SPEAK!

Bonjour! Today Daniel (a boy in our program who has dredlocks and one of our professors calls him "Medusa") had the foresight to plan a simply marvelous picnic in the Jardin des Plantes (side note: Jardin des Plantes means “Garden of Plants” if you couldn’t guess. Excuse me French naming system….but seriously. That is very weak. They are not very creative with the names here. I live on Rue Jacques Labatut, which is acceptable because apparently this Labatut fellow did something noteworthy, but the surrounding streets are: Rue des Vases, Rue des Jardins, Rue des Pottiers (potters). I think someone pulled an Anchorman and was like “I love [looks around room]…..vases! Let’s name a road after them!” End of incredibly long side note.) So we all went there after class and it was soooo beautiful out after the incredibly yucky rain we’ve been having. And I was French and I ate a baguette (bread here is absolutely to die for, even at cheap little supermarkets!), cheese, a mix between yogurt and applesauce with raspberries type thing that I absolutely love, a nectarine, and a pastry. Ohhh, so delicious! And some people had wine, it was all very cute. And then we went to Darty, the electronics store, and while speaking very poor French, tried to purchase an adaptor/converter for various things that we had that didn’t work in France. I think I might have hit the jackpot, we’ll see tonight if I don’t burn the house down from some electrical circuit thing!

That was pretty much today. I had a long conversation with my host mom about various things, and I think I was having a pretty good “French day” today, because we managed to have a lovely conversation during which I was only confused a couple of times. Yess, go me! And I commented that I thought fruit here was really good (it’s delicious!), and my host parents told me it’s because France is smaller than the United States, so fruits get places faster and are more fresh for the buying. Excellent! I thought that made a lot of sense, and I wondered why I didn’t think of that. Also, a woman approached me on my way to the Dickinson Center today and asked me where some tea room was, and I was like “I don’t know, sorry” and I think she thought I just didn’t understand her because the minute I open my mouth it’s obviously that I am not a native French speaker, but I can handle “I don’t know, sorry”. So she asked again, and I reiterated that I was sorry, but I didn’t know where that place was. I think she wanted to continue our lovely little encounter, but I had to get to class, so I apologized again and walked away, and while I walked away she goes “SPEAK!” in English. Excuse me, crazy woman, what does that even mean? I giggled on my way to class.

C’est tout. Bonne nuit!