Sasha and E and I went to Paris on a field trip with her class this past Wednesday.

Barring the day's long accumulated pain from wearing the boy on my back all afternoon, while walking hither and yon (albeit beautiful!!!), it was a very fun day!

How many class field trips are to Paris?! Obviously if that's where you live, that might be where you go!...we're still pinching ourselves and I wanted to share:

The teacher's goal of the trip as far as I understood it was to give the children the sense of the landscape, structures and streets that they walk as they correspond to and are reflected on the map they see in their hand...

We walked from the school to Igny, a neighboring town, connected by beautiful paths...

...took the train (25 mins) into Paris and were dropped off just a the northern tip of Jardin Luxembourg. From there we walked and walked...Sasha's teacher, I learned in an earlier outing, is a very fast walker and kept the kids at a very good clip. Today's destination was Notre Dame. It was wonderful walking through the streets, which at 10am on a cloudy, rainy day in April, weren't crowded in the least....until we reached Notre Dame Cathedral.

The approach was quite spectacular... (not this photo, camera was still buried in my backpack...) Inside, hundreds of people milled around. It was a shame it rained. I think we entered just to get a break from the rain. That said, the stained glass was spectacular, hundreds of years old and so beautiful!
Hundreds of people were in the main worship area...I say this cautiously, as they were selling little do-dads inside, headphones for the tours, etc...I wouldn't normally put the two in the same breath, worship and sales, but this is what it is. That said, it's a spectacular piece of gothic architecture and construction. Back in November we had taken a tour of the cathedral...it was amazing!
Here is Sasha's teacher, Emmanelle Bialas on the left, talking to some of the mothers who accompanied the group, and the kids as she is telling us about the history of the rosette windows...

When we leave Notre Dame, it's time for lunch .so we go to Hôtel Dieu, the oldest hospital in Paris (maybe france?), it was built in 671!
We ate there because it was pouring rain and they had a long hall with benches which they gave us permission to use. It's still in use today. You can see Elijah in the lower right hand corner...Much of the history is illustrated down along the walls of this hallway.

...the hall above is where we ate, it is actually through those windows to the right of this photo below. As we exit, we see more of the hotel, which was still a fraction of what there is, I'm sure:

Here we are exiting the hospital literally through the center out through the front. The exit is straight ahead, through the doors and to the left is the courtyard and Notre Dame itself. They're neighbors. The blocks Sasha (above) and the kids are walking on, I'm guessing, are ceiling windows to a floor below...giving natural light...I'm sure one of the more modern upgrades done over the years. Below, as we're exiting out the front, I turn around to take a photo...we had exited from the left out the center, where the two trees were.

Below, turning back around, we exit out the doors ahead, and enter the courtyard shared with the front of Notre Dame.

Hôtel Dieu was very cool!..a bit scary too, to think you're in the same place where you KNOW there were cholera (and who knows what else) outbreaks and hundreds/thousands/millions(?) patients over centuries were brought there. All that aside, they've kept it up beautifully.

As we left the Hôtel Dieu hospital-not hotel, we walk down along the northern side of the island, Ile de la Cité, heading west, we pass several bridges the last of which will be Pont Neuf, the bridge that crosses over the tip of the island. It was here the teacher pointed out the point at which the river splits. Ile de la Cité is the oldest and original part of Paris.

At last it was time to head back home...after arriving at our stop, we still had a 30 minute walk back, but it was a beautiful winding path alongside a bubbling brook, so I don't think many complained. We've been loving this area!


How cool is it to say you went to Notre Dame for your class field trip that day?!

Poissons d'Avril and Fish...Happy Birthday to my Great-Grandfather 2nd April~!

Yesterday, (or if you're reading this from the US, today), it was (is) April Fool's Day! Happy April Fool's Day everyone! Not that this is a standard greeting one uses to acknowledge such a holiday, on the contrary, it's generally acknowledged that April Fool's Day is the day when jokes are played on one another, and if you had forgotten the date, you'll be quickly reminded if you happen to be the target of someone's merry pranking.

Here in France (read upcoming post on that new bit of news if you're not already aware...), as I was dropping my daughter off at school, we crossed the threshold of the classroom and were greeted by much happy noisemaking and found Sasha's teacher across the room covered with little pieces of paper. As she crossed the room to greet us, we could see that the little pieces of paper that covered her sweater had fish drawn on them...they were taped all over her! She was laughing and smiling, and the kids around her were busily laughing at the funny gifts to their teacher. She told us that today was "Poissons d'Avril"...of course that explained everything! In my mind I was quickly putting it together that today was April Fool's Day and this is how they celebrated it in France! Great!...so I communicated this to Sasha and went on my way. Poisson, by the way, is the French word for 'fish'.

Later, after Sasha had returned home, I heard more about the jolly mood of the day, then went to put E down for a nap. When I returned I found her cutting out little fish shaped pieces of paper with which she spent the rest of the afternoon trying to sneak (and tape) onto each of us! The trick, as far as my currently limited understanding has come to realize is to tape a fish to someone without them knowing it.

It was still later in the afternoon today that a series of emails between my mother, aunt and husband floated around regarding 'Poissons d'Avril' during which my husband pulled the following from Wikipedia:

"Poissons d'Avril is first mentioned in a 1508 poem written by Eloy d’Amerval, a French choirmaster and composer. The poem is titled Le livre de la deablerie. According to Wikipedia, it consists of “a dialogue between Satan and Lucifer, in which their nefarious plotting of future evil deeds is interrupted periodically by the author, who among other accounts of earthly and divine virtue, records useful information on contemporary musical practice.” (It seems that in 1508, Satan and Lucifer were two not one individual...)

The poem would only be of interest to historians of music, except that it includes the line, “maquereau infâme de maint homme et de mainte femme, poisson d’avril.”

The phrase “poisson d’avril” (April Fish) is the French term for an April Fool, but it is unclear whether d’Amerval’s use of the term referred to April 1st specifically. He might have intended the phrase simply to mean a foolish person.

In 1564 France reformed its calendar, moving the start of the year from the end of March to January 1. Those who failed to keep up with the change, who stubbornly clung to the old calendar system and continued to celebrate the New Year during the week that fell between March 25th and April 1st, had jokes played on them. Pranksters would surreptitiously stick paper fish to their backs. The victims of this prank were thus called Poisson d’Avril, or April Fish—which, to this day, remains the French term for April Fools—and so the tradition was born."

Paul then included this from the Irish press (on 1st April):

"The origin of April Fools' Day is obscure. One likely theory is that the modern holiday was first celebrated soon after the adoption of the Gregorian Calendar; the term referred to someone still adhering to the Julian Calendar, which it replaced. In many pre-Christian cultures May Day (May 1) was celebrated as the first day of summer, and signalled the start of the spring planting season. An April Fool was someone who did this prematurely. Another origin is that April 1 was counted the first day of the year in France. When King Charles IX changed that to January 1, some people stayed with April 1. Those who did were called "April Fools" and were taunted by their neighbors. In the eighteenth century the festival was often posited as going back to the times of Noah. An English newspaper article published on April 13th, 1789 said that the day had its origins when he sent the raven off too early, before the waters had receded. He did this on the first day of the Hebrew month that corresponds with April." (reference to come shortly)

...and so progressed this email exchange today, and now ends our broadened understanding of the varying traditions of an annual holiday the origins of which hardly anyone remembers. It was a fun day!

So here, at the end of the evening, by now the 2nd of April, as I closed my email to my mother, who reminded me it was way too late to be writing (yes, still up and will be heading to bed shortly...), she reminded me, that it's my maternal great-grandfather's birthday today!...born 128 years ago today!


Alfred Ernest Hefford...while I have never met him, my memory of him exists in the form of stories of told to me by my mother: How he was a marine biologist, how he loved to garden in his home in Wellington, New Zealand, how he spent 2 years in the 20's (?) in Bombay, India away from his family, doing marine research for the government of India, how he spent his career studying fish and how to manage fishing practices (and exports) in such a way so as to not deplete New Zealand's rich fish supply, how he became the Director of the Department of Fisheries in New Zealand and spent 20 years advocating for such practices. No fool by any stretch, I'm sure it's a fact that my great-grandfather loved fish and spent his career trying to ensure their longevity. Happy Birthday Great-Granddad!