United fare sale DC to Paris, maybe others

United announced a big fare sale today. Buy before April 9 for travel before June 9. (I'm using Safari right now and it doesn't seem to want to let me place a link, so try http://www.united.com/page/article/0,6722,50799,00.html .)

Evil

I should NOT be this happy about others' misfortune. But I ... ok Betsy, we ... couldn't be happier about watching those UNC-CH Tar Holes completely, utterly, fabulously choke. Bwaaaahahahahahahha. What's French for schadenfreude?

(Added the next morning) Here's a positive image to add to my unsportsmanlike (but really fun) crowing above: Georgetown students thrilling to victory on M Street. Just to drop back into the mud, I feel compelled to point out that maybe nearby Maryland fans can take a tip on safe celebrations from the Hoyas?

Père Lachaise pics

From the guided tour I went on this past Tuesday ... in the sleet. Very atmospheric!

Velocity

We've read about it in the papers here, but now it's in the Post. Hopefully more bikes on the streets will mean better conditions for us cyclists!

Bracketology Junior

The boys worked hard on their brackets. Carter spent a couple of days, trying to divine whether the Big 10 or Big East had better years, and even sitting through my stories of tournaments past. Calvin mostly did his at breakfast on Thursday (see pics below). Carter helped him, patiently explaining that a smaller number is better than a bigger number, and that Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, and TAMU-CC all have different teams. (Kinda like England and Wales, how cute!) Calvin finished his after school Thursday at the bike shop, just in time to turn them in before the 5 p.m. tip-offs Paris time. The guides were cracking up as he mulled over each choice, thinking hard before making what generally seem reasonable selections. Calvin is the true fan (and yes, I had to explain to him that that's short for fanatic), having picked Duke to beat Virginia for the title. Maybe next year, kiddo. Carter's very proud to be tops in the family so far!

Dreams Come True

Blog posts have had to take a back seat this week, since the laptop and most of the bandwidth on our wireless network have been taken up by... March Madness!! Through the combined miracle of TiVo, Slingbox, and CBS (now with streaming video of every tournament game)---plus cable connections to our tv---we were actually able to spend most of our weekend much like we would have back in the U.S.: watching college basketball. With the main differences being that with the time change, we don't get games until early evening and that nobody here has any idea what we're obsessed with. College basketball is definitely an American cultural anomaly. I've tried to explain it to people at work, and they can't even get the basic concept. University teams just don't have the same notoriety in other countries, apparently, and they can't really understand the allegiances and keep trying to figure out how the teams relate to the NBA.

The folks at the bike shop, being American, get the idea and are running a pool, so the entire family has brackets entered. Even Calvin did his picks. It was classic -- when I left home on Thursday morning, the kids were huddled together at the dining room table with Carter reading off the brackets for Calvin. Calvin had just picked UT-Corpus Christi to beat Wisconsin, and Carter was trying to clarify the meaning of the seeds...

With the time difference, we didn't watch the whole Duke game, although Chris woke up in the middle of the night in time to catch the last 10 minutes of our loss. Ugh. Kind of a fitting end to a fairly frustrating season for the Blue Devils. One advantage of being here is that at least we don't get so much crap from other fans when our team loses. On Friday, my friend Ted from work came over to watch the UVa game. He's a UVa grad, so he was thrilled to get to see their game -- first UVa game he's been able to see in about 8 years, and they had a pretty convincing victory on Friday. Although the tournament isn't really turning out the way we hoped so far (but we're confident Carolina will fall soon), it's been great getting to watch the games and feel not so far from home.

This weekend we also took the trek out to Disneyland Paris -- also a dream come true, if you believe the Disney ads. Disneyland isn't really a high priority for me and Chris (you might have noticed). But Disneyland Paris is close, you can take the train there, and they had special prices in March since it's still technically off-season, so we figured we'd give the kids a treat. Here's what we learned:

• You can spend 8 hours at Disneyland and make it on only five rides. (And we got "fast pass" timed tickets to most of the rides so we by-passed the worst of the wait... I can't imagine what it's like in the summer!)
  
• Buzz Lightyear and C3PO can speak French.
• Chip and Dale are "Tic" and "Tac" in French.
  
• Calvin likes roller coasters (or at least Thunder Mountain), except the dark parts.
• The French don't do great barbeque (they don't even know about pulled pork or brisket, for example), but they can import a decent bluegrass band.
• Unlike Disney parks in the U.S., you can buy beer at Disneyland Paris.
• 20 euros will still get a good amount of Disney stuff.

Here's what we already knew but were reminded:

• Disney is an amazing marketing machine.
• Carter and Calvin love Star Wars stuff (Que la force soit avec vous!).
• Air hockey is a great game.
• Our kids are wonderful.
  

In the end, we had a really fun time hanging out together for the day. There was lots to see, the kids were really patient waiting in lines, they got a few little presents (they each had a 20 euro limit and got to decide how to spend it, and both ended up with three things), we liked all the rides, and then at the end of the day we got to chill out on train home and watch a little basketball to finish off the day.

After Disneyland on Saturday, we took it really easy today. This morning we slept in, had a lazy brunch, and did Carter's homework. This week there's another "3 days, 3 euros" special at movies here -- this time not just in Paris, but all across France -- so this afternoon we went to see "Souris City" (by the creators of Wallace and Gromit. I think it was called Flushed Away in English.). It was only showing in French, which meant Chris and I could understand about 30% of the dialogue and the kids could understand about 80%, but we all managed to follow the story and it was very cute. We finished off the day by visiting a little wine sale being held on a boat on the Seine not too far from our apartment, stopped by the bike shop to check out bracket standings (Carter is in 4th place in the bike shop pool, and so far I'm in dead last.), and got the kids in bed early. Now to catch the end of the games for the evening... Here's the pictures for all our adventures this weekend. Miss you all!

Using cell phones abroad

Here's a nice summary from the NYT in case you're heading abroad.

Barca Barca Barca!

Sure, it's been a 10 days or so, but despite the radio silence about our trip, here's some proof that we actually went. Someday you'll get stories ...

Back at ya

We've made our travel plans to come home this summer! We'll arrive on July 19th into Washington, but then turn around July 21st (maybe even the 20th) to head to Ohio for the extended Forinash family reunion. We'll return to the DC/Baltimore area on the 28th or 29th. Betsy will return to Paris on August 6th, but then we boys will stick around until August 19th. Yep, a whole month back on US soil! Just in case you're thinking of making a similar trip this summer, turns out that Iberia Air (a Spanish airline) has a bunch of ~$540 round trips available, when all the other airlines are around $1100. Check out Kayak, which is how we found it. See you soon!