Wednesday, July 4, 2007

4th of July the French Way

Happy Fourth of July, America!!! I am honestly sad to be missing out, but I have had my own way of celebrating. The first Wednesday in July, the 4th this year, all the stores in Nice come out with huge sales. Last night, the stores all closed early to get ready for today. I had never seen anything like it. Actually, I guess it is a bit similar to our day-after-Thanksgiving sales. This morning it looked as if the whole city was out to go shopping. Everything was marked down from 30, 50 to 75%. The big fad right now is to get flip flops with a flag of Brazil on the strap. I am going to get some tomorrow because the crowds were just too much today. I also found the most amazing game store--I seriously thought I had found my French Paradise. They have Taboo, Guess Who, Monopoly, Life, Cranium, Clue and other games all in French. If I had 5 suitcases, I would take them all home. I have till Friday to decide on one or two to take home with me. I am thinking Taboo Junior and an easy French trivia game. Any suggestions from you, my readers?

Today we listened to some great pop and rap songs in my music class. When we had a lunch break, I realized that many of the French don't have lunch. This is the normal French meal schedule, according to many reliable French sources:

breakfast: coffee and cigarette
lunch: 2 coffees and a cigarette
after work: cigarette and a good discussion at a local café
dinner around 8PM: appetizer, main course, cheese, dessert, fruit, coffee, cigarette and a good discussion

How would you like to have that life? Anyway, I got a burned copy of these songs we listend to after lunch. Tomorrow we are all going to present a song that we heard. I am presenting one from the French Musical, Roi Soleil, about Louis XIV. I am at my host mom's house right now, reading the story so that I will have something to say.

So, this cute Romanian teacher with nice blue eyes joined my class yesterday. He promised to send me all the information I am missing from the other classes next week by email and regular mail. There was a teacher excursion planned for today. It was either going to be to Eze, St. Tropez, Antibes or Monaco. Just my luck, guess where we went.....MONACO!!! I know that place like the back of my hand now. Oh well. It was a fun ride over anyway and at least there was Alex (the teacher) to spice things up.

1 comment:

Natalie R. said...

Don't you love French rap?! It's way better than American stuff. If you wanna impress the Romanian teacher, ask him if he likes the group O-Zone - they have the best song (Dragostea Din Tei). It was all the rage on my mission, you couldn't get on a bus without hearing it!