Le Tour de France, Le Coupe du Monde, et le 14 de juillet

It's the last week of classes and my classmates and I have been doing exposés, or presentations, in French. Yesterday I donned my Red Sox cap to talk about Boston, my hometown. In my research, I stumbled upon this interesting tidbit: the Bostonian accent resembles the one found in Lincolnshire, England, because the Puritans came from there. At the end, there were lots of questions about Boston, and a request to hear the famous accent. I obliged with "I pahked my cah in Hahvahd yahd to get a wicket good cupah clam chowdah but the weahd chowdah guy was lookin at me funny and I had no idear why."

This weekend we watched Le Tour de France (live, as in we were there when Lance passed by, however, they were going so fast that I wasn't able to pick him out from the crowd) and Le Coupe du Monde (live streaming, as in we were watching it from Pickwick's Pub with about a million other fans).

This week France celebrates its national holiday—Americans call it "Bastille Day" but the French refer to it as "Fête nationale" or le quatorze de juillet. Yesterday Paris hosted une grande procession/parade sur les Champs-Elysées. The French officers' uniforms were beautiful and meticulous, nary a thread or feather out of place. The parade is a veritable display of military power—and also a synchronized military fashion show of blue feathers, ebony black, crisp whites, and blood reds. Zarkozy on the other hand...he would look better with a smile on his face every so often. In a historic moment this year France invited its former colonies in Africa to participate in the grande défilé in Paris—thirteen out of the fourteen former French colonies accepted the invitation, including representatives from Niger who added a little bounce to their march. This YouTube video shows parachuters presenting President Nicholas Sarkozy and other eminent heads of state with thirteen flags (one from each of the 13 participating countries).

Busy, busy comme une abeille

Bon vendredi! R and I finished the 2nd week of French classes today with 1 week remaining out of our 3 week session. I've been occupe comme une abeille! Learning a new language is hard work and fun at the same time - there's so much to learn and I'm like a sponge, absorbing everything in and outside of class. The world is my classroom.

At school, we've quickly shed our initial trepidation, and everyone (myself included) is speaking with more ease...though not always with the same graceful rhythm or pronunciation of the French/French-speaking Swiss. The students/teachers are serious about learning...so it's not always fun and games, but we're often laughing together while doing role play/oral exercises. Other times, especially in my phonetique and pronunciation classes, we are working the muscles in our mouths, jaws, lips and tongue to make French sounds and it's pretty hilarious to hear a whole class in unison try to make the 4 nasal sounds of "an", "in" "on" and "un". Or when one of my classmates brayed like a donkey in pronunciation class when she was asked what sound a donkey makes in her native Greek. A theatre student by training, she gave it her 100% and it was the best darn donkey I have ever heard in my entire life.

At the end of the day, I am super tired and my brain is buzzing with new vocabulary, grammaire, tips from my phonetique classes, or French idioms (like busy as a bee and strong as a Turc or as tall as 3 apples..meaning, not very tall at all).

The biggest progress I've made is that I can now formulate sentences using a few verb tenses! I'm super excited I can finally communicate in French...albeit a bit slowly and with poor pronunciation. This weekend, I have to work on an expose - basically a 5 minute speech about a theme of my choosing to present to the class next Tuesday! Wish me luck..I'm either going to write about Boston..or about what I like about living in France.

I don't know about your neck of the woods, but SUMMER is ripe here. We're having a canicule - a heatwave of 30+C (which is 90+F) this week. Thank goodness for 3 things to beat the heat: 1) climitasation in some classrooms at UNIGE 2) free cold eau potable at most fountains in GVA 3) the huge, clean municipal pools close to our parking spot in France. Twice this week after school, R and I spent the afternoon at the outdoor pools. J'ai saute dans l'eau et j'ai nage! There are 3 pools, a tall slide, ping pong tables, mini golf, and lots of green park where we can lay in the shade. I tried the water slide twice...you climb up the stairs, sit your butt down, and then weeeeee!!! I thought I was moving fast, but apparently, I was slow..the little kids were zipping along but I was happy to be going at my pace. I heard it was hot in Boston too - and my nephew Isaac swam for the first time by himself!

R and I have colorful plans this weekend - what about you?
1. I will sleep in both days as much as possible on my new mattress! And I'm hoping to tend to my garden..R saw a few green tomatoes today. I'll also keep in touch with my family - my 97 grandmother broke her hip this week and just had surgery. She's awake but not quite alert yet and unfortunately, she's at the age where her short-term memory often fails her. So she will sometimes wake up and forget why she's in the hospital.

2. The Tour de France is passing by this Sunday on their 8th TdF stage! R and I will be dressed in yellow and will be supporting Lance and the hot Spanish one (or at least I will be. Heheh.) I can't wait - so excited! I'll be thinking of you Steven + Yoshie - who's your favorite rider? I will try to take a pic of him speeding by.

3. World Cup finals on Sunday: NL vs ES. We'll be sporting our oranje again and hoping for the first Dutch World Cup ever.

Lastly, here are some pictures from the past week or so. Enjoy! And keep cool.


The vide grenier (flea market) with 200+ tables in our little ville. R and I bought 3 copper pans, 12 DVDs, and an old leather briefcase for a great deal!
Picture of one of the cheese stations at the Fete de la fromage a few weekends ago. I sampled beaucoup de fromage...comte, reblochon, and more. So good!