My mom's visit here in the lovely Haute Savoie continues well.
As you can see, a good time is being had by all:

(Daisy apparently feels really relaxed in my mom's company.)

On Friday, we picked up Tya from school a bit early and went shopping!

We were in Annemasse, a nearby town that has some good shops. What's a trip to France without a trip to the Monoprix? Amirite?

The town square in Annemasse is quite pretty most of the year.
It's a bit barren in January...

...but it was still fun taking pictures to commemorate our outing!

You may notice that the photos below do NOT contain Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, the Tower of London or serious guys in tall, black, fuzzy hats.
This is because none of the pictures were taken in London.
Don't worry- there ARE London pics and you will see them.
Eventually.
But right now, I'm in the midst of a visit from my mom, who trekked all the way over here to see us!! She's only here for two weeks, so we're keeping quite busy.
The main activity has been shopping.
Here we are on our way into the Balexert shopping mall, which is just outside of Geneva:

(No, she isn't crouching. My kids are all giants and she is kind of tiny.)

Here's Alexa modelling some adorable leopard ears:

MacDonald's is always popular with the kid. Mom says she agrees that the European versions of their food is MUCH nicer. The salads are quite good, even!

We have also ventured to the Ikea, as mom has never, ever been to one!
The thrills started in the restroom, where they had a Dyson AirBlade to dry our hands.
Very amusing!

Equally thrilling were the tasty Swedish meatballs!!

The fish Alexa ordered was less thrilling, but the desserts were quite excellent.
There were even donuts!

Luckily, we had an actual Swedish person (Valentine's boyfriend) to guide us through the huge labyrinth. He was also very handy for translating mysterious signs and carrying heavy stuff. Nice boy!

Having a bit of a rest is a must. The place is quite huge!

After a few days in a row of shopping, we decided to take Sunday off and have a rest at home.

What's in store this week? Definitely a day in downtown Geneva- other than that, no definite plans have been made...

Generally speaking, France on a Sunday is SO boring!
Few shops or businesses of any kind are authorised to be open and things slow down to a deadly pace. So, I was at a bit of a loss as to what to do with the German exchange student who we are hosting this week.
Valentine had told me that the girl doesn't like history, so that ruled out museum visits. And museums are kind of my go-to solution in times of trouble...

But I wanted to do something nice, as Sunday would be our only full day with Teresia. Afterwards, she'd be at school all day and then leave on Friday night. So, I proposed that we go up to Chamonix/Mont Blanc. I figured we could go up the cute little railway to the glacier and then go back down and visit the village.

My plan work out...for the most part.
I drove us to Chamonix (it took 45 minutes flat- my personal best!) and got us on the train. We were at Montenvers station within 20 minutes.

We got out and looked around.

took a few photos...

I tried to chat with our guest a bit about the Mer de Glace glacier, Mont Blanc, the Montenvers rack railway line, etc.
In fact, what I did was commit the error of forgetting that she doesn't like history.
And she doesn't much like geology either, apparently, because after approximately 8.5 minutes on the mountainside, she said "So, are we leaving now?"
Yes, we're leaving now.
Sigh.

What she likes is...shopping.
Luckily, Chamonix is one of the most touristy spots in all of France. And this means many shops are open on Sunday.
As I predicted, Teresia perked right up the moment we got her into a Benetton shop...
And we fed her pizza.
She mostly just likes pizza.

As for me?
At that point, I could have used a stiff gin and tonic....

As a picture is supposed to be worth a thousand words, I figure that my only real hope of giving my readers any idea of what we're doing here in the USA lies in posting some photos.

First of all, no visit to the USA is complete without an enormous fiberglass animal statue, such as the World's Largest Holstein Cow up in North Dakota....or the slightly smaller, but no less beloved Giant Chicken of Lincoln, Nebraska.
This big guy roosts in the parking lot of a very popular local restaurant. Lee's has been around forever and some of my earliest memories involve eating there with my whole family. Grandpa Augie would invariably tell me to go over to ask the organist to play 'Love Letters in the Sand' and he'd give me a quarter for her big glass tip jar.
I must have done it dozens of times over the years, but I was always SO embarrassed...

It's not much to look at, but it was fun to take my kids to visit...and eat some of that amazing chicken!
Here's my mom and Tya at the bar:

(If you blow up the photo and look to the right of Tya, you can see that the organ is still there and the tip jar still sitting right on top of it)

But my home state of Nebraska is about so much more than Lee's fried chicken and old Pat Boone songs.
It's also about college football.
And, more specifically, college football merchandise:
Yes, the Huskers reign here and their insignia is to be found everywhere, on everyone, at all times. If you want to blend in here, all you have to do is wear a University of Nebraska t-shirt. It's a kind of uniform. As you can see, though, we haven't quite got that mastered yet and Tya's Goth wear kind of stands out like a sad, dark and mournful sore thumb...

We end up spending a lot of time in stores. When we're not looking at books and clothes, we're mostly to be found shopping for food. And when we do so, usually Tya grabs my camera, recruits her brother and heads off to document the fascinating world of the American supermarket. She seems particularly fascinated by the huge quantities and has quite a number of photos of Sev holding jumbo-sized containers of just about everything a person could want to eat.
For example:
They seem to have a good time, though the other shoppers aren't quite sure of what to make of them...

I have lots more photos and lots more to say about our trip. I just hope I can find the time to post them and do some more writing. I miss my blog!

Yesterdays's shopping spree was great fun, but today hasn't been so shabby, either. We spent the day in Geneva.
Our Guest Twins were particularly keen to go, as they'd never been to Switzerland before.
All the girls had a great time shopping and doing all the usual tourist stuff:

From the photos, you'd guess it was a perfect day.

And it was, mostly.
(Except for the part where Mallory vomitted in the back of the car and got it all over her pants, obliging me to immediately buy her a new pair at the H&M. And then when the parking ticket machine short-changed me 30 Swiss Francs and the attendent said I'd get paid back "eventually, probably".)

It’s nearly 3pm now and I’ve lost all hope that work will start today on the addition to the house. When the builder told me « Monday » , he must have meant »Monday-ish » - a day similar to a Monday, but having a different name, such as Tuesday, Wednesday or even Friday. He might have even meant a Saturday in late 2011.
I really don’t know….

To distract myself from my disappointment, I’ll tell you all about our outing to see « Avatar » yesterday.
I bought our tickets online on Friday night and it was none too soon. The late afternoon show was already sold out again, and it was just sheer luck that there were still tickets for 1pm.
We left about an hour and a half before the show, as the cinema was in a shopping mall on the far side of Geneva. It’s actually not all that far from us, but I knew I’d have to allow time to buy a « vignette » at the French/Swiss border. That’s the little sticker that allows you to use Swiss highways all year long and I hadn’t yet gotten mine for 2010. And it was no use thinking we’d slide by vignette-less and undetected . The Swiss police LIVE to make foreigners cough up 30 euros for a vignette (and they all secretly hope you are just passing through and will use it just once). I actually don’t mind paying it, as we do use it throughout the year, but I do feel sorry for the tourists just trying to get back home to Austria (for example) without making a honking huge detour through northern Italy…

When we got to the border, my suspicions were confirmed. Even though it was lunch time on a nice Sunday, there were Swiss police out in force at the customs checkpoints, all diligently inspecting every vehicle. I was very glad I’d allowed myself the extra time to go wait in line and pay up.

Our final destination was the Balexert shopping mall. I vaguely remember when it was first built back in the early 90’s and was very cutting-edge- for Switzerland, anyway. Now the whole thing looks a bit tired and dated , but it was still good enough to thrill the twins.
« Wow! » said Mallory « This is like Paris, or maybe America! » (Those two places are her standards for greatness) « It even SMELLS like America! » she exclaimed.
When she says that, it generally means that the place smells: a.) clean, and b.) like popcorn.

It did smell USA-ish, I guess, but it was sure small and decrepit. If you set it down in the middle of Lincoln, Nebraska, people would just peek in and say « Well that’s just SAD. » and go right on their way. But I digress…

I was happy to have the printout in hand and just walk right by the hoards of people in line to buy tickets to the shows on the other 12 screens. We even had time to wait in the snack line. As is true everywhere, the snacks were so expensive that you’d think they’d been produced on Mars and shipped back to Earth. But the kids had to have a popcorn box to share, FTW. The twins were sweet and said they’d share a drink, so that helped. (I didn’t get anything, which was kind of a mistake, as I’d forgotten to eat that day . By the end of the three hour long film, it was 4pm and I was ready to eat a roasted Na’vi )

As we filed into the theater, we were each given a pair of funky red sunglasses. When we sat down (Yes, we found four seats together! Win!) Mallory found that hers were bent and the foam around earpieces was completely shredded. As I’d seen the writing on our tickets that said any missing or damaged glasses would cost us 100 Swiss Francs, this was a concern.
« Good grief », I told her, « Hand that over. It looks like a rabid badger’s been chewing on it .»
I left Mal and Al inventing wild stories about crazed badgers going to see « Avatar » and went to deny any responsibility for wanton eyewear destruction, plus ask for a new pair.

Then, the film started.

I have a lot to say about it- far too much to tack on to the end of this already long post. So, I’ll go into the particulars of the film next time…

Our trip to southern France last weekend was far less dramatic than the one we made a few years back. This time around, the only slight hiccup was that someone stole my wallet when we stopped for a break at Montelimar.
They have nougats there.
Also thieves, apparently.

But I'm not dwelling. It's bad to dwell, right? And at least "all" they got was half a checkbook (quickly cancelled by phone), 100 euros and several fidelity cards from various French supermarkets. Could have been worse, right? I'm SO glad I don't keep my credit cards in with all the other junk. They were safely still with me after the Horrible Incident, so our trip continued on without another hitch.

After hanging out at the cabanes charmantes that I showed you in my last post, we drove a few miles further south and took the kids for a swim in the Med.

Afterwards, we went for a stroll around Montpellier. It was Sunday, though, and that was bad news on the shopping front. Every shop in the whole city was CLOSED. It was the height of the tourist season and there was not a postcard or t-shirt to be had.

So, no tourist goodies for my friends and family back in the USA- sorry...
But it was pretty:

After lunch in an outdoor creperie, where we were "serenaded" by an accordeonist and his accomplice who apparently know only three songs and have no qualms about playing them over and over and over again until someone pays them to STOP, we visited the botanic garden in the center of town. It was commissioned by Henri IV and is the oldest one in France.

It was a great trip, despite the wallet-loss aspect. I hope to go back down there and spend more time one day. But we had to be back by Monday night, as JP had lots of work to get done. We're planning to leave again on the 31st to travel up north (in France and into Germany!), so he needed to get things in order before then.

Me? I'm teaching English, taking the kids to the pool, seeing friends, and generally having a good time.

I love summer.

How strange is this?

I went to the local supermarket yesterday and found a funny little minature chalet had magically appeared near the front doors.

And yes, as you may have guessed, it does say "Raw Milk Distributer"

A closer inspection reveals that it is fresh milk from the first days milking at a local farm. You bring your own (hopefully clean) bottle, pop it inder the spigot, insert 1 euro and 20 cents and out gushes a litre of the cow juice du jour.

Have you ever seen the like?! Will wonders never cease?! WTF? (Feel free to insert other exclamations of general amazement and bewilderment)

It's so odd that I just might have to give it a try...

BTW, you have to love (or maybe hate- I can't decide) the giant cow face. With typical bovine elegance, she has her tongue stuck well up into her right nostril.

I mustered the energy to go to the grocery store last night, after I got done at the school. As I wandered the aisles, I reflected on the love-hate relationship with going to the grocery store in France.
No, make that hate-hate relationship. That means I really, really hate it, right?

When we first got to France, I did sort of love it, though. It was so clean and cool there. And so much choice. But it turned out to be too much choice (see this blog post) and so many other things about it drive me crazy these days.
First of all, the gocery carts are all out in the parking lot, chained together and the only way to get one is to slide a one euro piece into a slot. It's SO annoying, especially if, for example, you go for a big shopping expedition because all you have left at home to eat is a half a shrivelled eggplant and a box of corn starch and you find that the one euro coin that you ALWAYS leave in the car just for this purpose is gone, possibly taken by one of your kids to buy gum.

So, you rummage in your wallet and find that you actually have one euro worth of 1, 2 and 5 cent coins. Hoping to trade this huge handful of change in for a one euro coin, you go into the store and find your way to the "customer service" desk, where they do the huge service of telling you that they don't have access to any money, sorry. You'll have to ask one of the cashiers. Yeah. One of those harrassed looking people over there facing lines of customers 15 deep. Right.

If you can't get a cart, of course they do offer free of charge a shopping basket you can use. It is just about big enough to hold a four pack of yogurt and a baguette. It's just the ticket if you are shopping for a single person, hopefully an anorexic one, but is useless when shopping for six normal human beings.

And if that wasn't enough to hate, I heard no less than two songs by The Police and one by The Cure being played over the loudspeakers at the Super U. It was a bad moment for me. Nothing hurts like hearing something that you think is cool being played at the local supermarket."This is what passes as Shopping with Old People music now??!!" When did The Cure fall so low? Supermarket managers in rural France got the bulletin on this and not me?" I silently lamented.

And how about this: There you are, finally in the checkout lane after a long grueling shopping session and you are thirsty. If you are in France, you are flat out of luck. You'll just have to dehydrate, get kidney stones and die alone in terrible pain. You can't find water- not like in the USA where many shops have a nice drinking fountain right near the restrooms.
In France there are fountains, but they are the kind that are large, ornamental, outdoors and marked "non-potable".
And don't think of dragging your sadly desperate self into the restroom for a quick drink out of the sink there. That's marked "non-potable" as well.

Maybe this wouldn't be so bad if they sold cold drinks in the supermarket, but they don't. You know how US stores like to use that space near the cash register for impulse buys like candy and drinks? There's usually a grizzly bear sized cooler filled with small bottles of spring water, water with vitamins, water with extra oxygen and all sorts of other drinks, including my personal favorite: Diet Dr. Pepper, which is probably made up of 700 different kinds of cancer causing substances, but I just don't care.

Well, in France, forget that. No water, no anything.

So, there you are- all parched and annoyed and now it's time to unload your shopping cart. If you were in , say, Ouagadougou, the cashier would check out your items and they would pass down the conveyor belt and into the capable hands of two or three really nice young men who would quickly box everything up for you, carry it all to your car and load it for you. And you could give them a small tip and they would be really pleased because (can you believe this?) lots of people don't tip at all. Cheapskates. Then you drive home quickly and have a nice glass of water. (there's no water available in Ouaga supermarkets either)

In general, under the above system, everybody goes home happy.

In France, though, this is the point where the major stress is just beginning. You unload your cart as fast as you can and the groceries zoom past the cashier and are shoved down the conveyer belt. They pile up at the end, a veritable Mount Everest of groceries. This is when you are supposed to whisk out your handy, ecologically correct shopping bags Wait! Don't tell me you forget your re-usable canvas shopping bags? If so, too bad for you, because there are no free bags at the store.

Bags or no, the cashier keeps pushing stuff at you and you deal with it as fast as you can, but it's never fast enough. She calls out the total and you're not even half done packing everything, but you fumble around for your "carte fidelité" and your carte bleu so you can pay for it all.
You punch in your code and start bagging again as the line behind you grows and grows.In fact, it seems like the entire population of France is in that line, waiting for you to get your show on the road. Babies are wailing, people tap their feet impatiently and yes, that elderly priest is glaring at you.

So you throw all your stuff into bags, trying to keep from putting the bottles of orange juice on top of the tomatoes....You get the general idea by now, probably. Guess I woke up in a rant-y mood this morning.

What else is new around here?Well, it's been snowing like mad since last night, but I guess that's not really anything new. The kids are out right now, all four of them, rolling around in the piles of snow and falling flakes. I'm glad someone is enjoying it. I am just dreading having to dig the car out.
I'll probably manage to avoid going out today, but I'll have to tomorrow, as I have to go pick up Cristie the Romanian Handyman tomorrow at noon. He's coming back to help out with more work around the house. Lots of wallpapering, painting and small repairs remain to be done and Cristie's energy is needed to get us rolling again.
I'll be sure and take pictures of the work for all you HGTV fans out there

This week's "What kind of idiot do you think I am? Oh, that kind" Award has got to go to the folks at a company that makes little transponders that are sewn into ski gear. It's called "Recco Avalanche Rescue System" and it is supposed to allow the rescue team to find you and dig you out more quickly using high tech gear. And I'm sure it works better than just poking around sadly in the snow with a long stick and hoping for the best.

Well, when you buy a ski jacket that contains one of these things, it comes with a big black tag hanging off it that helpfully informs you in no less than SEVEN different languages (including Japanese) that: "The Recco avalanche system does not prevent avalanches".

Doesn't act as a magical charm that prevents avalanches?! An outrage! I should take this fancy coat right back to the store! But then again, Valentine is highly unlikely to be wearing it to do hazardous off-piste skiing in avalanche-prone areas. I'm the first to admit that my kids come from a long line of complete non thrill seekers. My dull ways are well known to the readers of this blog. And JP's idea of daring is brushing his teeth for 2.5 minutes intead of the full three recommended by the American Dental Association.
So, no dangerous skiing for Val.

But it happens that these jackets are really in style among the teenagers here in France and it's the end of the annual January sales. All this in mind, I thought it wouldn't hurt to look around.
And there was a bit of guilt involved as well. I actually bought a lot of my kids' school clothes at the Emmaus thrift shop. But as there's only one in the region, sometimes I do worry that some kid at their school will recognise something that his family gave away. Don't get me wrong- I'm proud to be thrifty and planet-saving, but I know how awfully mean kids can be to each other.

So, I took Valentine on a big shopping expedition yesterday (five different places). Amazingly, we managed to find a gorgeous coat at a huge discount. Which was the only way she was ever going to get one, as these things cost 200 euros and up. Yes, that's euros, folks, not dollars!