d realized. Jesse frequently said that although it was different, he generally felt no less productive working remotely than when he’s in person in the office in Lancaster—yet we all saw so much more of him. And I loved being away from the stresses and long hours of my job. It was so nice not going to bed each night in the knowledge that morning would too soon dawn, yet again, to a frantic ordeal of getting all four of us out the door…and for what? In order to be separated from one another for 8-10 busy hours? In contrast, our mornings in France started later than in the U.S., and although the days stayed amply busy and full, they were pleasantly occupied, not frantically or stressfully so. Since the four of us were together so much of the time, even when working we could take advantage of five-minute games with the kids between jobs or a cup of tea together. The days passed in a way that felt productive and satisfying instead of draining. Jesse and I would love to figure out how to transfer some of that pace and feeling back to “regular” life in Lancaster, but we fear much of it was context dependent.

Time...to patiently build card towers. William made the back one and Josiah the forward one.

Time...to play Uno with Daddy before getting ready for school in the morning

Time...to be home when the boys finished school and provide afternoon snacks.

Time...to linger over the dishes and all the other daily household tasks...

School schedule: I’ve already written plenty about the boys’ experience at their elementary school/maternelle. I have to reiterate how much we valued the rhythms of the school day and school year for elementary children. Having a lengthy daily break at home (90 minutes each lunchtime), a break each midweek (no school Wednesday afternoons), and a substantial vacation every seven weeks (two weeks off) helped the boys feel as though they could cope with the stresses and intensity of regular school in a foreign language. Most kids stayed for lunch and there were good options for childcare during other off-times for working parents, but we had no need to push the boys into those. Thus instead of being stressed by school, Josiah and William thrived there, and it was such a gift for our family to eat every meal together around the table all year, breakfast, lunch, and dinner!

Here are the boys with all of their accumulated worksheets, exams, artwork, reports, and writing from the year. They obviously got something done despite lots of time off!

Walking lifestyle: Of course walking to and from school four times per day—for 9 a.m., 12 p.m., 1:30 p.m., and 4 p.m.—felt a little excessive and even invasive at times, each round trip requiring ~25 minutes and preventing me from doing nearly as much focused reading/writing/work as I’d imagined before arriving in France. Yet we generally enjoyed the to-and-fro (especially when Jesse and I both had time to walk together). And although it was mundane and “normal,” I never fully got over the somewhat magical sense of trotting through the narrow roads, in the shadow of the ancient Saint Medard church, straight through the nearly 1000-year-old fortification tower. Some days the boys would fight or be grumpy or it would rain, but often we’d be giggling and chatting and running or skipping along…and frankly, it often hit me like a scene from a movie. Walking to market once or twice per week, to the bank, to the local shops, and so on, felt like a pleasant privilege...bumping into people we knew, getting a little exercise, supporting the local economy, taking time to “stop and smell the roses” so to speak, and running the car only rarely.  I’ll be sad to go back to a place and pace and lifestyle that can only be sustained by daily (and often extensive) car use.

On the walk to school...

At the bottom of our street...

One walk I especially loved (and hated!) taking was on the Rue des Soixante Quinze Marches, or the Seventy-Five Steps road.

It was a good workout, but...

one was rewarded with beautiful views along the way!

Language progress: We all made great strides with the language. None of us is anywhere close to fluent, but we at least got to the point where we managed without panic! I’m especially pleased to report that Josiah took his standardized school exams at the end of the year, all in French of course, and passed handily. The exams included items such as reading a paragraph in French and then creatively writing an ending to the story. Both Josiah and William were promoted despite the language gap, so if we’d stayed on, William would have moved to CP (1st grade) and Josiah to CE2 (3rd grade). It’s such a shame to see the language learning come to a screeching halt, especially for the boys; I’m sure with a second year they’d have become fully fluent.

Our wonderful language tutor, Maeva.

New friends: We all made many new friends. We especially will miss Ziza and Marcello and their daughter Ailane who arrived in Thouars just a few weeks before us. They speak Portuguese and Spanish, we speak English, and so together we spent many a hilarious hour communicating in our “common” language of French! Josiah and William, too, made great friends at school. Josiah spent our entire last day in France at his friend Noé’s house, and Noé’s mother confided that Noé was pretty broken up knowing that his best friend was moving away forever…  ☹  That same last day, in the sweaty throes of final packing and cleaning in the heat, three of my friends whisked me away for a last cup of afternoon tea together, and they gifted me a beautiful silver bracelet to remember them by. I was so touched!

Ziza and Marcello

Last surprise "reunion des femmes," the afternoon before we left. Usually we were comprised of several French women, one Brazilian, and of course an American!

Tomorrow I'll follow up with five more things...one of which is FOOD of course.  :)

School reflections

On the chalkboard heading into school one recent morning....

For ages I've been meaning to put together a post on how school has gone for the boys this year. We're fast approaching their final day (July 3rd), so I thought I'd better get down my reflections before we leave and the memories begin to fade.

Last September, Jesse and I sent the boys off for their first day of school with cautious optimism (okay, okay...it was closer to white-knuckled anxiety!). (See post here.) They hardly spoke a word of French, and we told them just to do whatever the other kids did—praying that they'd muddle along somehow. Well, pretty much from Day 1, Josiah was happy and comfortable. He made friends quickly, started picking up the language naturally, and has surprised us time after time with what he's learned and done.

Josiah in the big tunnel that goes under the hillside in the school playground.

William took a little longer to come around. For most of the fall he was very sad at drop-off, and he routinely told us that he did "not speak French." But he turned a corner at Christmastime and for the past six months has been happy as a clam at school (and frequently cheeky as a monkey too...but fortunately his teacher is quite fond of him regardless!). He's learned to write his name in cursive, understands most of what la maîtresse says nowadays, and in fact has become something of a little rock star amongst the 4 and 5 year olds. We hear his classmates shouting "Will-yahm!" when we drop him off at the playground after lunch each day. His confidence has grown by leaps and bounds.

William being his goofy self with the wonderful Madame Rouillard, his teacher.

Needless to say, we're proud of both boys. I hope this experience will be one we can refer back to in the future when they face hard things. "Remember how scary it was to start school in France?" we'll be able to say. "You did that! And you can do this tough thing too."

We're especially thankful to have been in a great little school with wonderful staff. Our town and area aren't exactly affluent, plus French teachers have something of a reputation for sternness (that can border on meanness, by some accounts), so we feel incredibly fortunate for the warmth and excellence we've encountered.

As for more general observations, goodness, I could write a book. School is just different here, plus our lifestyle in general operates differently from how it does back home, so it's hard to know where to start. But bottom line, having young children in this system has been perfect for us this year.

Josiah pointing out the bird feeder he made with his pal Noé. They had to measure
the boards, saw the wood, and screw it together by hand. 

What I most like is the balance of structured and unstructured time both boys experience. They have a good recess both morning and afternoon in addition to a 90-minute lunch/play break at midday when most kids stay at school but ours always come home. They also have sports at least one afternoon each week...sometimes just at school, but equally as often they are bused off for swimming lessons, judo, track and field, large group games, etc. This sort of active time does wonders for kids' concentration when they need to focus and work in the classroom—a developmental truth for all young children but especially so for boys, and definitely so for my highly active offspring! As both a developmental psychologist and as a mother, it gets my seal of approval.  :)  Play, especially unstructured active play, is so badly lacking in most schools back home.

Each of the three daily breaks are spent outdoors, even in drizzle, and the play space isn't a small, highly structured, sanitized (i.e., American!) style one. There's room for running around and for playing soccer, there are balls and jump ropes and other gear, a ping pong table, plus bikes and trikes for the littler kids. And since the school is built on a hillside, there's a super steep grassy incline and a a massive boulder retaining wall for clambering all over. It's an area I'm 100% sure would be fenced off back home as horrifically dangerous—and of course every child adores it here. (I could go on and on about the benefits of slightly dangerous play for children, but this isn't the time or place.)

I was talking to Josiah about school a couple of weeks ago, and he observed, "When we're working, we work HARD. But we get a lot of fun time. Way more than in America." I asked him if he thought he learned less because they spend so much less time sitting in desks doing "proper" learning. He said he thought they learned just as much, but it wasn't as boring because they did it so much faster! He said every kid knows that when Monsieur Caussin is teaching, they'd sure better pay attention.

On that last point, there's definitely a focus on respect here. Children are taught to greet adults, politely saying "bonjour" to the teacher as they enter the class each morning, "bon appetite" or "à tout à l'heure" when they leave for lunch, and "à demain" at the end of the day. And the teachers have no problem telling children off very sternly in front of the class, sending them into a younger classroom for an hour or two for misbehavior, and so on. Now, I have no interest in ever seeing a child shamed or abused, but I have to say it's been kind of refreshing to see teachers unfettered by fears of lawsuits or the tongue-lashing of helicoptering parents. They're able to require obedience and respect in their classrooms, and I haven't met a parent who's bothered by the typical methods. Perhaps we're just lucky to be in a school where no one takes it too far. For the record, Josiah has never had even a shade of a run-in with the law. William has, but if anything it's done him good.  :)

William with his buddy Evan on a recent play-date.

Josiah and Noé (gotta love that teeny Garfield tee!)

Josiah and another copain, Nolan. I sent Nolan home that day with some fresh-baked American-style chocolate chip cookies, which aren't typical here. A few days later he said his dad wanted the recipe, please!

As for content and instruction, much of what the children do is akin to what I'd expect back home, and nicely varied and hands-on. When learning about basic plant biology, for example, Josiah's class all had to bring rubber boots to school for several days so they could create a garden (starting with digging out a patch from the grass, not an easy job). Of course there are differences from home too. For instance, it's been almost amusing to see how much emphasis is placed on writing, penmanship, and general pen-and-paper skills—perhaps no surprise in a country that prizes paperwork as France does! The children start cursive at age 5, and Josiah has become a whiz with a ruler and a compass, making beautiful and intricate designs. Both boys have a mountain of notebooks, folders, and dossiers that capture their many lessons this year. Yet they've also learned a great deal that isn't captured on paper. The language is obviously the biggest gain of that sort. Josiah's accent is just lovely, and he reads French nearly as well as English at this point...even when he doesn't understand what he's reading.  :)

One final thing we've appreciated here is how well the teachers adjust instruction to each child and, at this age anyway, aren't "teaching to a test" in any discernible way. William's class has around 25 kids from ages 4 through 6; it's a maternelle with both "moyen section" and "grand section" children, equivalent to pre-K and kindergarten. Josiah's class is a similar size with ages 6 through 8, covering "CP" and "CE1," equivalent to first and second grade. The teachers are accustomed to having a range of ages and abilities, and rather than expecting everyone to be at (or get to) the same level, they leave a ton of room for variability and individual paces. Josiah's the top math kid in his class and does challenging math work with just three other kids, but of course he's way down near the bottom when it comes to French grammar so is with a different set of kids and expectations there. Both boys have gotten supplemental French instruction, Josiah especially, which we never expected or asked for.

Well, this post is terribly long and I should stop; I doubt many people are reading any longer! But suffice it to say we've been thankful for a great school year. Both boys have grown tremendously, and we couldn't be more thankful for the school nor more proud of their work.