I knew that it would be tough but I certainly didn't expect the teachers to start like this! During his first week of school Josh had to pass two dictation test, read and translate a page (16 lines) and learn by heart a poem....in French! Are they out of their mind?
When they talked about a "full immersion" in French, I expected them to start slowly and then increase little by little the amount of lessons. Isn't this a bi-lingual school? Instead, the French lessons are ENTIRELY in French....And then I remembered what my friend Abigail told me about her experience in France years ago. Dear Abigail, how right were you!?!
So far Josh didn't complain and I am so happy and grateful for this! He loves to write with the fountain pen and he loves the cafeteria (he says that it's the best food he ever had in a school ...) but I'm not sure he loves to write every day his homework on the agenda. Not yet!
We celebrated the end of his first week with a stop in a beautiful Patisserie et Chocolaterie and here is what he got:
It's a "Religieuse chocolat": une étonnante puissance de goût caractérise notre crème au chocolat.
Talking about food, we started to explore our neighborhood more intensively and yesterday we visited the "fromagerie" Quatrehomme, at the corner of the street. It's a cheese-shop and you can tell that the products are excellent 100 feet away by the smell! We had the Camembert au Calvados....exquisite!
http://fannypacktravel.wordpress.com/2011/06/30/linstitution-du-fromage-a-paris-fromagerie-quatrehomme/
The problem now it that we'll have to sterilize the refrigerator!
Today my mother arrived and she'll stay a week or so. Obviously she loved everything, even the house (I still have to adjust to the colors of the walls...). We went around a couple of hours and at the end she was exhausted by the amount of stairs and metro lines we had to change!
But she's happy and relaxed, much more than she came to visit us in South Pasadena. Even the garbage cans were nicer! No comments...
We went to dinner tonight in this restaurant close to our house: it's always packed so you'll have to wait about half an hour to get your table (and they don't take the reservation) but it's unequivocally worth the line! It's called "Chez Gladines": the food is really good (Josh had an "Omelette Basque" and my mom had an "Escalope de veau montagnard" while I decided to taste the "Magret de canard"), the size of the servings is more American than French and the atmosphere is quite friendly. But don't go there if you are on your first date: too crowded, not romantic. Let's say that nobody cared if Josh started to play with his fork!
Unfortunately neither of us were able to convince Josh to try the infamous escargots but we'll try again...perhaps next time we'll tell him that those brown spongy things covered with green cream are only mushrooms.
Who knows? He might try them.
Tomorrow Versailles! And the weather forecast says: sunny day. HURRAY!
No comments:
Post a Comment
As usual, comments are welcome and much appreciated.