Rentrée

(Rentrée scolaire is the French equivalent of back to school)

Today was orientation at Lilian’s school. We were all pretty nervous, so it was a huge relief when Lilian met up with some new friends at the tram station. I made a joke about how I was just a random woman on the platform… and then that’s basically what I was. ? I don’t think they even looked back at us when walking into school.

It felt a little bit like a first day for parents as well. We had to find the appropriate “salle” (a very Spinal Tap moment) and then we had to figure out what all the teachers were saying in French. I got the gist of it, but I was super grateful that one of the moms has lived here for ages and was able to translate more fully.

Lilian is attending an international school this year… but it’s a French public school and the primary language of instruction will be in French. They’ll have 6 hours a week in the “anglophone” section. They’ll have subjects like literature and history in English, but everything else will be in French.

It’s not quite jumping into the deep end, however, because most of their timetable will be intensive French lessons to start. Once they get the hang of the language, they’ll get mainstreamed into classes like math and science (in French). The French teacher told us that they keep the kids in intensive French as long as necessary… they don’t want to crush their spirits by having them fail all of their classes due to the language barrier.

We also had a presentation from the head of the anglophone section. He explained some of the nuances of the French educational system for us. He also made a very funny joke about why most of their students don’t go to university in the US (it’s too darn expensive!).

We got a chance to meet some of the other parents and exchange contact info. I was telling Lilian how they’re going to have so many more friends than us, just by virtue of going to school! I hope Kristian and I are able to meet up with some kids our own age. ?

After orientation, a bunch of girls from their class went to the mall together to get ramen. Kristian and I followed behind in the next tram. We didn’t want cramp their style, but we wanted to get lunch! It sounds like they all had fun eating together and walking around. I was relegated to “here mom, hold my stuff, omg don’t make eye contact.” And I couldn’t have been happier about it!

Lilian even took public transit home without us! They had a tram buddy until the metro, and then they took the metro all by themself! What a milestone! They told me tonight how glad they are to be able to hop on a train or a tram without needing us to drive them. That was a huge part of us wanting to move here, so yay!

Now we’re all tired from our big day. Kristian and I did manage to make dinner together, which was really fun. We made a quiche, which is super easy when you have 12 different premade crusts to choose from.

I need to get better about helping with the cooking. Kristian is so good at coming up with ideas on the fly. I need a plan and a recipe, which doesn’t exactly lend itself to making whatever looked good at the marché. It also doesn’t help that we have extremely limited cooking implements in our Airbnb. I think I’m going to work on improving my quiche skills. You can basically throw any veggies in them.

What are your go-to’s for cooking with random vegetables?