Up, up, and away...

Inès often has the best ideas!

Wanna see more? Check out: I get no kicks in a plane...

Forget the bread!

Think of it as a type of insurance. Sure you can dream of being top of the class, going to some famous university, starting a career, working 60 to 80 hour weeks until you can, finally, force other suckers to work 60 to 80 hour weeks. Then worry about getting laid off and not finding another job because they are only giving them to young upstarts who are willing to work 60 to 80 hour weeks so they can get to where you are now. You know, the ladder of success;  every parent's dream for their kids.


But what if your life doesn't end up following this ideal scenario. What then? How are you going to cut it in life?

When you're our age you have to think alternatives. And as far as alternatives go the circus just doesn't seem like a bad one at all.

Yo get to travel, hang out with wild beasts and clowns, and clean up after them (I'm talking about the office here, of course). But the circus is so much cooler. I mean, you get to sleep late, work in a tent, and use all sorts of alternative travel like large rubber balls and unicycles. As Cole said: it's the top. The big top!

Not weak hearted? Check out some death-defying acts here: circus maximus.

Inès and the Chocolate Factory

Imagine...

All your school friends come to see you.

You turn on a faucet and dark chocolate comes out.

You turn on another tap and milk chocolate comes out.

You can drink all you want and no one yells at you.

In fact, the big people actually tell you to eat more.

Then all your friends give you presents.

Then you eat cake, chocolate cake of course!

Then you take home even more chocolate.

Dream?

No, it must be Inès' ninth birthday party!

Even mama went nuts!

Strong liver? Check out Ines' belated birthday party snaps here: Aztec spastic fantastic!

Christmas and Ata go together

Some things go together.

There are mystic combinations. These might include snow and skiing, movies and popcorn, summer and the beach, peanut butter and jelly.

Then there are loving combinations. Among these you might find mama and papa, pencil and paper, Dave and the chipmunks.

You also have your sensible combinations like silence and cinema, shoes and socks, Sancerre white and crottin de Chavignol.

Finally there are perfect combinations, and among these its hard to think of a better one than Ata and Christmas. This year that combination produced tostones, walks in the woods, buche de Noël, a third Christmas tree, confiture de lait, and lots of love. Yeap, a magic combination.

Busy sidewalks? Check out some quiet country Yuletide snaps here: No place like France for the holidays

Still not bored enough? Check our our Christmas preparation trip to Innsbruck: Tyrol cure-all

Heroes just for one day

When you have as admirable a papa as we do, it's hard to find real heroes. But when Inès had to choose a famous person who had made a major contribution to humanity for a school project, somehow papa wasn't on the school's list.

If it wasn't going to be papa then it was going to be a woman and a scientist. Marie Curie fit the bill perfectly. I mean, she even lived in Paris!

Of course, Inès prefers method acting, which was just right for this project. On the big day all the mamas and papas (not the hippy singers, the real mamas and papas) crowded into the pre-Christmas halls of the International School to meet the single greatest convention of famous people ever assembled. There was Albert Einstein, Amelia Earheart, Winston Churchill, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Charly Chaplin and even Jane Goodall.

But no one, no one was as impressive, and as beautiful, as the little Franco-Polish scientist with a glowing aura around her. Yes, Marie Curie stole papa's heart.

Wanna rub shoulders with a few giants? Check out some of them here: Cleopatra? Take a left at Henri Matisse

Traveling the Via Francigena

Papa had been away for too long, and then when he got back it was all work, work, work. Then mama abandoned us for a little fiesta in Mexico City. We were all knocked out. Not learning anything at school and eating home-cooked food in day care had taken its toll. We were ready for a re-birth.

 

And what better place for a little renaissance than the cradle of the Rinascimento itself? Papa took off a whole week. We packed the old Koléos and headed to Geneva Airport to pick up mama. Then we headed for the Mont Blanc Tunnel and, after stopping in Aosta for the night, arrived in the land of those crazy ci folks like Polci, da Vinci, Medici.

La mama was worried that we wouldn't eat enough so she called Giuseppina and asked her to give us a little cooking class. Energized by home-made pasta,  fresh garlic, ripe tomatoes, and Chianti, we were ready to climb towers, sketch Duomos, admire Botticelis, buy leather gloves, giggle at David’s scant attire, sword fight, treat allergies to spider bites, try on heavy armor, eat pizza, watch people hold up leaning towers, visit Pinocchio,  and of course, sample the finest Gelato in the land.

All in all it was very civilized, just like us.

Hankering for a little Giotto-country? Check out some snaps of our adventures south of the border here: Miraculously, the David is still standing.

Gongo turned 7 while papa was in Hawaii. Want to see what a guilt-filled birthday party looks like? Check out the belated birthday party here: A gift made in China? How exotic!

Or maybe a few scary pictures of Halloween here: Black is back

Boat to Yvoire

"Papa, c'est quoi le plan aujourd'hui?"

"I don't know Inès"

"On va où?"

"I don't know Inès, nowhere"

"Papa, can we go to France, can we take the boat to France?"

"No Inès, I don't think so"

"Why papa?"

"It's Sunday Inès, we have school and work tomorrow."

"But today papa, why can't we go to France now papa?"

"We just can't."

"But why?"

"Umm, I don't know, umm, I...because..."

"Allez papa, let's take the boat to France!"

"We but we have to...it's...umm...I don't know why we can't go to France.|

"Then let's go!"

"Yeah, let's go! You're right, there's not reason not to go! Let's go get mama and the boys and take the boat to Yvoire!"

"Wow, Inès! What a great day, what a great idea, what a great day in France!

In the mood for exotic international travel? Live it vicariously here: à la vapeur

Our favorite things...

It was a short but elegant vacation. Outside the world was catching a glimpse of Pluto and preoccupied by two meltdowns: a hot summer and the Greek economy. But nestled in the Tyrolean Alps, the only thing melting was the glacier we were skiing on.

There was something about this part of the world that made this little Parisian triumvirate feel particularly comfortable. What was it? Was it the hills alive with the sound of music? The ubiquitous figure of Mozart that greeted us at every corner? The sophisticated cafés that reminded us of Paris' best? The schnitzel? The
yodeling? The dirndl and lederhosen? The Riesling? The crazy ice cave? Gastro Express Ketchup? The soft green mountains? The kid-friendliness? The Austrian politesse? Or was it that soon-to-be-forgotten word, elegance?

Papa always said that, if you're searching for elegance, there are only two places in western culture worth looking: Paris and Austria. You may find style in Italy, comfort in the US, and a good sense
humor in the UK, but you won't run into any elegance. Don't even ask about Switzerland.


Being three little Parisians, we felt right at home in Austria.

Rainy vacation with nothing to do? Kill time waiting for work to start again here: Waltz anyone?

Or you can check out a Swiss sunny spring here: Schools out but papa's not

While mama was away on business...

It's to easy to saturate here. For Parisians accustomed to good taste, isolation scan be a constant threat. Luckily, within reach, there are oases of elegance, both urban and natural. Without mama at home, it was too easy to feel that all the elegance had slipped away from our lives. We needed to resource.

It's a good thing that papa is on our wavelength. We woke up, got dressed and jumped into the trusty Koleos. By mid-morning we were soaking the Saturday sun in God-given Annecy. Park, lake, old town, lunch, and Monoprix.

A carefully timed escape to Chamonix provided much-needed nap time. We awoke to at the bottom of the Chamonix valley. An afternoon of Snell, amusement rides, dinner on a terrace, and snow-capped peaks was all we needed.

So we drove back to Nyon.

Lost your way back to Eden? Check it out here: Work stinks

Circus minimus

Nyon may be a small town but we get a little of everything one needs to survive life in Europe. There is a castle to protect us from any pirates that might cross the lake, there is a cinema, restaurants, supermarkets, an American food shop where you can also buy any ingredient from Latin American you might ever need, a train station, Roman ruins, a handful of museums, a port where you can catch a ferry to France, live theater performances, two beaches and an outdoor pool, a yacht club where we learn to sail, tennis club where we learn tennis, music conservatory, and the usual bunch of butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers. It ain't Paris but it's not bad.

In the summer, when you can't go skiing anymore, there are also a number of things to make the time pass while you wait for the first flakes to fall again. There are film festivals like the one that just finished, there are wine festivals and antique markets, there are music festivals, and of course, there's the circus! We missed the big Knee circus last year so there was no way we we going to let the Nock circus get away! There it was, just outside our window.

We watched the tent go up on the Place de Perdtemps and waited for Saturday to arrive. There were clowns and trapeze artists flying through the air, there were animal tamers and jugglers and acrobats and magicians that cut ladies in half. There was popcorn (sold by the artists during the intermission - circus life must be tough) and that animal smell that tells you it's the real thing. Raphaël even enjoyed his first pony ride. It wasn't exactly Ringling Brothers but, like Nyon, it had everything we needed.

You had to be there but there's a few snaps here: bread and circus

How lucky is papa? Papa's little schoolgirl