11 March 2008

i love le mardi

Dear Readers,

I love Tuesdays. Tuesday accidentally became mine and Jessica's dessert day, I don't really know why. The first week of classes, we found that we both ended at the same time, and we went to the grocery store at the other end of campus and bought chocolate. The next week, we went to the grocery store again, but this time we bought pre-made crêpes and nutella, which we ate with coffee (hers) and tea (mine). It was magnificent, and every week since then, we've gone and made ourselves happy (also a little guilty) every mardi after class.

Today we went to our favorite boulangerie/pâtisserie. C'est La Fournée St. Michel. "Le art de faire bon et de faire bien, au quotidien." The art to do good and to do well, like always. They make the most beautiful double chocolate chip cookies my mouth has ever seen, not even lying. Although today I got a chocolate éclair, Jessica got a religieuse, Ian got a cookie, Mark got nothing, and we went to a café and had our treats. Lovely. Sooooo lovely.

After that the four of us went on a walk. This means I said, "Hey, let's go down there" and an hour later we were finally on the metro going back to St. Anne and our buses. An HOUR of walking. That's not too bad. I loved it. We walked almost directly south, and then veared east, away from things. We almost made it to the outskirts, I think. I love Rennes. I'm hitting myself for having left my camera at home. I just never know when I'm going to end up balader-ing, or when I'm just going to go home from class.

Did you know that the French don't capitalize their days of the week? It's kinda cool. And also, with names that we would usually capitalize all the way through, such as 'National Assembly', they only capitalize the first word, like with 'Assemblée national'. Interesting.

Today at dinner my mère asked me what kind of generalisations me and my friends have made about the French. I told her closed doors, chicken and rabbits with the heads still on, and eating everything with a knife and fork. She loves knowing what silly things Americans think of the French. On the other hand, it led to a FANTASTIC conversation with both mes parents, and we talked for a long time about different cultures, the difference between French and American work ethics, and some other things. For once I finally felt like I was expressing myself well, and not just utterly failing at life.

Today Mark bought some noodles (why in the world do I keep typing that as 'noddles'? every single time, I swear, I can't handle it anymore!) from Rennes' version of fast food and the lady tried to serve him in English and he got really angry. It may have been mine and Jessica's fault because we yelled at him in English from outside. He did answer in French, though. Mes parents and I talked about that too, how you never know if the person is being condescending, if they're trying to help, or if they just want to practice their mad English skills.

I've discovered that I can't spell in English anymore. I want to say that this is a good thing, but I'm not so sure. Condescending just suddenly had too many 'i's. Poo.

Haha that reminds me. During one of the breaks today (one every hour) I went into the caféteria at Cirefe to eat a banana and talk to people about vacation and while I was there Abby and Julia had some fun with my notebook.
When I got back I sat down; didn't even notice that it was closed, and started listening. Acouple minutes later, when the teacher said something I thought was interesting, I pulled over my notebook to write something down. And there, on the bottom of the page, in huge majuscule latters, was the word POOP.

Yes, what mature people I know. Of course I started laughing to myself. Who wouldn't? It's like, required. Someone mentions poo, you laugh, it's that simple. But I was in the middle of class. NO laughing. Plus, if you laugh, then the teacher asks you to share with the class, and there was no way in a purple and green polka dot moon that I was going to explain that my friends had written POOP in my cahier. So I just nudged the two girls and showed them their own work and then we all three were shaking with laughter. Shaking, I'm telling you.

I'm going to Prague for vacation. Strasbourg-Prague-Bits of Germany-UK, to be exact.
If you know people a group of at least four can stay with in any of those areas, let me know. It's a two week break. I like keeping my money. I really do. I love my money, in fact.

Haha... it's 23h16. That translates as bed time.

1 comment:

Mrs. G said...

Hi Michelle ~ I'm so glad you're back. I'm thoroughly enjoying the blog in spite of the fact that it seriously makes me want to travel. We leave to visit Kaylan at the end of the month.
Hugs & blessings,
Mrs. G