Les Jolies Pitts have arrived!

At last! The suspense is broken! The golden couple, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, last night became the proud parents of a boy, Knox Leon, and a girl, Vivienne Marcheline.

Why report on this in the Chateau Lalinde Blog? Well, it has to be acknowledged that these two, Brad and Angelina, have become the past masters of manipulation of the press. Even Madonna can come learn a thing or two from them, and I am quite sure that in time to come -- if it is not already happening -- students of sociology and psychology will be writing their doctoral theses on the subject of media manipulation -- using Pitt and Jolie as their single case study.

I may sound a little cynical on this beautiful Monday morning in July - in France - but ---
Have you noticed the date? 14 July! Yes! The storming of the Bastille is being celebrated throughout France today with dances, bands, flags and pennants, fireworks and jubilation.
Have you noticed in which country these babies were born? France, of course -- the country where Bastille Day is celebrated most notably!
Have you noticed how these twins were born? By caesarean procedure -- where the mother and the doctor can pretty much decide the day and time -- within reason, of course.
Have you noticed the comment? "The twins were born slightly earlier than scheduled", gynaecologist Michel Sussmann commented.......

Anyway -- we congratulate the couple and the siblings on the new additions to the family -- and we wish the new-born babies everything of the best that the world can offer them. Welcome to the World, little ones -- stay sane, stay grounded and be happy!

From AFP this morning:
Jolie, 33, gave birth to the twins last evening during a half-hour caesarean operation at a maternity clinic in Nice on the French Riviera.
"Everything went smoothly. The children are doing very well, the mother is doing very well and the father is doing very well," told AFP.
Knox Leon weighed 2.27 kg and Vivienne Marcheline 2.28 kg.
Pitt, who had attended the birth by caesarean of their daughter Shiloh, "was very calm and was not at all disturbed" by the operation, said Sussman.
"When the babies arrived he was very euphoric" and Jolie had a "blinding smile".
Jolie is set to stay several more days at the Fondation Lenval clinic to recover.

The first photograph of the baby celebrities was sold to a US paper for $US11 million ($A11.5 million), the regional Nice-Matin newspaper said, adding that the money would be given to a humanitarian cause.

The twins brought the number of Jolie's children with 44-year-old Pitt to six.
Dubbed "Brangelina" in the press, the couple have adopted three children: Maddox, six, born in Cambodia; four-year-old Pax, born in Vietnam; and Zahara, three, born in Ethiopia. Their biological child, Shiloh, was born May 2006 in Namibia.

The pair, who frequently top magazine lists of the world's most beautiful people, set up home in May in a chateau they rented from an American acquaintance in France's Provence region. In addition to her movie career and founding a family with Pitt, she works as a goodwill ambassador for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.


The Before and After? Let's hope not!

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Relocation Orientation in France

Americans in France

In my recent article for the Expatica.com website, I made a few observations about why Americans go to Paris and the British come to the Dordogne. This article caused quite a storm in the big tea cup of the cyber world, and in that stormy process, I discovered a number of blogs and sites where similar issues are addressed.

One such blog,
Americans in France, writes in particular about the Americans in France. Although his statistics seem a little suspect -- they are vastly different from the official current numbers of 700 000 Brits and 165 000 Americans in France - of which 50 000 in Paris, and this always makes then wonder about the rest of the article, I did find it an interesting read. This is what he has to say:

"Although your first thought might be that Americans in France would end up, for the most part, in the same areas of France as the Brits, this isn’t actually the case so funnily enough there is very little interaction between the two communities.

Generally speaking, the Brits end up in Brittany/Normandy, Dordogne/Loire, and Provence with the Americans largely confined to Paris, though obviously there are a lot of exceptions to this.

One of the more complete sites is Americans in France which seems to be a fairly complete reference guide for Americans aiming to move over here. Interestingly for me is that they still need to declare their income to the US tax authorities.

Of interest to the parents amongst us is the list of bilingual schools. You might think that the list on the site “must” be too short. There are bound to be more bilingual schools in France, aren’t there? Well, there might be a few more but there aren’t an awful lot more which is something you may want to factor in when you’re considering where in France you might want to settle. If you don’t arrange bilingual teaching for your children from about age 11-18, they will not be fluent English speakers and that will set them at a major disadvantage in their future life.

Not listed on the site are the international schools though there aren’t many of these either and bilingual is the way to go. International schools don’t raise children to fluency in both languages as you might expect.

Anyway, lots to see on the site."


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Chateau Lalinde : The perfect venue for your event

Relocation Orientation in France