"I'm French! Why do you think I have this outrageous accent, you silly English pig-dog?!"
In less than a month, I shall be in France.
I know, I haven't said anything about this before, so most of you will be surprised. In fact, now that I'm thinking about it...I think only Sarah, Crystal, and Allan actually know about this. Not that I've been trying to keep it a secret! I found out a little over a month ago that I'd be travelling to France, and I mean to post about it, and then I totally spaced and forgot, and by that point I had known about it for so long that I forgot to tell people when I would talk to them. Spacey, I know...
So, I'm going to France. Remember my downstairs neighbors from last year, The French? Well, in case you never guessed, they were from France - Paris, to be exact. They went back this past fall and have been hassling my mother to come visit them ever since. My mom had already decided to go this summer and had bought a ticket for herself when she began to ask whether I would want to go. Of course, I had wanted to go from the start but a round-trip ticket to Paris is "trop cher" (too expensive), so I had been steadily turning her down...until she offered to pay for my ticket, as a sort of birthday present for the next five years. (Hopefully she'll forget after 2, but knowing my mother, she'll be reminding me of it until the day I die.) Being the sort who never passes up a free trip to anywhere, I immediately accepted...well, I did sort of hesitate since Sarah and I have been planning for years to go to Paris together...but I figured that if she couldn't understand a free trip to Paris, then she was crazy! Plus, this can be "research" for when she and I go together.
So on June 14th, I shall be flying to France! We are going to spend 2 weeks there. The first week, we'll be staying in Paris at The French's apartment. Marion and Pascal are both doctors and work long hours, so the week we're in Paris Mom and I will be exploring the city just the two of us. Then, the next week, all 5 of us will be going to the south of France. Marion's parents have a home right on the beach down there, so we'll stay a week in that area. (I know, I'm making it very hard for any of you to feel sorry for me.) So really, this is a dream vacation - we're going to two awesome places and we don't have to pay ANY hotel fees! How often does that happen?
I've been trying to brush up on my French, but I know that it's going to be extremely difficult. My problem has never been reading it, and I can cobble a sentence together well enough that they should (hopefully) be able to understand me. My problem has always been hearing what people say in a foreign language and being able to translate it in my head. Last year, practicing with Marion and Pascal, I was constantly saying, "Qua?" which means "what?" because they talk so quickly. We'll see how it goes. I am UBER-excited about all of this. Expect postcards!
On Sunday, I was going through this gigantic box o' stuff that I had lugged from my parents home up to Cleveland, knowing that it was filled with stuff I probably didn't care about any more but also know that it was so damn big (I could easily fit into it) that it would take some time to look through. Finally, on Sunday, after having successfully ignored it sitting in the middle of my room for 2.5 weeks (and in my closet for 4 months before that), I dragged it to the living room and began to go through its contents. I found pages of old emails between "us five" - Darriel, Maria, Rob, Allan, and myself - from way back in high school. Looking at them, I can of course remember why I saved them in the first place...but with so much distance between myself and that time period, I don't feel an especially strong urge to continue to save them. I look at the girl I was back then, and I'm more than willing to let that go. After all, I have some of those friendships still...why do I need to continue to be a pack-rat? (Maria & Allan, I am holding on to them so you can see them, just for the fun of it.) I also found all - and I mean ALL - of the photographs I've had over the past decade or so, and I've decided that by the end of this summer, they must be in photo albums. It's time to either do something with them or just accept that I'm not going to use them and pitch them out.
That's most of the news from here. I'm sure other things have been happening, but nothing of import. Viva la France!
I know, I haven't said anything about this before, so most of you will be surprised. In fact, now that I'm thinking about it...I think only Sarah, Crystal, and Allan actually know about this. Not that I've been trying to keep it a secret! I found out a little over a month ago that I'd be travelling to France, and I mean to post about it, and then I totally spaced and forgot, and by that point I had known about it for so long that I forgot to tell people when I would talk to them. Spacey, I know...
So, I'm going to France. Remember my downstairs neighbors from last year, The French? Well, in case you never guessed, they were from France - Paris, to be exact. They went back this past fall and have been hassling my mother to come visit them ever since. My mom had already decided to go this summer and had bought a ticket for herself when she began to ask whether I would want to go. Of course, I had wanted to go from the start but a round-trip ticket to Paris is "trop cher" (too expensive), so I had been steadily turning her down...until she offered to pay for my ticket, as a sort of birthday present for the next five years. (Hopefully she'll forget after 2, but knowing my mother, she'll be reminding me of it until the day I die.) Being the sort who never passes up a free trip to anywhere, I immediately accepted...well, I did sort of hesitate since Sarah and I have been planning for years to go to Paris together...but I figured that if she couldn't understand a free trip to Paris, then she was crazy! Plus, this can be "research" for when she and I go together.
So on June 14th, I shall be flying to France! We are going to spend 2 weeks there. The first week, we'll be staying in Paris at The French's apartment. Marion and Pascal are both doctors and work long hours, so the week we're in Paris Mom and I will be exploring the city just the two of us. Then, the next week, all 5 of us will be going to the south of France. Marion's parents have a home right on the beach down there, so we'll stay a week in that area. (I know, I'm making it very hard for any of you to feel sorry for me.) So really, this is a dream vacation - we're going to two awesome places and we don't have to pay ANY hotel fees! How often does that happen?
I've been trying to brush up on my French, but I know that it's going to be extremely difficult. My problem has never been reading it, and I can cobble a sentence together well enough that they should (hopefully) be able to understand me. My problem has always been hearing what people say in a foreign language and being able to translate it in my head. Last year, practicing with Marion and Pascal, I was constantly saying, "Qua?" which means "what?" because they talk so quickly. We'll see how it goes. I am UBER-excited about all of this. Expect postcards!
On Sunday, I was going through this gigantic box o' stuff that I had lugged from my parents home up to Cleveland, knowing that it was filled with stuff I probably didn't care about any more but also know that it was so damn big (I could easily fit into it) that it would take some time to look through. Finally, on Sunday, after having successfully ignored it sitting in the middle of my room for 2.5 weeks (and in my closet for 4 months before that), I dragged it to the living room and began to go through its contents. I found pages of old emails between "us five" - Darriel, Maria, Rob, Allan, and myself - from way back in high school. Looking at them, I can of course remember why I saved them in the first place...but with so much distance between myself and that time period, I don't feel an especially strong urge to continue to save them. I look at the girl I was back then, and I'm more than willing to let that go. After all, I have some of those friendships still...why do I need to continue to be a pack-rat? (Maria & Allan, I am holding on to them so you can see them, just for the fun of it.) I also found all - and I mean ALL - of the photographs I've had over the past decade or so, and I've decided that by the end of this summer, they must be in photo albums. It's time to either do something with them or just accept that I'm not going to use them and pitch them out.
That's most of the news from here. I'm sure other things have been happening, but nothing of import. Viva la France!