'Merican Mondays

Sunday
I took advantage of my free day and tackled the homework that I'd been putting off since Thursday. I went out and walked around the city to take pictures for my Paris Through the Lens class. My host family returned from la campagne Sunday evening and it was nice to have everyone back again. I was getting a little lonely all by myself! I also missed Madame's cooking. Madame asked me if I'd like to join them for dinner (my program fees technically don't include dinner on Sundays), and I gratefully accepted. We had pasta with a really tasty red sauce not too similar to the Ragu/Prego I'm used to. Equally yummy, but in a different way. I asked Inès if she knew how to joue any of Tchaikovsky's music on her flute, since she plays lots of classical music. She said yes, and then Monsieur, who thinks it's funny to show off his poor English, said "Like zee nuts breaking?" I was really confused and asked him to repeat himself. Once again, he said "Nuts breaking." I looked at Inès for clarification, and she said "the name of the Tchaikovsky ballet". It was then that I realized he was referring to The Nutcracker. That one gave me a good laugh.

Monday
Mondays are my longest day. I have my three-hour French class (yuck), then Paris by Site, then Photography. However, from now on I'm going to look forward to Monday evenings, or as I've dubbed them, 'Merican Mondays. At dinner today, Inès asked if we could have every Monday dinner conversation in English. I gladly accepted, because now I'll be able to fully understand what everyone's saying. Dinner is my favorite part of the day because it gives me the opportunity to learn about French culture, and now I get to give that back every Monday night. Tonight I helped them all tackle the "h" and "th" sounds. In French, the h is silent, so they don't have a sound for the letter. When they speak English, it always comes out like "I ave a ouse in New Ampshire". Apparently in their English classes, they're instructed to place their hand between their lower lip and chin so they can feel the breath made by an "h" sound. The "th" sound is also very hard for them, which is why they usually pronounce "with" like "weez". I look forward to my 'Merican Mondays and I'm sure I'll have plenty of funny stories that don't revolve around my mistakes for once!

Affectueusement,
Katie