Summer is over!

So we pick up from our trip to Rouen. The last blog fired off right as we were leaving to catch the train, our first one as a family.

The trip to Rouen was pretty uneventful and quite nice on the train. Rouen is an old historical city with a ton of churches, which you can see as soon as you exit the train station. It was a beautiful city from the start!

Our first order of business was finding lunch. We tried to just “find” a spot that was full of people. We were successful in that, but the restaurant we picked was very traditional and we were not prepared. I ordered some strange sausage, Hailey the “special” salad, and the kids ordered steak haché (like a burger) with fries. Wow… what came to our table was… interesting. My sausage was essentially rough-chopped pig intestine stuffed in sausage. Hailey’s salad had a lot of interesting cold cuts, and the kids’ burgers were quite rare. We ate the fries and were left underwhelmed. It was a rough start and put us all in a rough mood, not to mention it was getting hot! If interested, look up Andouillette sausage… buyer beware!

We went to the Airbnb and decided we needed to get out of the house and try to forget that last meal. After a park session, we found a wonderful ice cream place before heading back to the Airbnb for a quick rest. After that we decided… let’s go for pizza, and ate in an old cave/basement. Let me tell you, best pizza so far since moving (maybe ever), and it really changed the course of the trip.
The next day we hiked to a lookout and took in the whole city before heading out to an indoor kids park. The kids ran around for an hour and a half and we all had a blast. By then we had all worked up an appetite and walked back to the city for crêpes and fries. Great meal and a great day. We finished off with another round of pizza before settling in for the night. Sunday was a quick day of travel back to Paris and prep for the coming week.

The next week the kids went to Disney and I worked, nothing too special until that weekend. In preparation for Emery starting school, Hailey took her to the indoor waterpark (where you may remember from the first few entries, you have to be 3 years old). So it was Daddy and Fischer morning where we biked around the city and hung out before eating French fries and ketchup for lunch.
Emery and Hailey got back right after lunch and told us all about their trip, which was filled with water slides and a ton of swimming. We will for sure go back after Fischer turns 3. Fun fact, in Paris in order to swim you must have tight swimwear, which means no swim shorts for girls and no trunks for boys… so I’ll be on the hunt for a speedo I guess… yikes.
After a quick rest, we took the bikes out and rode around Paris, which was amazing. It really was a fun way to end the day.

Last week Emery started school and loved it. She had a few tears to start, but after the first day said, “I didn’t even need to be sad!” which was great to hear. She is in a class of 25 with 3 teachers, 2 of whom speak French and 1 English-speaking teacher. I am sure she will learn French in no time.
The week itself, other than school, was pretty low-key. Other than Hailey and the kids going to the zoo on Wednesday. There is a unique thing here where Wednesdays the kids do not go to school (where was that in America when I grew up!).

This weekend we had another Paris weekend and took the bikes out both days. The bikes really do give us a ton of flexibility and let us spin around the city. Highlights include playing at the park and eating ice cream 🙂 One thing to note, while we are eating pizza, we have cut down the McDonald’s significantly! And sneak in a few French meals here and there, but do prefer eating at home or at bakeries for convenience.

Other things to note. Hailey and I are both learning French – slowly but surely. I can read quite a bit now, but speaking it is still difficult. ChatGPT sends me daily texts to read and interpret, and I can get about 70% of the story, which is better than nothing! Our internet works (although still no fiber). The city is waking back up from summer vacation, which means bakeries are back open (yummm). That is mostly it for now!

One interesting thing to note, the caption here is Summer is over, but in all honesty living here still feels like a long vacation, and I think we will continue to take advantage of that. Aka eating ice cream too many times, going on trips, and enjoying what the city has to offer!