The Days of Wine and Roses

Et alors. I think I should retitle my entire blog to "The Stupid Things I Say In French." The most recent was when a group on international students went out to a creperie (I can't do accents on this computer, but there are some) on Saturday. After enjoying some delicious food we strolled around the centre-ville shopping area. We stopped in Sephora, a perfume boutique. By the time we reached this shop, all the non-English-speaking girls had departed, so my compadres and I were jabbering in English, drawing attention from the salespeople and other patrons. As we were exiting the store, one of the British girls and I were discussing how one might buy a perfume simply for the look rather than the smell. I held up a bottle shaped a little like an apple, with a green perfume inside. "Like this one," I said, "just because I like green!" My voice rose about three octaves during that sentence and I got a bubble in my throat, so the whole thing came out sounding like a bad imitation of Ms. Piggy. The salesman was standing about a foot away from me, and gave me a funny look, so I decided to translate for him. What went on in my mind was J'aime bien le vert=I like green. What happened was that I put the bottle back on the shelf, gave the guy a brilliant smile, and said in French "I like the greens!" then marched out of the store.

Even simple things like doing laundry can completely throw me off course. It took me about ten minutes to figure out how to start the washing machine in the laundromat, then five more minutes to realize that at 4 euros per load, I had nowhere near enough change to pay for all the laundry I needed done. Thankfully I now have clean sheets and underwear, so I'm set for the day, but I'll have to go back later in order to have clean clothes for the rest of the week. School is back in session for all the French university students, and they smoke a lot more than the French I had encountered during the previous weeks. So now, though neither I nor Mme Rey smoke, all my clothes smell like smoke. So lavomatique, here I come, armed with twice the amount of change I had last night.

Some days, usually the days when I haven't said anything idiotic to a French person, I begin to feel like a part of this envrionment. For instance, today after I bought a Viennoise sandwich (think sandwich on a baguette with mayonnaise and butter. Delicious, but oh, my arteries) and an Orangina I headed to the Jardin du Mail, a public park that I walk through on my way to school. I sat in the park listening to jazz, eating and writing in my journal, taking the occasional picture, feeding a lone pigeon who, after discovering I had nothing more to feed it, simply sat down by my feet.

I'm getting kicked off the computer, so I'll have to postpone the rest until a later time.