Happy Mother's Day

I'd like to take this time out of my lovely weekend in Switzerland to say...

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

Mom, I miss you lots! Also..happy mother's day to Grandma, Grandmama, all of my lovely aunts and everyone else I know who's a momma! See you all soon...can you believe I'll be home exactly three weeks from today?

GUESS WHAT I JUST DID

I WENT SKYDIVING IN THE SWISS ALPS THIS AFTERNOON.

I jumped out of a plane at 13,000 feet, free fell 5,000 feet in 40 seconds, and then paraglided to the ground.

Out of the 7 of us in the plane, I was the first one to go...it was incredible and scary and energizing all at once.

Photos to come on Sunday or Monday..

Yum!

Lovely family friend and former French teacher Lucy (say that 10 times fast!) sent a real treat for me when my parents came!  The book Paris by Pastry by Joyce Slayton Mitchell is all about "stalking the sweet life on the streets of Paris"- just my kind of book! 

I can't decide if the gift was a blessing or a curse because I don't exactly want to return to the U.S. in the form of a whale!  Of course I've enjoyed plenty of delicious pastries thus far but this book really sets apart the champagne from the sparkling wine, if you know what I mean.  Yesterday, I checked out my first Patisserie-Boulangerie from the book which was about 5 minutes away from my classroom.  I got a Chocolatine Amandes which was basically like a crushed chocolate croissant dusted with confectioners sugar, with almonds on top.  YUM!  Thanks Lucy, but I blame you if I come back in whale form!

This weekend I am off to Interlaken, Switzerland.  As you can imagine, the town takes its name because it is situated between two lakes.  Several friends have been there before and I am so excited to see the Swiss Alps!  Did you know I have always said I wanted to honeymoon in Switzerland?  

No honeymoon this time around but I am meeting  my friend Kim there!  She is all done with her program in Madrid and ready for one more adventure before she heads home.  

I do actually go to class!

I've had a few people mention to me that I never talk about school here on my blog.  This is true, and considering that it is actually the reason why I'm here, I'm not sure why I haven't talked about it more often.  

I have my grammar class every day from 8-10am.  I really love this class and it is definitely what helps me the most in terms of speaking French.  Since I have such a long commute (a.k.a. more chance of delays), I typically arrive about 10 minutes early to class, while a majority of the class usually comes in like 5 minutes late.  At this time I usually chit chat with my professor.  

We do lots of different stuff in class but we usually spend about half of the time going over our homework, a quarter of the time learning new things (which we will then review the next day when we have completed homework exercises on it), and a quarter of the time on tests, dictations, listening exercises, and other things that we get graded on. 

I try really hard in class and participate often because I know it's the only way to improve my French!  Also, since everyone else's skills are equally or more lacking than mine, I don't get embarrassed.  

One of the hardest things for me at first was dictations!  With so many accents and words that sound phonetically the same, it took me a while to get into the groove of comprehending what was said well enough to write it down correctly.  Also, my teacher is a really hard grader so even though there might be 100 words and 1000 different ways to mess things up, if I miss 3 accents I will get a 17/20 on the assignment and those of you who know me know that an 85 is NOT something I am typically pleased with (although here I am because they are notoriously hard graders and anything about a 13/20 is equivalent to an "A" in the U.S.)

Today, I finally got great news!  On yesterday's dictation, I got a 20/20!  Since I'm feeling quite triumphant, I'm going to write out the dictation here..for those of you French speakers it will be a good exercise in translation! 

Ce matin, les étudiants ne vont pas en classe.  Ils peuvent dormir plus longtemps, jusqu'à midi.  Ils se reposent parce que tous les jours de la semaine, sauf le samedi et le dimanche, ils ont beaucoup de travail à faire à la maison, ils sont très occupés et très fatigués.

Aujourd'hui, ils vont peut-être sortir avec des amis.  Ils iront faire une grande promenade dans un jardin ou bien sur les quais de la Seine.  Ils veulent s'amuser.  Il ne fait pas chaud mais le ciel est bleu et il n'y a aucun nuage.  C'est vraiment parfait pour passer une bonne journée dehors.

Quand ils rentreront ce soir, ils dîneront ensemble et ensuite ils parleront en écoutant de la musique.  

The Catacombs

Today after class I checked out Paris' Catacombs.  In the 1700's burial practices were very unsanitary and city officials decided to clear out Paris' largest centrally located cemetery, Les Innocents, and put all of the remains underground in old quarries.  

Now you can go more than 20 meters underground and check them out for yourself.  They are creepy, HUGE, and what surprised me the most: wet!  It was kind of disgusting and I didn't want to think about where the occasional water drip was coming from considering that the tunnels are located underneath both the metro and sewer systems.  

As you can see, essentially the Catacombs are huge tunnels with stacks of human bones on either side.  Most of them are arranged in semi-artistic patterns.  It's quite eery as you can imagine.  

There are all kinds of myths about people getting lost in the Catacombs (before they were a tourist attraction).  Also, there is a black line of paint along the ceiling that was originally there to help guide people out if they got lost.