Have accomplished absolutely nothing on The Wolf Prince this week, but got tons of other stuff done, mostly relating to health and my upcoming trip to Europe
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Avignon, Orange, Arles, Nimes... I can still see them with utter clarity in my mind's eye, even though I was last there in '81. Peering into the narrow, dark water channel at the top of the Pont d'Avignon and declining a dare to shimmy through it like some of the other kids. Orange's fabulous amphitheatre. The remains of Arles' Roman forum, the fragmented columns glowing in the late afternoon light, and Nimes' coliseum, where I swear I encountered the tangible memory of a Roman centurion.
*sigh*
Make sure you buy some of Provence's famous lavender products! The hard-milled soap in particular is worth every penny because it lasts for ever!
I'm very excited about the visit to Provence! And am glad to hear you have such wonderful memories of the south of France.
As an added benefit, the tour will be conducted entirely in German, so it'll be a good refresher course for me. I used to be fluent, still understand almost everything, but my grammar when speaking/writing has degenerated horribly through lack of practice.
My French language skills are on par with my Turkish and Italian--I can order a meal, and ask for basic things (bathroom, hotel, train tickets) but I'm not conversational by any means. My Japanese is slightly better than that, as I understand a fair amount of non-essential vocabulary, but I am still very far from having any kind of conversational fluency.
And I love lavender. I will likely be buying a number of soaps to bring back as omeyagi to friends and family.
I'm planning to bring "Purple Sonya," my ancient Sony mini-laptop, on this trip, so I'll be writing a travel journal again, and posting to LiveJournal whenever I have Internet access.
In the past, I've been mistaken for being either Dutch or Danish while traveling in Germany, because I've got the right ethnic appearance, and my German is accented and frequently not quite right from an idiom or grammar perspective, but I don't speak it with a typical American accent.
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Avignon, Orange, Arles, Nimes... I can still see them with utter clarity in my mind's eye, even though I was last there in '81. Peering into the narrow, dark water channel at the top of the Pont d'Avignon and declining a dare to shimmy through it like some of the other kids. Orange's fabulous amphitheatre. The remains of Arles' Roman forum, the fragmented columns glowing in the late afternoon light, and Nimes' coliseum, where I swear I encountered the tangible memory of a Roman centurion.
*sigh*
Make sure you buy some of Provence's famous lavender products! The hard-milled soap in particular is worth every penny because it lasts for ever!
Reply
As an added benefit, the tour will be conducted entirely in German, so it'll be a good refresher course for me. I used to be fluent, still understand almost everything, but my grammar when speaking/writing has degenerated horribly through lack of practice.
My French language skills are on par with my Turkish and Italian--I can order a meal, and ask for basic things (bathroom, hotel, train tickets) but I'm not conversational by any means. My Japanese is slightly better than that, as I understand a fair amount of non-essential vocabulary, but I am still very far from having any kind of conversational fluency.
And I love lavender. I will likely be buying a number of soaps to bring back as omeyagi to friends and family.
Reply
too bad one can't experience 'taste' through another-- ahh, the foods!
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