Living in France is an opportunity for AJ to learn french and for me to learn new vocabulary for me.  L’aviron is french for rowing or crew.

When I was looking for activities AJ, I found a rowing club Société des Régates Parisiennes.   While still back home, I sent them an email asking if my daughter could participate.   They were extremely kind and welcoming in their reply.  “Votre fille sera la bienvenue au club à partir de la rentrée de septembre. Et il sera très facile de trouver un moment avec Christophe, notre entraîneur, pour voir si ce sport convient à votre fille et, si l’expérience lui plaît, elle pourra bien sûr s’inscrire au club.”

Today we went to the club and they were just as welcoming in person.  We met the coach Christophe, and AJ gave rowing a try.  Where needed, I translated and Christophe also translated a bit where he could.  However, it is was easy enough for AJ to copy what the others were doing.

She loved it and the other girls were very welcoming — the boys, well they were boys.  It is a bit of a trek from our apartment but we are going to keep going for now.  Practice is three days a week, one of which is Wednesday, the day that French school-children get out early.   For my part, it was an opportunity to feel pretty good about my French, since there were a lot of details to discuss with the coach and also to translate for AJ.  Now, AJ and I just have to learn more of the specialized rowing vocabulary in French.