After today, I highly recommend that people NOT go school supply shopping in a completely foreign language. As is probably typical (though I have no idea, since we're HOME SCHOOLERS), we received very specific lists from the school, of course in Catalan, of all the items needed for 1st and 3rd grades. We were told go to a particular store for the supplies and that they'd help us find all the items. That was true. And the store, though outrageously expensive, did help me a lot.

Trying to be well-prepared for this shopping experience, I'd translated the lists in google. The "box of scarves" turned out to be a box of facial tissues. The "colors of wood" turned out to be colored pencils. In retrospect they seem obvious. However, when one was at the store, amidst the pre school-year chaos, NOTHING was obvious. How to use one of Charles' folders is still a mystery to me! Why I paid over $20 for one pencil case is another mystery.

I'm just grateful there was someone to help. Who knows what the kids would have pulled out of their backpacks at school if there hadn't been! And now that those backpacks are prepared for Tuesday morning, I sit back, relax...and take joy in cross-cultural living.