Le Shopping, les accents, et les traductions

I finally succumbed to the siren call of all the "soldes" dans tous les magasins (sales in all the stores).  The French retail industry is much more regulated than the American retail sector.  From what I understand from my conversations with my host family, the time for sales is determined by the government, not the individual owner or company.  So every store (I do not exaggerate when I say EVERY STORE) has deep discounts for the next week or so.  Alors, c'est seulement le bon sens de profiter aux soldes!  I went with some of my Sweet Briar friends to some of the stores listed in Parisian Chic by Ines de la Fressange.  Most things were still quite expensive, despite the discounts.  I only bought a t-shirt (tres mignonne, only 6 euro!) and a dress that was the last one in my size.  La vendeuse (the sales woman) said it must have been waiting for me.  My JYF friends and I were speaking French to each other, but the sales woman picked up on our accent and started speaking to us in English.  So we responded in French. And she responded in English.  The other sales woman came to our defense, saying "Elles parlent francais bien!" but it turned out that she wanted to practice her English.  So we just had a bilingual conversation.  It must have sounded very funny! 

I told my host family that story and they found it very entertaining.  I'm really surprised at how good my French is, and we had a discussion of accents at dinner last night.  Although my accent is not completely awful, people still know je suis une americainne by my accent.  My host family tried to help the sound of my "u", (by saying, la voiture roule dans la rue.... the car rolls down the street) but they just laughed.  Not in a mean way though!  I'm sure I'll be able to roll my 'r's and say 'rue' properly someday.  Then I laughed at them trying to say 'the' and 'through'. Try as they might, they could not get the 'th' sound.  We enjoyed laughing at each other's accents. 

Today, I met up with Jeanette, one of my friends from high school.  She's studying in London and visiting for the weekend with some of her college friends.  Although I'm no expert on Paris, I'm pretty comfortable getting around now.  I've been here for 2 weeks!  Crazy.  So I showed them around a bit and did all the French speaking for us.  Our waiter at lunch told me my French was very good!  That made me happy.  Jeanette and her friends asked me which places were good to eat, and I just replied that no matter where we eat, the food will be good.  I haven't had a bad meal yet!!  She said that in England, there have been more than a few bad meals.  I guess I picked the right place to study abroad!  No offence London, you're delightful, but you have nothing on Paris when it comes to food.  I enjoyed hanging out with them and teaching them some useful French phrases.  It was the first nice day since last Monday, so we went to the Eiffel Tower,  l'Arc de Triomphe, and the Champs-Elysees.  I am so lucky to live in this city!!

 Yeah class of '09!

 La Tour Eiffel

funny tourists....

I think this would look super in "college corner" or in the Journal...

got artsy with my new camera :)

adjouter deux lettres a Paris, et vous avez: le Paradis

"add two letters to Paris, and you have paradise:

There was some sort of state ceremony at l'Arc de Triomphe tonight

Tomorrow I have a day trip to Lyon with the JYF program!  It will be nice to see another city in France, although it will not be as nice to get up at 5:30am to catch the train...next post will be about Lyon!

Bisous,
Allison