Initial thoughts on France: (While I work off some jet lag)
Spent two weeks in France. One week with just Jenny and I in Paris, and the second week with an old friend wandering the southern countryside.
Bare minimal words to know in French:
• Hello
• Thank you
• Two
• Please
• English
• Pardon
We hung out with a pen pall of mine for a week and nearly doubled the amount of face time we’ve ever had together. Some people are just awesome. Especially when singing in an old stone-arched room with magnificent acoustics.
In Japan I don’t think that I learned that much, but we also had an escort that whole trip. However, I had at least learned to count to ten. In French I only managed to get to five.
France has a lot of art. This is interesting, but I don’t know that I know or care enough about art to have spent so much time looking at it. The architecture however... The exterior of all of the buildings looked like they were in a 17th century time bubble, but the interiors were all renovated to be reasonably current.
The US has a lot to learn about mass transit. France has a lot to learn about roads, though the roundabouts everywhere were an interesting step up from the more useless stoplights/signs.
Castles! Some quite warn out, others very well kept. Surprisingly many of the tourist trap merchants lived within the ancient walled portion of the city right next to their shops. Living in/near a castle like that would be pretty awesome, though I’d have to work on my fear of heights.
Some of these cities were 2500 years old. No wonder the roads were messed up.
France lives on ham and cheese sandwiches and wine. No wonder they care so much about their bread, cheese, and wine. Oddly nobody made a big deal about the ham.
Chateau d'If! To my amusement this was primarily a monument to Alexander Dumas and his book The Count of Monte Christo. Then again, that's the only reason I wanted to go there.
Bare minimal words to know in French:
• Hello
• Thank you
• Two
• Please
• English
• Pardon
We hung out with a pen pall of mine for a week and nearly doubled the amount of face time we’ve ever had together. Some people are just awesome. Especially when singing in an old stone-arched room with magnificent acoustics.
In Japan I don’t think that I learned that much, but we also had an escort that whole trip. However, I had at least learned to count to ten. In French I only managed to get to five.
France has a lot of art. This is interesting, but I don’t know that I know or care enough about art to have spent so much time looking at it. The architecture however... The exterior of all of the buildings looked like they were in a 17th century time bubble, but the interiors were all renovated to be reasonably current.
The US has a lot to learn about mass transit. France has a lot to learn about roads, though the roundabouts everywhere were an interesting step up from the more useless stoplights/signs.
Castles! Some quite warn out, others very well kept. Surprisingly many of the tourist trap merchants lived within the ancient walled portion of the city right next to their shops. Living in/near a castle like that would be pretty awesome, though I’d have to work on my fear of heights.
Some of these cities were 2500 years old. No wonder the roads were messed up.
France lives on ham and cheese sandwiches and wine. No wonder they care so much about their bread, cheese, and wine. Oddly nobody made a big deal about the ham.
Chateau d'If! To my amusement this was primarily a monument to Alexander Dumas and his book The Count of Monte Christo. Then again, that's the only reason I wanted to go there.