La fête des amoureux

Before leaving for the two-week vacances d'hiver, I discussed Valentine's Day with my primary school kids. This evoked a lot of giggles and excitement among the 8-10 year-olds. When I asked them how la Saint Valentin is celebrated in France, I got some cute comments, e.g. " Moi j'ai un amoureux - c'est Brice qui est dans l'autre classe" and "Le jour de la Saint Valentin, on va au cinéma et... je ne sais pas ce qu'on fait apres (impish smile)". Also some not so cute comments from the CM2s- "Qu'est-ce qu'on fait pour la Saint Valentin? On fait l'amour!"

I had them cut out little photocopied Snoopy Valentines after explaining the U.S. tradition that all elementary school students give a little Valentine's Day card to each and every one of their classmates, and asked them to fill out the blank spaces after "TO" and "FROM". This elicited a lot of confusion in the manner of "Can I give the card to two people?" "Can I send the card in the mail?" "How do you say belle-mère in English?" and my favorite, "Je suis obligé de le donner à une girl?" which was satisfying because at least one word was in English.

Valentine's Day itself was spent, rather appropriately I suppose, at the American consulate in Marseille getting the certificat de coutume and the certificat de célibat (which doesn't quite translate literally as "certificate of celibacy") which I'll need before Ahamed and I can get legally married at the mairie here in Montpellier. We arrived early in Marseille and did some sightseeing, including le vieux port, pictured above.