Hi...it HAS been a while...so much for hurrying to get past post #13! I'm really not sure how I'm so busy with all the extra time I'm supposed to have; guess I haven't found it yet. I'm still talking with both kids fairly regularly...seems as if it's more daily with Britt, at least lately, since she's on a "grand adventure" inside of her basic "grand adventure"! She has ten days off school for La Toussaint (All Saints') observance; all French schools are closed, and most people travel. I'll have to put updates from this trip in a future post, since I have a bit of catching up to do. Just so you all know, she left on this extra "grand adventure" last Saturday, and is being good enough to let us know when a new destination is reached, and I have been checking earlier in the day, before I leave school, and she's sometimes been on SKYPE, so we've done some instant messaging, since the internet connections aren't always reliable, and video chatting seems to make the connection freeze at times. More on all of those details next time, I promise.

So, the last time I posted was sharing photos from the visit to Paris, the first time. Britt's assignment, so we all thought, was going to be teaching Social Studies in English; turns out she's teaching English (in English, of course!) in both a high school and teacher prep college in the city of Brest. She is limited, by her visa, to twelve hours a week, and it's seeming to be four days of three hours each. Not too bad, considering she's receiving such valuable experience as well. So here are a couple of photos from her second visit to Paris, for the reception at the French Senate. It was through the Fulbright Commission, and they met students who had participated in a shorter sort of the same exchange and had spent five weeks (as opposed to 3.5 months!) learning about the US education system.

She called that photo "Gargoyle" which is in the background...but I chose that one of the three she sent because it also has her in it. She, of course, is NOT the gargoyle :>). The group photo is of the students at the French Senate reception -- the girls are the Americans visiting France, and the guys are the French students who visited the US. The top photos are the St. Mathieu's and Britt at the Cathedral of Notre Dame, in Paris...she looked but didn't find Quasimodo, but DID see the bells. Evidently, the bells were consecrated and named when they were installed, and the largest bell is named "Emmanuel", after the grandson of Louis IV, who was in power when it was installed. Living history lesson--with the Eiffel Tower w-a-a-y in the background! (I hope I got the details right...it's been a while since she explained them to me.)

There are other photos, many other photos which we have received, and many, many more that we haven't seen...she will have a true documentation of her visit. I'll be back in a week or two...with photos, hopefully, from Belgium, Amsterdam, Germany and Hungary...the countries of the "grand adventure"!