Learning French

So how does one learn a language? Good question. It still seems a miracle to me with any bilingual individual to be able to just get it. To be able to flip flop back and forth between one language and the next with ease seems miraculous to me. In any case, the more we learn here, the more we realize just how far we have to go to even become close to bilingual. It seems hopeless at times. Other times when a recognizable phrase comes out of the crowd or the TV or wherever, and we immediately understand without thinking, that's when the learning feels like magic. I think if there weren't any of that magic, we would have given up long ago. So in any case, how are we undertaking this seemingly impossible feat? Recently, we've been starting each morning with a 20 min podcast. Our hosts Mark and Anna have become dear friends of ours as we join them with our breakfast for a bit of enlightenment and new vocab. Another best friend besides Mr. Pocket Dictionary is Mr. Google Translate. He can talk both English and French for us, so we like him a lot. There's been many hours sitting with Mr. Translate forming sentences, and us talking to ourselves. Our neighbors probably think we're nuts. Especially when we yell out a new phrase we've just learned, then revert back to english for the rest of the thought. Adam and I have placed post-its around the apartment as reminders and try to speak in French to each other both at home, and especially in public so that our English twang doesn't fully give us away. Oh, most importantly, there's the awkward situations where we actually have to talk to people. This is a bit nerve-racking because you never know what to expect, your senses are on high alert with the hope your brain doesn't shut down when trying to form a response. One Sunday afternoon, we went out for coffee with some parisian friends we recently met. Although their English is great, they asked if we were would be speaking French this time. Through patience and persistence, and a bit of English here and there, we were able to sustain a fairly primitive conversation for over an hour. I'm sure the conversation wasn't as exciting as it could have been, but it was a start. Ben Franklin once stated that the moment you go to a place where you don't know the language, you automatically lose half of your intelligence. He's completely right. We've reverted back to the age of toddlers just starting out in society. Hopefully with enough wine, cheese, and coffee with friends, we'll hit a growth spurt soon.


Oh yeah, and there's youtube, too. Check out this gem. Learning about the word ' to go'...

Phones

Another hoop outa the way. We finally bit the bullet and went and bought phones. Ok, that was never the initial intention, but after visiting the SFR store (a particular phone company), we somehow each walked out with our own little shopping bags. The way it works, usually, is that students from the previous year sell their phones to the incoming students. Seeing that there were a few unclaimed after the students had their pick, Adam snagged two for us. We charged them up only to see a message saying our SIM Cards were invalid, and had thrown those aside for the past month thinking, ahhh we’ll figure this out later.  Yesterday, we finally made the leap. Stepping into a rather B.O. infested SFR store, we showed a salesman that our phones didn’t work…saying we needed new SIM Cards. He said something to the effect of, yeah, they’re no good. And I asked, so can we just buy new SIM Cards? He made some comment, and then brought us over to the new phones. Adam said he had understood something to the effect that if the phone hadn’t been used for 6 months, then it was no longer useable. I was skeptical, but followed the man. I wasn’t really sure how to refute this. Mind you, this was all in French, the gentleman speaking long fluent sentences with us stuttering stupid phrases. You’d be skeptical, too. So we picked out the cheapest of the texting phones, bought some minutes, slipped around getting sucked into a contract, then continued on our merry ways getting the things fired up. That man said a lot that night that flew right over my head, and that made me nervous, which made my French turn from bad to worse. For awhile, there was a long awkward standoff between all three of us as the man kept saying something about a ‘code-pin’….which sounds just like the French word for ‘friend’, ‘Copine’. It just didn’t click with us. God this language is impossible sometimes! So yeah, from smart phones back to dumb phones feeling even dumber at the phone store. For all we know, we could’ve just been ripped off. But hell, sometimes it just feels better to say whatever… at least that’s outa the way!

Thanksgiving (the store)

We signed up to bring some cranberry sauce to a Thanksgiving dinner over Thanksgiving weekend (I'll be using that word a few more times, so bear with me). Bridgette and I looked in several (4? 5?) grocery stores in the neighborhood, but alas, no canneberge to be found. We even took a looooong trip out to Auchan, some giant general store akin to a SuperTarget, but they only had tiny jars of Ocean Spray cranberry sauce for about $5 each. We needed to provide enough for 14 people at a Thanksgiving dinner.

Luckily (?), Paris has a store called "Thanksgiving" which sells year-round American goods. "Goods," meaning Pop Tarts, peanut butter, Jell-o, Mountain Dew, corn syrup, Aunt Jemima's, brown sugar... you get the point. Oh, and they have cranberries for sale, as well, at €4.50 for a 12 oz. bag.

I shouldn't make it sound like they only have sugary foodstuffs. They also prepare turkeys for American Thanksgiving meals, and provide a chance to buy some other American items, such as chili powder, canned chicken broth, chocolate chips (oops! sugar), corn meal, Mac n Cheese, cheddar cheese, refried beans, and much more than I can handle writing without needing to go eat lunch.

So Bridgette and I were able to whip together a successful cranberry sauce.

Alsace Road Trip (part 2)

To add a few bits to the Alsace Road Trip Weekend:

The morning after our squatting camping experience, fog had settled over the fields and really gave an eerie feeling to start the day:



Bridgette, my navigator extradinaire, led us successfully to Riquewihr, a little medieval town that has kept its appearance for a few hundred years, as well as its walls. I couldn't help but feel like I was transferred to Disneyland while walking around the tiny cobblestone streets with innkeepers and tourists. We saw no dwarfs or elves, unfortunately.



And we caught some good sunlight beaming into Saint Étienne de Metz. This is truly a huge, glorious cathedral. Almost too much.



Slideshow of our weekend.

Happy Thanksgiving

Bridgette and I attended the SAPV Thanksgiving dinner last night, which was held at Au Chapeau Gris. Items we learned from last night:

• Allegedly the pilgrims discovered America with Columbus sailing the ocean blue in the Mayflower.
  (These are architecture students. Not history buffs.)
• One can draw direct comparisons between the Native Americans / Pilgrims and the French / American students.
• Squanto was a good guy.
• A French interpretation of Thanksgiving cuisine is delicious.
  
  
• The youngest professor gets to make a speech. Guess who that was?
• A 7.30pm dinner means show up at 8pm, sit down at 8.30pm, start eating around 9pm, then have to rush out to catch a train at 11.15pm.

Besides the abrupt ending to the night, we had a great time chatting with the students and other guests and enjoying some American tradition. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone out there!

An Afternoon in Chambord

(Wrapping up the Saumur trip...)

The Saumur weekend trip ended with an afternoon visit to Chambord. I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

And they will sketch. Always.

Pharmacies - WTF

Every now and then, there’s one of the WTF moments…as we like to say, ‘What the France?!’ Our cultures have their differences, and that’s all well and good, but sometimes you have to just shake your heads and let out a confused ‘WTF?!’. We’ll be sharing these as they come up, but for now, here’s some randomness we just learned.

I’m reading a book called ‘At Home in Paris – Your Guide to living in the Capital,’ and there’s a section on pharmacies. Luckily, France hasn’t been overrun with Walgreens and CVS’s, but you will find the French version scattered everywhere throughout the city. Here’s an excerpt from the book:

“Identified by a green cross and governed by a strict set of legal regulations, pharmacists are highly trained professionals who do more that simply dispense prescribed medicines. They can give medical advice on minor medical complaints…and will also administer basic first aid. For instance, if you happen to fall on a sidewalk and cut your knee, go to the nearest pharmacy for treatment…”

Ok, that’s cool, right? But then, continuing on…

“ …Lastly, Pharmacists are also knowledgeable about mushrooms. If you pick mushrooms and aren’t sure if they’re edible, bring them to your pharmacy for identification and advice.”

Um…WTF?! I guess that could be useful?