Going back to school at my age is a challenge! I am loving my French language course, but gosh!, I am completely suffering from brain fatigue every night. It is an effort just to think!!
The course is intensive, but I already notice results in that I can understand more when I read, and I can now understand how to use a past tense and a future tense of the main verbs. However, I am still very frustrated in that I can't hear the individual words when I listen to the French speak. They all seem to speak soooooo fast.
We already had a written comprehension test, and I did very well on the verbs, but where I am falling down is on 'the little words'... le and les, de la, des, au, aux, en, à, etc. So I have to do more work on 'prepositions' and how to use them.
But the more I learn, the more I realise I have to learn!! Five weeks of French lessons is not even touching the surface. I already told Peter I want to do this again next year!!
Peter has been very supportive...
He has been shopping, cleaning, doing the dishes, and going to the markets (as well as attending to 'barge' needs, i.e. filling the water tank, sweeping the deck of leaves, etc. And each day, when I get off the train at 5:37, he is waiting for me at the train station, and carries my books back to the barge (300 metres away.) And when we get back on the barge, he pours me a much needed glass of wine!!!
On Thursday evening, he cooked the fish he had bought at the markets (he made Trout Mueniere) and it was extremely good.
And on Friday, the train station intercom accounced my train would be an hour late... so I went back to the barge and Peter drove me into Toulouse so I would not be late for school. (Unfortunalely, on the way back to the barge from Toulouse, he pulled off the road to make a U turn and hit a rock which demolished the catalytic converter attachment point under the car... a VERY EXPENSIVE little exercise!)
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Friday, February 18, 2011
Have to Share this one with balloon friends.....
A balloonist friend of ours, also now retired, sent the following in an email, which made me laugh out loud whilst reading it!!!
"I sometimes still dream about balloons and flying, more often than not a bad dream where I an flying very high and then find I have no gas or landing in a snake pit.
The best, or should I say the worst one, was a couple of months back when I was in a balloon at about 3000 feet when the pilot light went out and I could not relight it. My wife woke me up as I was jumping all over the bed and swinging on our bedroom light fitting. I was trying to relight the bedroom light as a balloon burner when she switched it on, and I was able to make a safe landing on the bed, but very shaken. The light fitting had to be replaced and the and the ceiling needed a little attention. Since then I have been trying to give up night flying."
"I sometimes still dream about balloons and flying, more often than not a bad dream where I an flying very high and then find I have no gas or landing in a snake pit.
The best, or should I say the worst one, was a couple of months back when I was in a balloon at about 3000 feet when the pilot light went out and I could not relight it. My wife woke me up as I was jumping all over the bed and swinging on our bedroom light fitting. I was trying to relight the bedroom light as a balloon burner when she switched it on, and I was able to make a safe landing on the bed, but very shaken. The light fitting had to be replaced and the and the ceiling needed a little attention. Since then I have been trying to give up night flying."
French Language School
I started my intensive French language course last Monday (4 days ago). I am a bit brain dead by the afternoon, but am loving the course. In only 4 days, my reading comprehension has increased noticeably, and I am catching about 20% more words in conversations.
When a French person speaks, however, I am still not 'hearing' much of the little words as they all sound like they are running together. I get the gist of the sentence, but not the detail. I really have to 'speed up my ears' to keep up with the sentences.
When a French person speaks, however, I am still not 'hearing' much of the little words as they all sound like they are running together. I get the gist of the sentence, but not the detail. I really have to 'speed up my ears' to keep up with the sentences.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Today we visited the Viaduct of Millau and the village of Roquefort
Viaduct of Millau (pronounced Meow) is a 2 1/2 hour drive from the barge. It is a suspension brige over a gorge... the highest and one of the longest suspension bridges in the world, an engineering marvel. It was spectacular. We drove under it and then on it! The lovely thing about French engineering is that an object must not only be functional, it must also be aesthestically pleasing.
Village of Roquefort is, of course, where Roquefort Cheese is made. It is cured in special caves that are only in the side of the mountain where this village is located. No one else in the world can make 'Roquefort'. Story has it a shepherd, while tending his flocks aout 2000 years ago, left his sandwich (bread and curd) in a cave he was sheltering in. Months later, he returned to the cave and found the sandwich covered in a green mould. Being hungry, he scraped off the mould and tasted it... and voila! Roquefort was discovered. Whether this story is true or not, these caves have the moisture, air flow and temperature variation to turn sheep's milk (with the help of a penicillan mold grown on bread) into world renowned Roquefort cheese. The tour was fascinating and of course we bought some cheese. All in all, we had a great day!
Village of Roquefort is, of course, where Roquefort Cheese is made. It is cured in special caves that are only in the side of the mountain where this village is located. No one else in the world can make 'Roquefort'. Story has it a shepherd, while tending his flocks aout 2000 years ago, left his sandwich (bread and curd) in a cave he was sheltering in. Months later, he returned to the cave and found the sandwich covered in a green mould. Being hungry, he scraped off the mould and tasted it... and voila! Roquefort was discovered. Whether this story is true or not, these caves have the moisture, air flow and temperature variation to turn sheep's milk (with the help of a penicillan mold grown on bread) into world renowned Roquefort cheese. The tour was fascinating and of course we bought some cheese. All in all, we had a great day!
Friday, February 11, 2011
A very French experience today....
Next Monday, I start my intensive French language lessons, so need to travel from Castelsarrasin to Toulouse/return every Monday to Friday. So today, while Peter waited in the car, I went into the local train station to buy a ticket for 5 weeks travel. I told the man I was studying in Toulouse, and needed a ticket for the next 5 weeks. I didn't qualify for a 'student discount' because of my age. So he decided I needed a 'senior's card' which allowed me a senior's discount. I know he was trying to be helpful, but then he tried to see the best way for me to travel... a monthly ticket? No. A concession ticket of someother description? He decided no. And with every step, he was consulting another colleague. Also with every step, he decided to explain to me very carefully in French how he was going to do it. To make a long story short... 45 minutes and now 7 people waiting very patiently in line behind me, he decided I needed one ticket for each trip... so proceeded to print out 50 single tickets with a Senior's discount, putting each day in a different folder, and patiently explaining to me how I must protect so many tickets, how I mustn't carry them all at once, how I had to accompny each journey carrying my Seniors' pass, etc. It took an hour for me to buy the train tickets.
On the 'up side' his diligence saved me about $150 in travel the way he did it. The down side was Peter was waiting in the car park the entire time when he could have been on the barge which was just across the canal. C'est la vie en France.
On the 'up side' his diligence saved me about $150 in travel the way he did it. The down side was Peter was waiting in the car park the entire time when he could have been on the barge which was just across the canal. C'est la vie en France.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
I have been very lax in keeping up the blog. I will try to do better.
We are back in France on the barge, after being in Switzerland for 3 weeks. Loved every minute.. cold but very little snow.
Today, we are visiting Lourdes which is about 130 kms away from Castelsarrasin, our winter port. We have been reading about Lourdes... besides being a 'Disneyland' for the religious (do you want a paperweight with snow falling on the Blessed Virgin Mary?), it is the second most visited city in France (after Paris)!! But winter is their low season. I guess not too many people on crutches and in wheelchairs move around outside in the winter.
There are over 150 people each year saying they have been 'healed' after visiting the Grotto and touching the water (Bernadette had a vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary several hundred years ago, and a spring welled up on the spot, now a 'grotto'). The Vatican over the centuries has recognised 61 of these cures as 'miracles'. So... it should be interesting.
Tomorrow night, we are going out to dinner at a restaurant just started by a young French women who, last year, won the TV show title of 'Masterchef' of France. The prize of €100,000 allowed her to open up a small restaurant at her farm. The restaurant is only about a 30 minute drive from the barge. But this woman, would you believe, lives on the farm with her husband and their 6 children between the ages of 18 months and 8 years, and raises her own cows, chickens, and garden vegetables for the restaurant!!! And we thought we were busy!
We are back in France on the barge, after being in Switzerland for 3 weeks. Loved every minute.. cold but very little snow.
Today, we are visiting Lourdes which is about 130 kms away from Castelsarrasin, our winter port. We have been reading about Lourdes... besides being a 'Disneyland' for the religious (do you want a paperweight with snow falling on the Blessed Virgin Mary?), it is the second most visited city in France (after Paris)!! But winter is their low season. I guess not too many people on crutches and in wheelchairs move around outside in the winter.
There are over 150 people each year saying they have been 'healed' after visiting the Grotto and touching the water (Bernadette had a vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary several hundred years ago, and a spring welled up on the spot, now a 'grotto'). The Vatican over the centuries has recognised 61 of these cures as 'miracles'. So... it should be interesting.
Tomorrow night, we are going out to dinner at a restaurant just started by a young French women who, last year, won the TV show title of 'Masterchef' of France. The prize of €100,000 allowed her to open up a small restaurant at her farm. The restaurant is only about a 30 minute drive from the barge. But this woman, would you believe, lives on the farm with her husband and their 6 children between the ages of 18 months and 8 years, and raises her own cows, chickens, and garden vegetables for the restaurant!!! And we thought we were busy!
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