Week three of school ended on Friday and Tom & Liam spilled out onto rue du Théâtre and were happy, despite the challenges. They've begun working out some strategies for coping with the new styles of teaching, and especially how much more pre-thought has to be given to exercises as they take a lot longer to do for a range of reasons (including trying to translate into French with limited French - a step that turns a 15 minute mini-essay production process into one that is now four hours long!). The boys also have the potential to get into a lot more trouble here, than they would in Madison, when they forget duties, specific school supplies, and so on so this is a newly acquired skill. Liam is becoming Mr. Poem memorizer, including some simple poems in French. Tom is powering along in French already, and I am worried just how soon he will overtake me (not that this should surprise anyone!). Both boys are learning a lot of French in general, and Jan and I wish we could sit in on their French classes - alas parents are barred from entering the school grounds unless we are summoned in (usually not a good sign!) or we have some formal school functions to attend. On Saturday morning I walked from the 14th arrond., where we live, to the 13th arrond., to buy some groceries in an amazing Asian grocery store called Tang Frères. I'll post some pics of the walk above which first led me by an outdoor market near our apartment that is full of veges, flowers, cheese and seafood. The other pics show the changing landscape as you approach Chinatown, or to be more exact a strongly Asian (Chinese, Vietnamese, Laotion, Cambodian, Thai) area, that is a hodgepodge of old and new (circa early 1970s) modernist buildings. The huge apartments are not exactly sensitive to the typical 4-6 story landscape that was originally in place but on the ground the social atmosphere is vibrant. And the prices for food (veges, rice, fish, etc) are great.
