Euro Sense

Today we are studying French money. France used to have its own currency, but now it has joined the European Union and so they use the Euro. The European bills are called Euros. Euros come in different colors and sizes.

The 500 Euro is purple and is the largest sized bill. (We haven’t seen the real large bills, just pictures of them in a book.) The 200 Euro is yellow and it is the second largest bill. The 100 Euro is green and it is the third largest bill. The fifty is orange and it is the fourth largest bill.

The 20 Euro is blue and it is the third smallest bill. The 10 Euro is red and it is the second smallest bill. The 5 Euro is black and it is the smallest bill. These smaller bills are the ones we typically use. All of these smaller bills have a shiny silver strip on the right side of the bill.

There are lots of different Euro coins! The one and two Euro coins are made of two kinds of metal: gold and silver. The 2 Euro coin is gold in the middle and silver on the outside. On the 1 Euro coin it’s the opposite. Also, the 2 Euro coins are larger than the 1 Euor coin.

There are five more kinds of coins. There is the 50 cent (cent means Eurocent, or centimes in the old French franc), which are gold and heavier than a quarter. It’s Worth about 75 cents in the United States. There is a 20 cent Gold coin and a 10 cent gold coin. Finally, there is a 5 cent copperand a small 1 cent a small 2 cent copper coin. European money is worth more than American money.

We use euros everyday. Almost every morning we go to the Boulangerie (the bakery) and buy one or two baguettes. A baguette costs 80 cents, which is about 1 American dollar. At the grocery store we like to buy fish (poisson). The other day we bought some salmon (saumon) which cost 6.95 euros. We have found it easy to spend euro money

Some of the foods we eat

Trip to Nimes and Les Cevennes

Big family trip last weekend took us along the coast north of Perpignan to Montpellier and a night in Nimes, an ancient Roman city with a working coliseum, temple to Dianna, and other relics two millennia old.

One of the highlights of our trip was a stop at the Pont du Gard, a three story aqueduct built by the Romans two thousand years ago to supply the city of Nimes with water.

(Johann) 1st Century AD, Nimes amphitheatre is one of the largest in Roman Gaul. It measures about 133m in length and 101m in width.

Gladiators fought and now there are bullfights. We went to the bookstore. We bought the Harry Potter DVD, book about Napoleon, French CD of stories and songs.
It got late and we were hungry (nous avons faim!). We went to a restaurant. On the way we walked down a narrow street and saw a fountain. The fountain was a crocodile the town’s coat of arms.

(Karl writes)
We went to the Cevennes, a very large mountainous area in south-eastern France. We drove on the peaks of mountains. On the way, as were winding in and out on the switch-backs, we noticed a big red jeep was behind us. The driver was driving over the line. Dad made a joke and we started calling him, “Mr. Jeep” Finally, after 20 or 30 more switchbacks, he pulled off into a driveway and we never saw him again.

It got dark very soon. We drove through lots and lots of snow (and black-ice).

To Kai in Ireland, your house is just off the Cami del Mas Barretina, an L shaped lane not far from the centre ville. Let me know the address and I can snap a photo of it for you. Send an email to csauer at dwci.edu

Note to friends and family, you can reach us via email at familysauer at iowatelecom.net. Just substitute an @ for the ‘at’

Chris

Dogs

From Karl: What Pets are there?
DOG’S RULE!!!! Some old ladies have little yapper dogs. Some dogs give them-selves a walk. Every time we go to the soccer field (every village has one)we always have to avoid llllllllloooooooootttttttttsssssssss of dog doo-doo. At Pont du Gard we even saw dogs with-out masters (but they still had collars).

School report

(Mom’s notes which the kids read.)
We have been reading stories from Johann’s anthology book. Mom really likes the title of Unit 4 “One of a kind: What it means to be unique.” The story about Deadalus and Icarus was one we knew, but the story “Wings” was new to us. We talked about how important it is to stand up for others, like how the girl in the story stood up for the boy with wings. On page 25, she told the kids who were laughing at him to “Stop!” and “Leave him alone.” We wonder if kids at school tease other kids and if some kids tell them to stop.

We read “Hottest, coldest, highest and deepest” by Steve Jenkins. When we read about the coldest place being in Antarctica, Johann remembered the penguins he studied at Ed-Co and saw in the movies, like “The March of the Penguins.” This story talks about the physical features and the climate that we also read about in the science book. (See our Venn diagram where we compared the physical features of Colesburg, Iowa and those of where we are living here in France.)

The poem about Rocks reminds us of the rocks we found and threw in the sea at the beach in Collioure. Some of the rocks we kept and took back to our rental house.

We examined the rocks. We dipped them in water and watched their colors change. The big grey rock became darker in color. Some rocks are bigger and some are smaller. A lot of them are shiny and crystal-like. Karl let each person pick out their own favourite rock. Johann’s is light, not heavy. Karl wonders if Johann’s rock might have been a molar tooth from a whale shark. It can slide down the cover of the anthology book, if you tilt it enough.

Mom’s rock is smaller than Johann’s. Dad’s is bigger. Karl’s is smaller than Johann’s but bigger than Mom’s. Dad’s rock is the biggest, just like him!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


We wanted to find out the mass (or weight) of our rocks for Lesson 2 in Science. We did not have a scale so we put all the rocks a jar and compared its weight with things in the kitchen. We wanted to find something that was about the same weight as the rocks. One person closed his eyes and held the rocks in one hand and other things in the other hand and he decided which was heavier. First, we compared the rocks with the box of pizza dough (it weighs 520grams). The rocks were lighter. Then we compared the rocks with the ketchup (it weighs 460grams). The rocks were heavier. So, we estimated that the rocks were in between the weight of the ketchup and the weight of the pizza dough. The rocks weigh about 490grams. We made a chart and we will get some sand to finish the experiment.

we miss all of our friends and family. Thanks for the messages on the blog. We like reading them; please keep writing. We answered some of your questions below.

See you in April!

Karl, Johann, Chris and Janet

Class questions:

When are we coming back?
We're coming back to Iowa on April 13th.

Do you like France?
Yes, we like it a lot. It has good fish that we eat for dinner. It's fun to go the post office to send mail. It's fun to visit the castles, like Carcasonne and Castelnou.

What do you eat?
We eat fish, homemade pizza, lots of vegetables (carrots, lettuce, eggplant and tomatoes), and fruit (mango, kiwi, apples, strawberries, bananas and oranges). One strange thing: milk comes in a box.

Do Johann and Karl like their bikes?
Yes! We love them. We ride them almost everyday on the side roads near our village. We're safe. We wear helmets (les casques) and gloves (les gants) and ride on the right side of the road.

Do we have snow in France?
There is snow on the mountain peaks, but not here on the side of the mountain. The weather has been cool and sunny. There was rain yesterday and last night it was very windy.

Have we learned French?
Yes, simple words like baguette, numbers, monsieur and madame, how to ask for things like baguettes. 'Puis j'avoir une baguette, s'il vous plait?'

Do you like salmon?
Yes, a lot. We like bready, crunchy fish. We like trout (truit) and les crevettes (shrimp) and les langoustines (scampi). We can buy them at Champion and Carrefour (large supermarkets) and from the fishermen at the harbor on Tuesday (saumon) and Sunday (for other kinds of fish).

What kind of animals are there?
There are wild boar, squid and octopi! There are also different kinds of birds around. We saw sea urchins and mussles at the market.

What kinds of bike brands are there?
Giant (Karl's), Orbea (Mom's), Decathlon (Johann's), Kona, Cannondale and Specialized, Time, Look.

What's the money like?
I do like the money. The money is the Euro. 1 Euro equals 100 centimes or Eurocents. A Euro is worth more than a dollar, about $1.30 equals one Euro.

The bike shop in Perpignan

January 20, 2007 (Karl writing)

Going to the bikeshop was exiting. "I can't believe it," thought as we rolled down the road. "I'm going to get a real roadbike!"

I thought the bikeshop was going to be a medium-sized building made of brick like Bicicle World in Dubuque but it was a whole different story.

It was large and grey, it even had a back room to do the final-ajustment.
We got the bike and headed home.

Karl

Off to Collioure Marche

January 22, 2007 (co-writing with Johann and Karl)

Yesterday we went to Collioure, we wanted to buy some salmon from the fishermen...

But it turned out they sold it only on Tuesday. We went to the market instead and bought, eggplant, spices, lettuce, apples, bread and, tomatoes.

I threw rocks in the Mediteranean Sea. We Went to the fort (we rode a merrygoround too).


A few hours later we were speeding down the road on our bikes.
we had gone to a road mom had picked, I rode with mom first, Johann with dad then visa-versa.
(The children dictated to Mom)
Today we went to the sea and threw rocks into it. It was clear and calm. Karl collected a bunch of rocks to take home. Johann chased the pigeons.

We hiked all around the castle at Collioure and went inside the old, dark church there.

a bienntot,
the Sauer family

Rhthyms

January 16

We Were going to the Post office Mail the Letter.La Poste is on Carrer de La Posta The Soccer Field is Nearby. Bonjour a mes amis, Johann!

We’ve had an eventful few days settling into our Mas (Catalan for ‘house’) in Villelongue dels Monts. The mas is in a wonderful location just up the mountainside from the village. The Alberes range looms to the west and the eastern sun, rising over the Mediterranean, warms us early in the morning.

Our village has a small school, post office and tabac, where one can purchase little things and bread of questionable age, but we’ve been exploring the nearby villages of Laroque des Alberes (rumoured to have good pizza and decent baguettes), St Genis des Fontaines (where our packages will go if they ever arrive) and St Andre (famous for the wonderful patisserie where Janet and boys bought me my birthday sweets the other day.

Our days have developed a rhythm of cycling, reading, studying French, searching for baguettes and exploring special places. This area dates from pre-Roman times, when Celtic kings controlled Gaul. Everywhere we go we are reminded of the Roman influence, in the bains by the hot springs where they bathed, in the dammed lakes created by the Romans for water supply and flood control, to some of the ancient aqueducts that are still standing after 2000 years.

It’s not unusual to run into a 1000 year old church on one of our baguette runs. When we stop to consider how many people have lived and died since the last stone was laid, our minds our boggled!

A trip to a castle

15 January 2007

Karl: Tomorrow I’m going to get a road bike!! It might be an ORBEA or a GIANT. I think they cost about 500 euros! I already have a Discovery jersey and a Francaise des Jeux bike hat. The GIANT is red and black and the ORBEA is orange, yellow and, white.

Today is Sunday, January 14th, 2007. Yesterday we took an adventure to Carrcassonne. We took out the map and planned the trip. We added up the number of kilometres (distance) to get there, then we estimated the amount of time we thought it would take. It was almost 200 km and we guessed it would take about 2 hours going 100km per hour.

However, the drive took much longer because we had to drive very slowly as we crossed over a mountain. The road was very narrow and winding. We took pictures of it. There was a deep canyon on one side and volcanic rock on the other side. Mom was scared.

Finally, we got to Carrcassonne, a fortified city. That means there are stone walls all around it. Inside we ate lunch at a café. Also inside, there is a castle built in the 12th century. It has turrets all around it. Turrets are tall stone towers. The kids and Dad climbed up and down the long, steep, winding stone staircases.

In the castle, there were barracks for the soldiers. There was wood underneath and in front, and stone in back. The last thing we did was see the museum. There were lots of other rooms we didn’t see.
Mom left early to ride her bike. Dad an the kids met up with Mom at an intersection, something they call a roundabout. That means the cars go around a circle instead of using stoplights. Mom biked through the grape vineyards which are all around this part of France

January 11

Thursday, January 11, 2007-01-16 Compare/ Contrast
Colesburg, Iowa is different from Villelongue del Monts, France. Our house is in the country in Colesburg. Our house is in town in France. There is a baseball field in Colesburg, but there is a rugby field in Villelongue. A rugby field looks like a soccer field. In Villelongue there is a river. We threw rocks in the river. I like it here. The towns are also similar. In both towns, there is a school (ecoles), a Post Office (La Poste) and a church (Esglesia).


We left Paris on Saturday morning and drove all day through the beautiful countryside. There were several mountains and gorges caused by the volcanic action from deep within the earth. We had to drive across the tallest bridge in the world! We couldn’t take a picture because our camera was packed under our bikes.

Finally, late at night, we arrived at our rental house. It was too dark to see the Mediterranean Sea when we passed it. But we were able to see it the next day, on Sunday, because it was sunny and clear.
We finally arrived at our destination in Southern France. It was late and dark when we found the house. We had trouble finding the right key to get in.

We found a Soccer ball! We found it OutSide. I played with my mom and Karl in the yard. SOCCER is called football in French.

Arrival in Perpignan

Class,

Karl: On the plane (I got the window) in about an hour, dinner was served.
I, had penne pasta, salad, apple pie, and water … Oh, right !!! don’t forget the chocolate bar!! At 6:00 movies were showed, I watched SHRECK 1,mom and dad watched FLY BOYS.I and Johann had three hours sleep mom had two and dad only had one. Well I’d better go now see ya’ soon,

Janet: We left Paris on Saturday morning and drove all day through the beautiful countryside. There were several mountains and gorges caused by the volcanic action from deep within the earth. We had to drive across the tallest bridge in the world! We couldn’t take a picture because our camera was packed under our bikes.

Finally, late at night, we arrived at our rental house. It was too dark to see the Mediterranean Sea when we passed it. But we were able to see it the next day, on Sunday, because it was sunny and clear.

Johann: We found a Soccer ball! We found it OutSide. I played with my mom and Karl in the yard. SOCCER is called football, or Joue au foot in French.

A bientot!
Karl, Johann, Janet and Chris

We now have our internet connection set, so we'll be working on updating the blog during the day with more reports of our last week here. We miss everyone!

We're in France

We arrived tired and jetlagged on Tuesday, but all of our luggage arrived intact and it was great connecting with Bridgitte and Jean-Marc and Cedric and Julien. The weather has been typical, if warm for Paris, rainy and overcast with a few occasions of sun. We're still getting used to the sleeping schedule, moving from 2 hours on the plane Monday (night?) to 14 hours Tuesday to a fitful sleep last night. The food has been an easy adjustment and we're looking forward to our arrival in Villelongue tonight!

From Johann: It's still raining outside and it's cold. But we are playing soccer outside. I ate yogurt and orange juice for breakfast. We were playing in the park. There were rocks and sand and it looked like Narnia.