We are staying in a little village close to Toulouse called which means “bitter” or “sour” (aigre) “leaf” (feuille), although we haven’t tasted any to confirm. As noted yesterday, our house is large and comfortable, sited on a hill overlooking a small valley. The view from the hill down: And the view from the valley up: For you Google Map fans (count me in), here’s a map showing the location […]
We’re very much enjoying being out of Paris and into the country again. We are staying in a wonderful home in a small village outside of Toulouse. The countryside reminds us very much of home — lavender and oleander, photinia, plum and apple trees, tomatoes. The exception to the familiar feel are the nearly endless fields of sunflowers growing all around this area, plus the more general green-ness of the […]
Yesterday started out as a glorious, glorious day in Paris. It was sunny yet cool, and we all had French lessons planned (at 10, 12, 2, and 4). Mine was at 10, and Andrew’s was a one-hour lesson starting at 12, so I waited for him by sitting in a cafe along Boulevard St. Germain, reading a magazine, drinking an espresso, eating a pain aux raisins, and watching the world […]
We’ve entered that phase where we’ve shifted from being on vacation in Paris to living in Paris. And living in Paris can be rough on us. Ever since the heat wave last week, I had been fighting an odd depression that I could not seem to shake, that seemed to grow and grow with the days. It was a combination of being fed up with the noise, fed up with […]
Three funny stories to share this morning. We’ve become friends with a family from North Carolina, and we picnicked with them last Friday again in Parc Montsouris. They told us two funny stories, one involving something I have always been curious about. They were watching TV one evening and asking their son, who was on the computer, to translate. At one point during a newscast, the translation came back as […]
We saw two very different parts of Paris today within the course of a few hours. Continuing the “Skateboard Paris” tour that seems to have been forced upon me, we had planned to take Andrew and Will to a very cool-looking, free facility called Espace Glisse Paris 18, a large, covered skatepark on the very north side of Paris. Our original plan had been to take a train to a […]
Lest you thought we were, I give you this official summary of last Thursday’s weather in Paris, and draw your attention particularly to the “Indice Chaleur” graph to note that it felt like 102 degrees fahrenheit. meteociel.fr – Observations et données par stations – Tableaux horaires
Ugh. Yesterday was another awful day. The conversion from centigrade to fahrenheit is one of the most difficult for me, so I finally cheated and looked on a US site for the temperature in Paris Thursday afternoon, and wasn’t particularly surprised to see that it was 93. 93 and oppressively, painfully humid, with a hot sun filtering through thin grey clouds. The Metro was like a sauna. The heat became […]
It was hot and still and muggy in Paris today, and all day I’ve felt damp and overheated and tired, plus perhaps the foreigness of everything and the constancy of the city (it is never quiet) is starting to wear me down a bit. There’s a great expression in French, “Je suis creve,” the verb “crever” denoting what happens to an automobile tire when it gets punctured. That’s how I […]
Monday brought a new week, and a new language school for me and Will. We are now taking classes at the Alliance Francaise, which is going to be much better for both of us than our prior school, if my first class is any indication. Unlike the other school, the Alliance actually has a curriculum and textbooks, if you can imagine such a thing, and the instructors actually give out […]