F Train to Paris

In which a Jewish family from Brooklyn moves to Paris, France for two years of work, school, and adventures.

 

When a holiday falls on a Tuesday or a Thursday, Parisians like to "faire le pont" (make a bridge)--that is, take an extra day off and have a very long weekend. Thursday, November 11th, was Armistice Day, and everyone was off from school and work, so we took Friday off too and went to Normandy. As of last Wednesday, we have a car, and we inaugurated it with this trip.

We rented a gite (vacation home) about three hours from Paris, from a British couple who own a property with a bunch of stone houses, which they rent mainly to other Brits who come over on the various Channel ferries. The house was roomy and comfortable. Renting a gite is an ideal way to travel over Shabbat, since we had a kitchen in which to cook our Shabbat meals and store food. (When we stay in hotels on Shabbat, we either eat in their restaurants and sign for the meals, which we don't really like to do, but we do it anyway, or we shop for bread, cheese, fruit, etc. on Friday and then eat in the room. It's amazing how much food you can wedge into a minibar.) Unfortunately, we spent too much time on Friday at the supermarket, where we threw all caution to the wind and let the kids choose Cookie Crisp cereal, four kinds of cookies, and three kinds of puddings. Since Shabbat starts so early this time of year, we had just a few hours left to see the D-Day Landing beaches.

When we weren't out sightseeing, the boys just didn't know what to do with themselves, as the house had no TV. There's a barn on the property with ping pong and foosball tables and toys, so that kept them busy some of the time, but there was a tremendous amount of complaining about boredom, especially from R. who has finally become a reader but who just couldn't seem to settle down and read. (J., however, started reading Moon Palace by Paul Auster and couldn't put it down all weekend.) On Saturday we hung around the house most of the day--Ralph and I took a long walk in the afternoon--and when we declared that Shabbat was over, nothing much changed. There was no computer, no TV, no Playstation for the kids to turn on. We just turned on the dishwasher, and went back to reading and doing a jigsaw puzzle.

On Sunday we went to Mont St. Michel and then to Bayeux to see the tapestry. I'm not going to try to describe these, or the landing beaches; enough has been written about them in other places. Let's just say that when a 12-year-old boy is impressed by a 900-year-old tapestry, it is worth the trip.

posted by: pariskleinmans at 22:26 | link | comments |