Day One France

10 min. walk from our apt. Notre Dame



M. happily eating bread the waiter she charmed gave her


view from our apartment



a local park we found




Hopefully we will be back to normal today. We went to bed at 7pm last night after we just could not take it another minute. Neither my sister or me slept on the plane ride over and Mae got in just a couple of hours.
So, some thoughts so far.
We found that we both have some fears about speaking the small bit of french we know. I think it is stage fright. So I resorted to making M. talk for us a couple of times yesterday, which was hilarious. Yesterday afternoon we needed to eat, and we could not decide which creperie to eat at. They all seemed very crowded and very intimidating. No matter how we dress, we are a tourist and that reality along with our inept foreign language skills was affecting our confidence.
I took the lead, and walked into a creperie with the girls. I managed to get out a "bonjour" and "trois". We sat down and the waitor honed in on M. with a smile and she said "bonjour". My sister and I sighed a big sigh of relief when he instantly became friendly with us just by my five year old daughter smiling and saying hello to him. She had a basket of bread in front of her 60 seconds later. This anxiety will pass. My sister is currently choking on her coffee laughing at our insistence on having M. be our language leader here.
I started yesterday with flipflops, but after stepping in two puddles and calculating what funk my toes touched I insisted in heading back to the apartment to 1. wash my feet 2. wash my flip flops and 3. put on my trusty clogs.

Today we are going to:
1. Go to the local outdoor market to stock up on fruit
2. Go to Luxembourg Gardens so M. can sail the mini sailboats
3. Attempt to find Soy Creamer for me
4. Translate Half and Half for my sister so we can buy it at the store
5. Go eat at Ze Kitchen Gallerie for dinner.
6. Get on the Metro to get to dinner