un bon weekend a Normandie
This weekend, I went to Normandy with my friend Christine to visit a French family in Vernon, which is just a skip and a jump from Giverny, where Monet painted the famous bridge and lots of other things. We did a lot of things, including accidently walking to Giverny (which we found out when they drove us there the next day. Too bad the gardens are closed until April, but we did see Monet's house and it's still veddy veddy pretty), reading some interesting French children's books, and going to the marché, or the market. The marché was probably the most fun part, we got to talk to various French merchants, browse around books and clothes and fish, and buy some cute things for cheap. I got a new bag, a new hat, and various small pieces of jewelry for lesssss than what it cost me to buy a shirt at Paris. Also, bought a few bottles of a regional specialty, cider, which we brought back to Paris for our friends.
I spent most of the weekend speaking French with our hosts, and a kind of French-English hybrid with Christine, because we wanted to practice but sometimes we just gave up. One of our hosts told me that, although I don't have the vocabulary of fluent people, I don't have much of an American accent which some of them can never manage, and I should keep trying to work toward fluency. Which has inspired me to try harder at learning French here, now that I feel I have the potential to do it very well.
Some pictures!
Proof that not all of the Seine is gross and full of trash.
Me walking down a typical Normandy street. Woooo!
My hair is getting really really long.
Today the weather in Paris is just miserable. Rain that goes from trickling to ghastly, violent wind that with every step threatens the very life of my umbrella, puddles of muddy water from the construction on my street. Oh, how I long for the temperate blizzards of the Midwest! Eh, or not. I am in Paris after all.
I spent most of the weekend speaking French with our hosts, and a kind of French-English hybrid with Christine, because we wanted to practice but sometimes we just gave up. One of our hosts told me that, although I don't have the vocabulary of fluent people, I don't have much of an American accent which some of them can never manage, and I should keep trying to work toward fluency. Which has inspired me to try harder at learning French here, now that I feel I have the potential to do it very well.
Some pictures!
Proof that not all of the Seine is gross and full of trash.
Me walking down a typical Normandy street. Woooo!
My hair is getting really really long.
Today the weather in Paris is just miserable. Rain that goes from trickling to ghastly, violent wind that with every step threatens the very life of my umbrella, puddles of muddy water from the construction on my street. Oh, how I long for the temperate blizzards of the Midwest! Eh, or not. I am in Paris after all.