France celebrates the halfway point of summer (why does the US think the longest day of the year is the beginning of summer?) with a countrywide music festival day.

The best thing about music festivals is you don't ever have to technically leave your home when you have good company while staying in a sleepy, retired peoples beach town.

Sláinte to BBQing in a stone fortress that is awkwardly shaped and doesn't hold enough wood to keep a fire burning.

understanding measurements before saying yes

The guy who took my film for development was really nice and didn't speak any English with me. When he asked me what size I wanted I didn't quite understand the dimensions of the numbers he said.

Now I have some cute little photos to present to my photo class on Lundi.

Today my boulangeriste

m'a appellée <<ma belle.>>

Totes.

Three beautiful things to say to someone who is learning

how to express themselves in a new language:

<<Nikelle, I look forward to speaking with you every week.>>

<<I believe I understood what you just said.>>

<<Yes, but you understand everything.>>

Thank you for your words of affirmation, Parisiens.

I find a lil of myself in each

of these quizzes, and plenty of contentment in the random characters the internet thinks I belong to.

When choosing which history course to stay registered in

...it seems that the one with 18 pages of probably-what-the-professor-said-in-french-notes would be the class to take instead of the one in which I only got down 10 pages.

The best part is looking at how a native speaker took notes and comparing it to what I had come up with in the moment:

<<particularity juridic>>
<< Un privilège est une spécifité juridique.>>

<<profondement arch>>
<< profondément hiérarchique>>

<<ne paie pas...ne sujebté pas>>
<<paie l’impôt...Il n’est pas assujetti>>

<<siége [   ] municipale>>
<< siégeant au conseil municipal>>

<<loi saligne - loi qui fixe modalité de prevalutaion de...>>
<<loi salique, impliquant la modalité des successeurs royaux.>>

 <<50% france actuelle>>
<<15% en moins que la France actuelle.>>

<<la guerre revolution>>
<<de la guerre de dévolution,>>

<<l'arc de siege>>
<<l’art du siège>>

<<duchez de régne>>
<<le duché de Lorraine>> 

<<comment duchez rattacher en france?
<<Comment le duché fut rattaché à la France ?>>

<<1767 - Stanslaus>>
<<1737 à Stanislas>>

<<jeu de machandage>>
<<dans le cadre de ce grand marchandage>>

<<bataille, marriage, culture>>
<<les baptêmes, mariages et sépulture>>

 
It's so interesting to me that French students edit their notes - I am a visual cat, and would never be able to study off of notes with full paragraphs.

Enjoying my last

few moments of solitary living in my almost 100 square metres apartment in the center of Paris. This week brings 8 other beings, eventually with just four of us total.

After 30 days without ever

buying a baguette in Paris, heir soir was the night.

I walked home alone with a smile on my face (because as much as I try and become French, I'm a smiley American) -- a smile worth quatre-vingt-dix centimes.

When I was stuffing lemons in the open cavity of my chicken it was quite a bit more of a tight fit than I'm used to--even the French chicken's are skinnier.

I didn't have any film left in my camera to take photos of this round of dinner--just imagine a quaint batch of carmel sauce in a little white saucer--but I am awaiting my first role of film to be processed and will upload some of my premiers meals.

-Bisous

Who am I?

 

J'ai mal à la gorge

<<...et, aussi, pour mes oreilles... après la douche...[insert finger spray movement.]>>

I have officially fallen in love with Paris.

It takes more than romantic gestures to fall in love-- mundane, everyday procedures can produce a consistent love that is more meaningful than a guy showing up on a first date with a bouquet of flowers and a new pair of socks (though I would never turn down a new pair of socks as a gift).

I tend to be one that has sporadic weeks of health in between infections and a virus or crazy headaches. So, with a cough that appeared and disappeared a few times last week I finally went to the pharmacy to get something other than Mucinex and ibuprofen.

This weekend I drank a whole thing of orange/mango juice. Today I almost drank a whole bottle of cough syrup because it's carmel flavored!  I think I'm going to really love being sick in this country.

And if I enjoy spraying my ears clean I might actually take a shower everyday,

À bientôt

Watching an entire rugby game by myself

on Super Bowl Sunday, why do football players wear pads and helmets?

These guys are brutal.
The game seems to make much more sense than American football.

Three weeks

3 French people have asked me for directions in Paris. 

During this third week I was capable of pointing one lady in the correct direction in my neighborhood.