Day 11 - mercredi

9 fevrier 2011

Last night I did not sleep well at all – I’m going to blame on the 2 cups of French coffee that I drank after 8 pm. But they were SO small! Anyway I hope tonight sleeping is much easier.

For breakfast this morning, Michele served me a slice of the almond galette that she made last evening. For all my housemates: what was I thinking as I ate this not-too-sweet treat last night? [That’s right !] – this would be great for breakfast. And there it was, right alongside the frosted corn flakes, juice, toast, and tea. What a lovely way to start the day.

I got up a little earlier this morning to begin my homework so that I could meet Martina at school by 11:00. Martina is from Germany. She is a server at a 5-star hotel in Stuttgart, Germany and is taking this time to learn French because many people from France stay at their hotel. I think she will eventually move up into management. She is a real go-getter, and she has a wonderful ear for this new language, picking up on the details of the grammar steadily despite the fact that she missed the first week of classes. We will meet again tomorrow. It’s a great way for me to review (and to spot any mistakes I had made in copying.)

M.D. directed me to a little restaurant just 2 blocks down the street that has a lunch special – demi (half) pizza and salad for 5 Euros. That’s a good deal. Off I went. I had a little difficulty understanding the parameters of the special, but the waiter, an older black man spoke English like a US citizen, so he set me straight. I told the chef that I wanted to carry it out – in French, of course. Well, I waited as he made my pizza and put the salad together – about 20 minutes all together. When it was time to pay, the chef said, “only 10 Euros.” I was surprised, but didn’t mind at all when I realized I had a big special salad and a whole pizza. He was too kind to me. I walked out with my box of thin crust pizza with an egg (still wiggly) on top. I determined that I would eat the salad and take the pizza home for supper. However, this meant that the pizza would be traveling around from class to class with me. This was not the worst thing, except Radovan was ready to eat it by the end of our late class. So was I!! When I got home, the pizza warmed up quite nicely and quickly in the toaster/oven.  It was delicious.

Each day when I get back to the apartment, Michele has made a pot of tea. We sit down together and talk about the day.  Then I prepare my supper and she concludes her work on the computer for the day. After supper, I have the line all to myself while Michele watches the news and sometimes a movie, but often it is Cold Case, Grey’s Anatomy, or CSI – all dubbed over in French. That must be quite an art. The strangest thing is being aware that the vocal quality of the actors is not the same. The language is way too technical for this beginner, so I only tune in occasionally. Each day I catch a few more words – yeah!

Have a good evening, Dear Reader.

Day 6 C'est vendredi!

Friday’s are always special. This day, our “beginner” class said goodbye to the three women from “la Russe”, i.e. Russia, and its nearby states.  They were at Azurlingua only a week, but I think it was part of their vacation. They were always dressed to the nines. They were with another woman who knew more French, so I think they were fulfilling her desire to learn the language better.

Please note: My professor Miguel said that next week all our classes will be held in the afternoon. This just means that I will be online a little later in the day - more like 10:30 AM Iowa time - after classes here.

After school today, and after checking email and Skype, I took a walking tour of the nearby city in search of real restaurants and the church where Michele thought there was a Mass in English on Sundays. I found the church – it is Anglican – but there is no English language Mass. Ah, well.

On my walk home, I stopped at a bakery to buy a croissant sandwich with cheese and ham. This would be the basis for my supper. Once home, I found that Michele was still out, so I decided to go back to the little grocery store just a short walk away to get some things to eat and drink for lunches and suppers.

I found that anything there with meat is very expensive, so I did not buy any. The fruits and vegetables I will get this weekend at a little produce stand – there are many of them in the area. The one across the street from here might be OK, but one will have to look through the produce carefully – from what I’ve seen, much of it should be made into sauce or soup.  For today, I tried to find crackers, but there is nothing like that here. The “biscuits” are like dried toast. So instead I purchased a loaf of sliced wheat bread and cheese for sandwiches for lunches, a box of rice for suppers and a liter of Coke – just for variety from water ad without drinking all the milk that Michele has purchased for me.

Michele was home when I got back this time. She was in the process of reconstituting the dried tomatoes that she bought in Italy yesterday by boiling them, then putting them in a jar with oil. Then she made an Arabic salad with couscous, onion, mint, olive oil and fresh tomatoes. It was delicious! It went well with my ham and cheese croissant.

Online I looked for a church to attend on Sunday morning. From what I can tell, there is a Jesuit pastor at L’Eglise (church) de Notre-Dame de l’Assomption. The website said the pastor was known for his preaching. It seems like a good place to start. Hopefully the music will be good, too.

There was no indication in anything I read online that there is a Mass in English anywhere in Nice. At school, my friend M-D (from New York) said she is attending an English Mass at an Anglican church near the beach. This will be a good alternative if the French proves too daunting.

That’s all for today, friends. Have a good night.