French Word of the Day: cadeau (cad-oh)- a gift

This word has come up a lot today.  We talked in class for 2 hours this afternoon about gifts (my brain shut down for the last half hour because we’d already had 3 hours of French earlier in the morning).  I also need to buy a gift for my host family before I leave on Saturday.  I was thinking of flowers.  Also, it’s the boy of the family (Bastien’s) birthday on Thursday, so I want to get him a little bag of candy or something…

Thankfully those are the last ones I have to think about until Christmas.  If anyone has any other ideas, please share.  Bastien is going to be 12.

Last week before the rest of the people in the program arrived in Paris, Jenna, Roanne and I went to the Lourve.  At one point, Roanne pointed out a girl and said, “That looks like Kim Kardashian!  Just like her!”  To which I replied, “She does have a large butt.”

Yesterday we found out that it really was her and her large behind.  We’re keeping up with the Kardashians in France.

Next week is fashion week in Paris, so I suspect we’ll see more.  Jenna and Roanne both want to attempt to get into a show.  I will join them to fulfill my celebrity stalking quota.  (They don’t have National Enquirer here.  Sad day.)

The letters “e” and “u” have always sounded the same to me in French, but today I finally figured out the difference!  I think my mind is saying, “Okay, I took the summer off.  I willing to learn a bit before I shut down again.”  For those of you who don’t know, it’s “uh” and “ooo”, but they sound exactly the same when pronounced by a French person- like most French words.

I’m getting better at comprehending French.  Théo told me that I had improved a lot in the last week.  (This has been confirmed by Arnaud.)  🙂

This weekend many of the museums were free.  Jenna, Qingfan, and I went to several of museums and also two free concerts.  Afterwards, we found a street with antique shops.  We walked in expecting to see normal stuff from the early 20th century or maybe even the twenties.

Wrong.  Unless we were thinking of the 1720’s.  The French have a different concept of time.  Everything was from before the 19th century.  There was even a statue from one of the Egyptian dynasties circa 1000 BC sitting on the table for just anyone to buy.  No big deal.  Doesn’t everyone have 3000-year-old relics in their living rooms?

We felt like we were in another museum.

I didn’t buy anything there, but I now have a very lovely copy of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in French, just as Roald Dahl always intended it to be.  The British are so fond of the French.

Forming English sentences after thinking in French all day is proving to be difficult, so I’m going to stop for now.  If anything is confusing, I apologize.  My English will regress throughout the year, I’m sure.

Pain au chocolat count: 8.5