Answers to recently posed questions...

Bonjour mes amis!

Today is Saturday, October 11, 2008 and it is currently 9:40 pm in France. This is my first weekend in the flat alone and it is every bit as dull as I had been warned. Fortunately, I'm feeling a little under the weather today, so the downtime is welcome. As I'm sure you can guess, there's not much to report on my end. But of course, there is always something.

I went grocery shopping today. Vanessa picked me up around 10 am and drove me to Flers. She had her two daughters with her. Because I don't have a freezer, I have to go grocery shopping more frequently than I'd like, but there are worse things in life.

I don't know if I mentioned this before, but there is a Black woman who lives in the flat below mine. Her name is Mme Demazy. She's originally from Martinique and has only lived here for a year. She is the school's financial secretary and she works a lot, meaning late into the night and on the weekends. She's actually in her office right now. She seems pretty nice, but a little standoffish.

Since that's all there currently is to report about my life, I thought I'd go through the comments I've received thus far and answer some of the recently posed questions. Most of them are from Mommy, but the rest of you may find the information interesting. So here we go...

• Will you be in the same place Papa was during the war?

I have no idea where Papa (my great-grandfather for all who don't know) was stationed, but if someone locates that information for me, I will gladly make my way there before I leave this country. There was some information about the various troops that were there on D-Day.

• Does Corinne’s family speak English?

The adults in Corinne's family speak little to no English at all. All of the children are taking English classes at their schools but do not like to speak English. Corinne and I were looking at her youngest nephew's assignments. The teacher told the class that San Francisco was the capitol of California and Dallas is the capitol of Texas. I quickly corrected that bit of misinformation.

• Have you gotten any recipes?

No, I have not gotten any recipes because I can't make any of them in my limited kitchen, no do I want to disappoint myself by getting it wrong in California. Have I mentioned any food items that you'd like to try for yourself?

• Do you understand the French roads any better?

No, I still don't get it, and I don't think I'm going to try unless I find myself with regular access to a car.

• What do the students here think of Barack Obama?

They support him. I haven't been able to them substantiate it yet, but I'll work on that. The general consensus is that Bush is bad and McCain is Bush: the Sequel, so vote for Barack.

• Have you had dinner with the students?

No, I have not had dinner with the students yet and I probably will not. I have eaten with the student supervisors.

• Am I looking into options for getting my hair done?

So far, the best looking hair I've seen was in Paris. I wouldn't mind having such an excuse to go to Paris frequently, but why not just go to Paris for going's sake? I said all of that to say I arrived in France with "prêt à porter" hair for a reason. So far, I'm glad because I've been generally unimpressed.

• Do the French actually understand the English they hear on the radio?

Vanessa says the answer to that is no. I believe it because in the supermarket today, I heard Usher's "Love in this Club," the remixed version with Beyoncé and Lil' Wayne, unedited. These aren't family friendly lyrics, folks, and I'm sure that if they truly understood the meaning, someone would censor it. Vanessa said that people who are true fans of certain artists will sometimes search for the lyrics and try to understand the meaning, as she did when she was really into Sting and the Police.

So that's all for now. Tomorrow is going to be yet another uneventful day with rien à faire le dimanche....


Bises,

Mlle. Alicia