Yesterday was a holiday in France.  It is a church holiday celebrated all over the globe, differently between Catholics and protestants, of course.  Toussaint (All Saint’s) is seen in its celebration here by the many florist shops selling chrysanthemums, potted, ready to be placed on the family’s grave.  The graves are visited, cleaned, and decorated, as a celebration of the saints who have passed on.

It was a lovely day yesterday, so we took a brief walk to the cemetery closest to our apartment, about five minutes away, behind a Catholic church.  There were several people there, and it was very interesting to look at the dates and the families that have all been buried together.  I got a few photos, but didn’t want to disrespect people visiting, so I wasn’t able to get any of specific tombstones.  This cemetery is not very old, by European standards – the earliest burial we saw was from 1857, but a few were buried there this year.

The moon, the Alps, the church…

Tribute to those who served in the World Wars – the gardener was just leaving as we arrived, so you know those flowers are FRESH!

Graves decorated with chrysanthemums for Toussaint

Tomorrow we return to classes – the kids are very excited to go back to school and I am excited to be back into a family routine again.  Matthew is especially excited to be one break closer to returning to Congo (and we all would agree).

After two days at home, doing laundry, unpacking, catching up on details, we headed out Thursday morning southwest of here to Grenoble.  This small French city is the local government seat – France loves it’s governing layers!  An hour away and our appointment was at 9:00am, but we made it with time to spare and the drive was absolutely beautiful.  We wove between the valleys of the Alps in perfect sun and blue skies, with fog over the lowest farmlands.  Seriously, out-of-a-book-beautiful!

We showed up for our very official appointment, having already heard plenty of stories and knowing pretty much exactly what to expect.  You see, to finish our visas for living in France for this year, we had to pass a medical exam and present our receipt for taxes paid (which one can do online – we got a bill about a month ago…awesome).

First we were taken in for our chest x-ray.  Second, we were seen by a nurse to took our weight, height, BP, pulse and did a very brief eye exam (kudos to me for saying all of my letters in French!).  Finally, we saw a doctor, who did a cursory check of our chest, stomach, lungs and heart, asked the normal questions about surgeries and meds, and literally stamped his approval on our paperwork.  (The kids didn’t have to do anything at all, by the way.)

Lastly, we waited briefly and met with someone who approved our visas (now called the carte de sejour) and we are now legal France residents until schooling is complete!

We spent the rest of the morning driving around Grenoble and visiting a fortress way up on a hill.  I really didn’t plan to hike through defensive caves up a steep hill in my heeled boots, but whatever.  It was a lovely view and the kids had fun.  We picnicked on the side of the road on the way home, because parking in Grenoble was a pain.

The rest of the afternoon we ran a few errands and worked around our apartment some more…then, we enjoyed a date night!  Vacationing with your kids usually results in needing a vacation from your kids, so we are thankful for good friends on campus who can hang out with the kiddos while we go out last minute!

This morning we headed out to the nearby city of Annecy.  Annecy is very beautiful, as was the drive through small towns and farmland.  Annecy is built on a lake with several canals that run through it.  It was market day, so we enjoyed strolling through, sampling goodies, trying a new cheese for lunch with a baguette and snacks from home, and enjoying a picnic on a lawn by the lake.  The weather was crisp and fall-like, but sunny.

Tonight we are chilling at home and I’m trying my best to gather the photos from our adventure…we had two cameras, a tablet, a phone and our Dutch friend’s phone…so, it’s a lot to compile.  Hopefully you all still care a little by the time I’m done.  Ha!

The past three days were kind of a blur, because nothing happened the way we expected, but in the end, we are now HOME in France.  So, let’s back up to immediately after I posted the last blog post…

I posted the blog about Heidelberg, then Matthew and I proceeded to look at pictures we uploaded from the camera.  Meanwhile, an older gentleman asked to sit in the couch across from us in the hostel lobby.  We told him no problem.  Once we were settled after photos he began a conversation with us.  This is one of the more fascinating people we’ve met.  At the age of 86, this Canadian gentlemen from Victoria, BC, regularly travels to Europe, stays in hostels in shared rooms, takes the public transportation, just because he likes it.  So inspiring!  He commended us for taking advantage of living in Europe to show our kids the history of such a continent, even when traveling with ones so young is so difficult.  Once we told him our plans for the next few days, he had a recommendation – the small German town of Freiburg, which was on our way back toward Switzerland and France.  He said it’s his favorite town in all of Germany, and with a man so well traveled, we decided to take him up on his recommendation.

So, we restructured the next day, found accommodations (full disclosure: we didn’t plan the entire trip, because we wanted to be able to make discoveries) and made a few plans to see the last bits of Germany.  The full nature of the day meant we weren’t able to drive north to Heidelberg to visit the church, but alas, without any German vocab, we probably weren’t missing much anyway.

Sunday morning, we headed out after breakfast at the hostel and drove south.  We pulled off into Freiburg around noon and found [free] parking and began to see what all the “fuss” was about.  Oh my, he wasn’t kidding – Freiburg is beautiful!  He described it as a work of art.  The town was utterly destroyed during WWII, but as it was rebuilt, each brick laid was artfully done.  Of course, pictures still pending…I promise they’re worth the wait!

Plus, our Germany tour book that we borrowed described the church in Frieburg’s center as one of the most beautiful in all of Christendom.  And you know, as we turned a corner and discovered the church…the book may be right!  The cathedral is majestic and gorgeous…words cannot describe the art put into it!

We wandered around the town for about an hour, then piled back into the car, ate some snack-y lunch food and continued south, over the border into Switzerland and then crossed into France.  To get to our hotel, in Thonon les Bains, we passed through the resort town of Evian (yep, the bottled water – we even saw the headquarters building).  The town was lovely to look at it and seemed entirely uppity.  It looked more like it belonged on the Mediterranean, instead of a mountain lake.  And it was crowded with people, and traffic, so on we went.

The lodging we had booked for the evening made us a little nervous – the booking seemed very strict and we wondered what awaited us…but we were happy that at least we were back in France.  We found the hotel, figured out our room (the front desk was closed, but they had prepared it for us) and discovered the best thing…this cheap hotel wasn’t as up-to-date as others, but the room was HUGE, they had provided the requested baby bed AND we had a balcony that overlooked Lake Geneva (Lac Léman, as it is called locally) – all for a very low price!  We had a kitchenette, which meant we could make our own dinner and breakfast for less money than eating out.  And did I mentioned a balcony?  It was great!

We got a decent night of rest and headed out the next morning back into Switzerland, about 45 minutes away (staying in France meant no changing currency, as Switzerland is not part of the EU).  Our goal for the day was at the recommendation of Matthew’s mom: Château Chillon – a castle dating from 1000AD built into Lake Geneva.

We arrived, ate a picnic lunch overlooking the lake and the castle, then headed in to explore.  The great thing about this castle is that you are able too see most of it (and, yay all three kids were free again!) on your own, including many rooms inside.  Being there on a Monday meant it was practically empty.  Axel, once again, ate some crumbles from the wall, bringing his castle-eating experiences to TWO.  Lord Byron was once imprisoned here and a famous poem is written about it.  The furnishings, paintings on the walls, and entire experience generally is from the 13th and 15th centuries.  It was so awesome!  We spent nearly four hours exploring the castle before heading out and driving home.

The drive home was terrible.  We got turned around, the French tolls are HORRIBLY expensive (which is one of the reasons we didn’t road trip through France, by the way), and it was awful.  But, to be home was very nice.

Yesterday, we unpacked, did beaucoup de laundry, caught up on some other things around the house and took advantage of the car to do some major grocery shopping at the large, Walmart-like store across town.  While we enjoy walking to the store twice a week for our food, it’s nice to grab the heavy bulk items and drive them home.

We have one more short trip planned for tomorrow, but it’s mostly business and we hope to include some pleasure after the business is done.

The remaining days of our break include a lot of little things, like studying French, driving to some of the stores across town we’ve never seen (we rented the car through Friday), working on some ministry partnership projects, and catching up around the house.  Also, we have to retrain Axel to stay asleep at night.  He was doing so well, but now wakes nearly every hour and has trouble putting himself back to sleep…exhausting for everyone!

And now, to work on a picture dump.  Because, none of this is exciting without the photos!