a busy week... part three (of three).

Forestia... and a visit to the school.

I'm kind of catching up on all my blog entries, mostly because the boys are happy watching teletoon and Maggie is out shopping... honestly, the animated series Police Academy works just fine in French. So far they watched Batman, X-men, and now this show. They don't seem to care that it is in French. A good sign.

Maggie is out at the Carrefour - the Belgian/French version of a Wallmart - doing the school shopping for the boys. We went into Brussels yesterday to meet the Directrice of the school in Brussels where both boys will be going, and she gave us a long list of supplies that were required. It was a bewildering experience for all four of us, and especially tiring for me. Bruce often told me how exhausted he was after trying to translate conversations between his french-speaking friends and me, and now I understand what he means after two and a half hours speaking administrative french and trying to explain it to Maggie at the same time. (Private message for Bruce: thanks very much for all your help!).

A couple of cool surprises: daycare (garderie) before and after school costs maybe 20 EUR per month, substantially less than in Canada. Also, Malcolm has an opportunity in October to go to a chateau in the country for the week, to sleep there, and have special history lessons, attend plays, and experience the country, all for 90 EUR for the week. Another surprise, perhaps not quite so cool from Malcolm's perspective, is that in Grade 3 they begin Flemish instruction, for 3 hours per week. Poor kid! That's a third language he'll have to deal with!

All in all the school looks very cosy; Duncan's classes are luxuriously appointed with art supplies, toys, etc. Malcolm's class looked very sparsely furnished, but we understand that he is in a small class of maybe 16 students, which is good news for him; he does better in smaller groups. There is also another classroom where the teacher can take out a few students (two or three) for extra help; he will probably appreciate the extra attention.

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The photo of Duncan above was taken at Forestia, a forest park near Spa, in the Ardennes. They have a zoo there, and a large playground, as well as these parcours, which are pathways up in the trees. You need to put on a climbing harness and helmet, and clip onto the safety line while you navigate various challenges. Maggie has posted some other photos on her blog, including (I think) a movie of me sliding down a long cable... lots of fun for all of us. The kids played, and had lots of fun feeding corn to the goats and other animals. Mami Cloes came also, and brought along another of her granddaughters, and we had a great time talking and picnicking there while the kids played.

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We went to dinner last night at Chi-chi and Nathalie's with the kids, and had a delicious dinner of whipped potatoes with cheese topping, freshly made applesauce, and the liegois version of lapin au cidre, or rabbit in cider, an incredibly delicious stew made with Chimay beer, thyme, cloves, carrots, onions, etc. Wow it was good. Nathalie also made a fantastic meatloaf, with mixed beef and pork; Mami made the same last sunday, but with a variation of putting boiled eggs in the middle of the meatloaf. Chouette! (Cool).

I think I deserve a gold medal for translation services; last night I actually managed to handle a topic that baffled JR; Maggie wanted to explain about research she did as a university student on killer-T cell interactions during in vitro fertilization. It took some creative doing, but Bruce was right: if you cast about for an alternative way of approaching a sentence, and don't try to translate it directly, you can almost always figure out a way of expressing what you need. I'll leave the details of how I expressed the differences between "natural" fertilization and the in vitro variation to your imagination... Of course it didn't hurt that Nathalie is very knowledgeable about reproductive science, so she understood all about antibodies and immune systems.

It looks like Maggie is back from shopping. I'm going to help her in with the bags, and then head over to help JR and Chi-chi at JR's house. After that, we are going to have a bonfire tonight, hosted by Jean and Chantal. I'm sure I'll have more stories to tell tomorrow!