iPodDoU?

I sometimes feel like the ‘shuffle’ mode on my iPod is kind of like emotional/musical Russian roulette. The power of a song to transport me to a specific moment or time is absolutely uncanny. I’m just listening to my iPod, bobbing along a crowded Parisian sidewalk, minding my own business and then BAM! It’s the summer of 2005 and I am zooming along Interstate 80 with Sasha next to me and the midwestern countryside is giving way to the strange and barren place we call Wyoming and we are singing together at the top of our lungs, “We’ve been on the run, drivin’ in the sun, lookin’ out for number one. California here we come, right back where we started from… Californiaaaaaaaaaaa here we commmmmmmmme!” Whoa. It’s so visceral, so real… it’s almost brutal the way the song yanks me out of the present moment and deposits me somewhere else, in a different time and, depending on the song, it sometimes seems like a different lifetime.

“Jane says I’m goin’ away to Spain, When I get my money saved, I’m gonna start tomorrow, I’m gonna kick tomorrrrrroooowwww” wails Jane’s Addiction, and suddenly I am crammed into a booth in Quinton’s in Iowa City, the windows are steamy, the floor is all wet from the sludge dragged in from the streets, I’m sipping a Boulevard Wheat and singing along.

The opening chords of Troubled Hubble’s “Airplanes” and there I am in Gabe’s, holding a Rolling Rock, eyes closed and rocking slowly to the music, surrounded by friends all waiting for the big change up about two minutes into the song, to start jumping up and down like crazy and “…I flew my airplane to your house, rang your doorbell, you came out…”

Rolling Stones’ “Beast of Burden” is me and Lisa backpacking in Eastern Europe in the summer of 2002. “If You Leave” by OMD is me and my sisters in 1991 riding in the back seat of our babysitter Heidi’s yellow car. The Righteous Brothers in general is riding with my sisters in my mom’s Acura- specifically going to the Edina swimming pool. Rockwell’s “Somebody’s Watching Me” is going on errands with my dad and my sister Angie (circa 1986) in my dad’s black Chrysler LeBaron.

I think that when you’re in it, you don’t necessarily know which songs are going to bring you back to that time…certain songs have lots of memories attached to them, so in a way their transport power is sometimes diffused a little bit. For example, Jeff Buckley’s cover of “Hallelujah” is my freshman year of college in my dorm at Burge, my senior year of college with Sasha in our second floor kitchen at the Purple Palace, and it’s working for the summer at my dad’s office in 2005.

I have to wonder which songs are going to remind me of “now”…which songs I will hear in 10 years and I will think to myself, “Ah! Paris! 2007!” and when I travel back to this moment, I wonder where I will be traveling from.

Summertime and the livin’ is easy….

Oh, summer! The good and easy life! I love summer. I love vacation. One of the reasons I love living in France and can imagine myself here long term is that this is a country that appreciates the value and importance of VACATION. Everyone gets five weeks vacation, minimum, right off the bat. When people go on vacation here they don’t check their emails, they don’t check in with the office, they don’t keep their phone on…they just go on vacation. One of my clients was leaving on vacation and I asked if she would check her email, etc. while she was away. She told me, “No. I will watch the news. If the problem my company is having is big enough to make it onto the news, then I will turn my phone back on and check my emails. Otherwise, everything else can wait until I get back.” Bravo! Well said!

So, in true French fashion, I’ve been enjoying my vacation…six weeks in the US, a few weeks back in Paris, a week in the south at Bruno’s parent’s, a week in Italy with my girlfriend Viola…

Here are a few highlights:
Angie and Greg's wedding




San Francisco


Chicago with my old roomates


Bjork in the ancient roman arena at Nimes (southeastern France)



Bruno's family's house near Toulouse in southwestern France




ITALY!!!!!

Que Bella!

In Chicago at our Purple Palace Reunion, I spent a lot of time with our little honorary Purple Palace Lady, Bella. Bella is Monica’s little two-year old girl. She is about the sweetest, most considerate, most loving, most adorable little girl I’ve ever met. She constantly impressed me and charmed me…and I was constantly impressed with Monica, as well. Bella didn’t just happen to turn out the way she is, I firmly believe that it has everything to do with Monica and her husband Eric. Bella and I got along really well, and for the first time I really felt in my heart, “Hey. I can do this. I can be a mom.” Of course it was just a long weekend…definitely not the same as the real 24/7 deal, but still, I felt really good about it. That’s not to say I didn’t have a couple of little reality checks reminding that maybe I’m not quite ready to be a mom just yet…example: one night out at a restaurant I was feeling really good about helping Bella cut her macaroni-and-cheese into little bites and warning her that it was hot…and then I emphatically blew on one bite to demonstrate the hotness and help her cool it off…and I blew so hard that cheese flew into my eye. Ooops. Then there were a couple of dicey moments where I almost spiraled into an existential crisis. You see, Bella is at the age where she likes to ask ‘Why?’ all of the time. I applaud her curiosity and I tried to speak to her in an adult way (none of that baby-talk crap)…however sometimes I took things a bit too far. Example:

Tina: Bella I think we should walk down the stairs instead of me carrying you.

Bella: Why?

Tina: Well, you’re kinda big and I don’t want to drop you.

Bella: Why?

Tina: Well, I’m not strong enough to carry you.

Bella: Why?

Tina: Well, I don’t work out enough and don’t have a lot of upper-body strength. Besides, I’m worried I could drop you. I’m very safety conscious.

Bella: Why?

Tina: I think it has to do with birth order; I’m an oldest child. Or maybe I’m just kind of neurotic?!?!

…….….Or for another example:

Tina: Bella, don’t push on my stomach, please.

Bella: Why?

Tina: Because it doesn’t feel very good when you do that.

Bella: Why?

Tina: Well, I have digestive problems.

Bella: Why?

Tina: Well, I think it might be stress related.

Bella: Why?


….And so on and so forth.

It was a really fun weekend and even though I’d already spent some time with Bella when she was younger, it was really great to get to see her again and see how much she’d grown. It was also great to feel like maybe I really could be a good mom someday…and also to see that it’s a ton of work and that day is definitely a few years away.

I Heart San Francisco

About a week after the wedding Bruno and I took a trip to San Francisco, and had a wonderful time. We stayed with my friend Lilia, who I met in Paris a few years ago. She was gracious enough to invite us into her home for the long weekend, me who she hadn’t seen in a few years and Bruno who she’d never met. She made us feel so welcomed and it really contributed to the good impression we had of San Francisco. It’s a pretty amazing city…my feeling is that it has all of the advantages of a big city without really being a big city. We got around easily on foot and with public transportation, we ate really well and thought the city was really beautiful. One night I saw a bum digging in a dumpster for things he could salvage and some trash spilled onto the sidewalk and I saw him carefully pick up the trash and put it back in the dumpster. Gotta love San Francisco!

So, I'm no expert on the San Fran area- but I always love to pass on a few 'travel tips'. Here are some things we really enjoyed:

Friday night at the DeYoung Museum in Golden Gate Park- we went and checked out the exhibit and there was also live jazz and a bar. Afterward we had some really good food in the neighborhood at Park Chow (1240 Ninth Ave.). Later that night we headed for the beach…bring stuff to make a bonfire if you want, or else just go and join one that is already blazing. People are friendly! But be sure to bundle up…it’s cold down there at night!

The Ferry Building- it’s down by the water and inside are little restaurants, a few shops/bookstores, fruits and veggie stands, wineries, places selling olive oils and spreads and the oh so delicious Cowgirl Creamery. They call it ‘artisan cheese,’ I call it ‘yummy.’ I have to admit, living in Paris has turned me into a cheese snob…but Cowgirl Creamery did not disappoint!

Taqueria Cancun – (at Mission and 19th) I’m sure there are a million good taquerias in the city…but this one has won awards like “Best Veggie Burrito in San Francisco” and I can see why. They served me the best damn veggie burrito I have ever tasted. We pigged out on delicious burritos, tacos, taquitos, chips, green and red salsa…and it cost $8.50 total for two people.

We met up with some friends from old Iowa City and had dinner at Magnolia Pub & Brewery at Haight & Masonic. I loved my beer, the food and the atmosphere…murals, little white lights and big wooden booths. I had a baked coriander and lemon chicken that was oh so good! Bruno had mussels with a spicy white wine sauce, and our friends really liked their choices: gnocchi and duck.

Esperpento – Spanish/Basque restaurant at 3295 22nd Street (between Bartlett St and Valencia Street in The Mission) Our last night in town we went for tapas and paella at a great Spanish restaurant…the food was wonderful and the restaurant had great atmosphere as well. There was live Spanish music, which was very good (even if sometimes a bit loud) and if you love garlic then you cannot afford to miss this restaurant.

We ate really well and had a great time just wandering around the city, up and down the hills and getting the different views, checking out the bookstores, wandering through the different neighborhoods, we were really surprised by the beauty of the Place of Fine Arts (which we stumbled on pretty much by accident), but one of our favorite things we did was going sailing with our friend Lilia. She belongs to the Cal Sailing Club (www.cal-sailing.org) and she brought us on one of the Sunday open-house days. The club is at the Berkeley Marina and the membership is $60 for three months…which includes, sailing and windsurfing lessons, wetsuits, use of boats and equipment, bay cruises, races and BBQs. Whoa!!! Sign me up!!! We had such a good time and everyone was really friendly. If you live in the area- check it out! And if you are just visiting, go on the website to look for the dates for ‘Free Sailboat Rides’ and open-houses…it’s free to go out in the boats and you can pay $5 to eat at the BBQ. When we were there the BBQ had beautiful and seasoned tri-tip steaks, grilled chicken, tons of fruits & veggies, a delicious salad, fresh guacamole, chili, brownies and plenty to drink. Good times!

If you’ve never visited San Francisco, we highly recommend it! And maybe if you wait a year, you’ll be able to visit us there………

My Trip Home

Well, here I am sitting in Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport, waiting for my flight ‘home’ to Paris. I really do feel like Paris is ‘home’ for me…but I also feel like I have been ‘home’ visiting my family and friends during these past six weeks. I’ve been living in Europe for most of the last four years, and have learned to redefine what ‘home’ means. It’s a lot more than a house or a place to hang your hat, and it’s a lot more than the stuff we buy and put inside to fill it up or decorate it. To me ‘home’ seems to have a lot to do with love and acceptance. Home is a place where you can go to be yourself, to take a break from the world outside, where you can regroup, rest up, eat well and sleep well. These past six weeks I have most definitely been ‘home.’ It’s been great to see everyone and I’ve done so much since I arrived here in this airport on June 27th. One of the most important things that has happened since I’ve been home was the marriage of my sister Angie.

Angie Sherwood is now Angie Hudy (pronounced Hooody- like the blowfish) and I am certain that she and Greg are going to be very, very happy together. The wedding was outside of Milwaukee, where they live and where Greg grew up. My sister was absolutely beautiful and everything went so perfectly…everyone had a wonderful time, ESPECIALLY the happy couple!! Bruno came with me to the wedding and he had a really good time, too. I think he really liked experiencing an ‘American wedding’. It was so good to spend a few days with lots of family from all over the country.

Budapest: Travel Guide à la Teeny Part III

Get a map and walk around on all the little streets in Pest- when looking at the map head for the really tangled up ones, they’re the best.




The metro is nice and comes often but doesn’t connect up that well. It’s better if you are just talking one line a long distance than if you are trying to change lines a whole bunch. The ticket machines are in English. There are also trams that run all over the city- but we weren't quite sure how to figure them out. If you do- props to you! Please feel free to post a comment to this blog!



Margaret Island is big, green and lovely in the Danube river between Buda and Pest. A great place for a picnic or just a nap in the sun. Definitely worth a visit!

If you are in the market for a guidebook, we really liked Visible Cities: Budapest by Annabel Barber and Emma Poper-Evans.

Also: if you are arriving from the airport and you are in a group of two or more people, take Zona Taxi!! They accept euros and Hungarian forints (March 2007: one euro is 250 forints) and there is a fixed price, which for two people is the same as taking the shuttle bus! It is a total bargain! We also called the day before we left and made a reservation and they came and picked us up at 5am at our apartment and took us to the airport. Note: You pay a bit less if you pay in forints.

I hope this helps you and I hope you have a great trip!!

Things I Like About Life Here: PART 2

In February I posted an entry about things I like about life in Paris. I think it is high time that I post the sequel to that entry.

Tax and Tip Included:
In restaurants the tip and tax is already included into the price printed on the menu. Duh! Why on earth don’t we do that in the United States? If I walk past a restaurant and see the menu offering a burger and fires for 8.25 and I have exactly 8.25 in my pocket…I’m in! In the US if you see 8.25 for a burger and fries, you can’t go in and eat that burger unless you have at least $10 in your pocket (15% tip and 7% tax on 8.25 equals approximately $10.08). Here the restaurant pays the servers instead of leaving the severs at the mercy of the tip. If the restaurant is nice here or the service is particularly good or it’s a place you go to often, people still sometimes leave a tip of up to a euro or two. But the gesture is a way of showing your appreciation instead of something that is required.

“Bon Courage!”
Bon courage literally means ‘Good courage’ and it is a common thing to say when parting ways with someone. I really like it! It’s a way of saying, ‘Hey, fight the good fight. Hang in there. Be brave even though we all know life is hard.’

Espresso in the Morning:
I usually have a little espresso in the morning before I leave home. But there is a great morning tradition, which I sometimes take part in and that is to go down the café (which are literally on every street so it’s not hard to find one) and stand at the counter and drink your little espresso elbow to elbow with the other people doing the same. You can scan the paper or chat with the bartender or just collect your thoughts for the day. There might be some bar stools to perch on, but most people stand. The price for a coffee that is had at the counter is considerably cheaper than if you order the same cup of coffee but drink it at a table. I love the camaraderie of it all and I get to hear many well wishings of “Bonne journée! Bon courage!!”

The Crazy French Language:
I think French is a beautiful language. It’s hard to imagine that only a couple years ago I really couldn’t speak it at all and now I’m fluent. That’s not to say I don’t make mistakes! But I can live my life easily in French now. I think two of the big reasons that I learned so quickly are 1) I learned it HERE and was immersed in it and 2) I accepted the language as it came to me without always trying to translate things back into English. Still, I have recently learned two knew vocabulary words that I think are soooo funny when translated directly back into English. The first is ‘zipper’, which is called ‘une fermeture éclair’ or ‘a lightening closer’. Even better, to signal to someone that their fly is unzipped you have to say ‘ta fermeture éclair est descendue’ or literally ‘your lightening closer is descended.’ Ha! The other one I recently learned was the word for when you wake up in the morning and you have ‘sleep’ in your eyes. In French you have ‘caca d’oeil’ or literally ‘eye poop!’ Oh, those Frenchies!

BUDAPEST- Travel Guide à la Teeny PART II

In the second instalment of the Budapest Travel Guide à la Teeny I will share with you some bars and restaurants that we really liked.

Food is pretty good and very cheap. Paprika is the ‘Hungarian’ spice so you will see a lot of that and Goulash soup is a good and well known Hungarian dish. Some restaurants that we liked were all in one neighbourhood in the 7th district of Pest.

“M” is at 48 Kertesz utca. Everything inside is covered with brown packaging paper and the menu changes every week. The food is good and not expensive and you can try Unicum which is a strong Hungarian drink- it sort of tastes like fermented flowers. Definitely worth a shot! (pun intended)

Dupla is just next door also at 48 Kertesz utca. We had each had a beer, a main course and a side dish and the total for the two of us was 12 euros. WHOA! Both of these restaurants are small, chill, and funky. I recommend them both!

There are a whole bunch of restaurants and bars along the Liszt ter (Liszt square). The square is only for pedestrians and they all have terraces with heat lamps and they offer you polar fleece blankets to snuggle up with at your table. Very cool! The square and the other two restaurants are all located near metro Oktogon on metro line 1.

A GREAT BAR: Szimpla Kert. This is a really cool and I am pretty sure clandestine bar. I don’t want to talk it up too much but it is one of the coolest bar’s I’ve ever been to.

You have to go in through a little passage that has plastic flaps hanging over it and from the outside it just looks like an apartment building. There is a yellow sign outside though and you can just go on in. It is located on Kazinczy utca between Wesselenyi utca and Dohany utca.

Szimpla Kert is also in the 7th district and not so far from the restaurants above and near metro Astoria on line 2. Szimpla Kert is really chill, very big, kind of falling apart, you sort of feel like you are in some kind of elaborate squat, there are arm chairs and sofas which definitely seem to have been rescued from the street, the music is good but not so loud that you can’t easily chat, drinks are cheap and good. What more could you ask for???

BUDAPEST- Travel Guide à la Teeny

So, I love to travel and almost as much as I love to travel, I love to help other people travel. At the end of March, Bruno and I went for a long weekend in Budapest and I'd like to dedicate a couple blog posts to the trip.

Here is installment one:

Budapest is a great place to visit and still relatively unknown by the masses of American tourists. It has taken a huge jump up in popularity over the last five years and I think the Hungarian people might feel a little bit like they are being invaded, so don’t be alarmed if not every waiter in every bar is thrilled that you are there. But not to worry, the people are generally really nice, and if not nice, they just leave you alone (they aren’t mean or anything). And the city is AMAZING!

Budapest is actually two cities: Buda and Pest. They are divided by the Danube river. On the Buda side is the Buda castle which is worth a visit and there is a great view of Pest from there. The rest of the time we pretty much hung out exclusively in Pest which is more lively and funky.

THE BATHS. Budapest is known for its wealth of natural hot spring baths. You can save money by bringing your own towel and not renting one there. If you are with a boyfriend/close friend/sibling etc. you can also save money by sharing a little dressing room. You lock your stuff inside afterward.

Indoor bath – the Gellert Bath in the Gellert hotel is well known. It is on the Buda (hill side) of the city just on your left as you cross the Szabadsag hid. bridge. There is a hot pool and cool swimming pool and then if you venture back and off to the right you can go though to a sauna and another steam bath area. It's not that well marked so there aren’t as many tourists in this part, because they don’t know it is there. When I say back to the right, if you are at the hot pool, facing the swimming pool it is accessible through a door in the back right corner.

Open-air Baths- our favorite was Szechenzyi bath which is really big and beautiful.

There is one hot pool, one really hot pool and a cool swimming pool all in a big courtyard. You can go in any season and it’s neat in cold weather because you can see all the steam coming off the water. And it's actually pretty funny to jump out of 104 degree water and go running (and in my case squealing) to the other pool. One of the pools is famous for the old Hungarian men who stay in the pool for hours playing chess.

Both of the hot pools have jets and sprayers. Some of the jets go in cycles, so for ten minutes there is one feature going and then another feature. The jets come on and off in different parts of the pools so it's not like there is only one good spot to be in the pool. The hot pool without the chess players has a really fun circular part in it with a really strong current that whooshes you around- it is really fun!

This bath is located in Heros Square park and there is a metro station right at it on the line one called Szechenzyi Furdo (furdo means bath in Hungarian).

We also went to the much smaller and very un-touristy Lukacs bath. Nobody really speaks English here! This one also has a circular pool with a current and a sauna. This one is neat but I wouldn’t go here first because it’s better if you understand the system a little bit. Here there are communal dressing rooms (men and women separate though) and you have to have a swim cap or else rent one there! This is located in Buda at 25-29 Frankel Leo utca (street) north of Batthyany ter metro on line 2.

All of these baths are mixed, men and women and you have to wear a swimsuit. They all have a deal where if you stay less than 2 hours that you can get some of your money back. The three here are listed in order most expensive to least expensive with Gellert around 12euros per person and Lukacs around 5 euros.

April Fish!

So today is April 1st...April Fool's Day! But I am in France and the French like to have their own specific way of doing things and it isn't April Fool's Day here...but 'Poisson d'Avril'. Yup, that's right: April Fish day. Little French children like to run around with little paper fish and try to stick them on the backs of other children and then they yell, "Poisson d'avril!" April Fish.

Next weekend is Easter and again I will have to adjust to the French tradition. Living in Paris, I've traded in car payments for a 15 euro/month unlimited transport pass, TGI Fridays for little cafés, 32oz mochachinos for tiny black espressos...and I've traded in the Easter Bunny for Flying Easter Bells. That's right. Next weekend, there will be no Bunny for me. Instead, flying winged bells from Rome will come and hide eggs for children to hunt.

Still, if accepting April Fish and Flying Easter Bells means I get to enjoy another spring in Paris, then count me in. It was beautiful today and I spent the afternoon in a warm sunny spot on the banks of the Seine river on the Ile Saint-Louis, reading my book and dozing in the sun. The trees are already turning green. On our Nintendo growing up we had the Wheel of Fortune game and one of the grand prizes was ‘April in Paris.’ It is easy to see why.

Confessions of a Victim of Restaurant Tourette's Syndrome

I have Restaurant Tourette's Syndrome.
I'll be at the table hesitating between two items, going back and forth, back and forth. Then the waiter will arrive and I will just BLURT some completely other item off the menu. I can think of a time when I was at brunch with my family and I was trying to decide between the Cinnamon & Granola Oatmeal and the Apple French Toast. I remember my mind was racing: 'Cinnamonandgranola?! Applefrenchtoast?! Cinnamonandgranola?! Applefrenchtoast?!' Then the waiter came to the table, the moment of truth was upon me and when he turned with this little notepad and said, "What can I get for ya?" I blurted: "Buckwheat pancakes!!!" Wait, what? I try to keep my sickness under control but sometimes the odds are against me. For example, this weekend at another so-called "Brunch" I had made all of the many choices required of me...Hot drink = Marco Polo Tea, Juice = Pineapple, Eggs= Scrambled, etc. Brunch is my arch-nemesis, there are just oh so many choices to make. The waitress came, I was ready. I started my well-rehearsed speech, "I'll have the Marco Polo tea, Pineapp..." She jumped in. "Sorry, you can only have Earl Gray with the brunch." AHHHHH! Say it ain't so! Say it ain't so!! This is a Restaurant Tourette's Syndromers worst nightmare. I tried not to panic. I breathed deeply. I willed myself not to break into a cold sweat. I forced a smile, "Oh, th-th-that's okay," I stammered. "I'll just have a c-c-COFFEE! A double espresso!" Whew. I made it through the rest of my order. She took the orders of the other three people at my table. I tried to smile, but all the while my mind was racing... “Coffee? double espresso?!? I don't want that! That doesn't sound remotely appetizing to me!! Help!” The waitress started folding over the little flip-cover on her notepad. I knew it was now or never. "HOT CHOCOLATE!" I yell. "Is it too late? Is it too late to change? I am sorry, but I don't want a double espresso. I want hot chocolate!!" She smiled kindly and told me it was okay, it wasn't too late to change. I breathed a sigh of relief. My food came and I enjoyed my meal. Another harrowing brunch experience had come to a successful end. I smiled at my fellow brunchmates as if to say, "All in a days work, my friends, all in a days work."

Things I Like About Life Here: PART 1

Sometimes people ask me why I am living in Paris...I guess the best answer is: Because I like it!

Here are a few things I like...

Lights with Timers
I like that in the hallways of apartment buildings and in public bathrooms the lights are on timers. You hit the button when you go in and the light comes on and stays on for a few minutes. Then you don't have to remember to turn it off when you leave the bathroom or when you go into your apartment, it just turns off. Just THINK of all the apartment building hallways and public bathrooms in the US that just leave the lights on all day, all night, every day, every night. Yikes.

Candy you can Count
If you want to buy some candy here you can go into a bakery (which you can find about every block...there are actually SIX just on my street) and you say how many pieces of candy you want. As in YOU SAY THE NUMBER. None of this," take a giant scoop of candy and put it in a baggy and write the PLU number on the slip and the cashier will WEIGH it for you and sell you the candy by the POUND" stuff like we have in the US. No. Here you go in the bakery and you look at the different candies they have and you say, 'I'll have 3 peach rings, 2 sour worms and 5 gummy bears, please." And each candy costs 5 cents...maybe 10 cents for something big.

Bakeries
Speaking of the bakeries, which you can find every block or so, if not more often than that...that's another thing I like! I love going into a bakery and getting a fresh baguette. It seems like everybody breaks off the very tip and eats it on the way home. It seems like a reasonable tradition...and who am I to argue? I break the tip off my fresh, warm baguette and pop it in my mouth as I walk home, like the rest of them.

Room-Temperature Water
Maybe I was always destined to live in Europe, because unlike most Americans (and very much like most Europeans) I don't like to drink my water cold...I like it room temperature. And it's not even a thing of sensitive teeth or what have you (I can bite into a popsicle without a wince!), it is just that I like my water lukewarm. Here in France the so-called office 'water coolers' have two spouts: one for 'cold' and the other for 'lukewarm.' Ahhh, those Frenchies. They really are after my heart!

The Concept of a Carrot

So, I haven’t been able to blog much lately…but I have had my hands full! Here is a small tableau from my working life to help you see what I am up against :)


My Boss: What do you think of the concept of a carrot?

(Me: thinking, searching, grasping at straws....Where is he going with this? Think, Tina! Think! Oh! I’ve got something. A really good stretch on my part, if I do say so myself….)

Me: You mean like the horse and the carrot? Like a reward?

My Boss: No.

(Shoot! Strike one…maybe I should try the more obvious route?)

Me: Um…you mean like the veggie?

(Moment of silence.)

My Boss: Did you know they weren’t originally orange?

(I don’t know what the hell he is talking about, but I’m willing to go with it…)

Me: Really?! That’s interesting. What color were they?

(Silence. My boss looks at the folder he’s been holding for the last 10 minutes. He seems very surprised to see it in his hands. He stands there for a minute marveling at the folder. He shakes his head. Smiles and gives a little laugh and walks away. End of conversation.)

One of The Biggest Tourist Destinations in the WORLD...

Last weekend we celebrated Bruno's 26th birthday...he is exactly 2 months younger than me and now we have both crossed over the line of 25 and are officially closer to 30 than 20. whoa.

It's crazy how fast time passes. I got to thinking about his birthday last year when we went to the Mont Saint Michel. He was all astonished/appalled that I didn't know about the Mont Saint Michel...he kept telling me it's 'like one of the biggest tourist destinations in the WORLD.' Dear readers, have you ever heard of the Mont Saint Michel? Back me up here, people! I keep trying to tell him, "Hey, I am an American. I am lucky I ever made it out of the country at all and that I know how to locate France on a map."

The Mont St. Michel was actually a really cool place. It's basically like a big 'mount' with this small, almost medieval village and a big monastery on it. It is out in the middle of nowhere in Normandy and when the tide comes in, water surrounds it and when the tide goes out it has quicksand all around it. We spent the night in a little hotel in the village and it was really neat because it was January and the off-season and it was pretty much empty. There are obviously no cars or anything, just these tiny little winding streets. It was very quiet, and a night it was very foggy and dark and we could see so, so many stars.



When we got back from the trip I was talking about it with my friend Jeannine.

Jeannine: Hey cool! I didn't know there was quicksand around the Mont Saint Michel!

Tina: Yeah, totally. (I give her a look that says, 'Ahh, poor little Jeannine. Must I explain everything to you. I mean, it IS one of the biggest tourist destinations in the world!')

Jeannine: I did't even really know quicksand really existed.

Tina: Really? (Poor, poor Jeannine.)

Jeannine: Yeah, I thought it was just kinda made-up, didn't you?

Tina: No. (I give jeannine the self-satisfied smile that says: I am so smart!) I knew it existed. It's in The NeverEnding Story.

Jeannine: You based your knowledge of quicksand off THE NEVERENDING STORY?

Tina: Um....yeah.

(Jeannine gives me the 'I still like you anyway' look.)

(I give Jeannine the 'I'm very grateful' look.)

Well, a year has gone by and Jeannine and I are still friends. She’s living in Japan now. I'm still in Paris, Bruno and I are still together and a year older. And hopefully a little wiser…

The Great Decoder

To teach English as a foreign language it helps to be a really good decoder. The student says something to you that comes out all scrambled, it enters your brain, you descramble it, repeat it correctly to the student with a smile and the student then repeats the correct phrase, smiles and continues talking. You get about a 2 second window in which to take in, decode and spit out the correct sentence...if you take longer and the student can see you puzzling about what they said, they get uncomfortable, lose confidence and shut up. Let me tell you, when you have 75 minutes to kill, the last thing you want is the student getting uncomfortable and claming up. So, as you can see the decoding game is very important. If you do it well, the student can learn something AND he or she will happily chat away to you and the time flies by.

Here are some excerpts from this weeks classes:

Student A: Hello Kristina! Did the Christmas father come to search you in your parent's house in USA?
Kristina: Yes! SANTA CLAUS did come FIND me at my parent's house in THE STATES!

Student B: I met my old friend hazardously in the street.
Kristina: You ran into an old friend in the street? That's nice!

Student C: For Noel my childrens received movie plays!
Kristina: Your children got video games for Christmas? I bet they liked that!

Another student told me that at the lunch break after the seminar he lead in English, he asked one of the participants, "Did you pleasure yourself this morning?" He couldn't figure out why she got flustered and acted so strangely. I told him that I thought something had gotten a little lost in translation and that next time it would be better to ask, "Did you ENJOY yourself at the seminar this morning?"

Of course, I get a kick out of the little things I hear people say in English...but there are two sides to this coin! It makes me wonder what on Earth I'm saying in French half of the time!

Miss Sherwood - English Teacher Extraordinaire

So here is the first of what I have to assume will be many posts about my job as a Business English teacher. This first post will just be a quick intro to what I do. I teach English to French business people...most of them already speak English pretty well, so it's a lot of fine tuning. Of course I do have some beginner level students, as well. Advanced level students can be difficult to teach...sometimes they speak so well, I can feel like I'm at a bit of a loss to teach them something. I start thowing out really random idiomatic expressions so it looks like I'm smart and have sooooo much wisdom to impart... "You don't know the expression, "A stitch in time saves nine"?! Well you just HAVE TO learn it! We LOVE to use that expression! Why I was just using that expression this morning with my other native English speaker friends! It was coined by BENJAMIN FRANKLIN! This one is a MUST KNOW!" Then with beginner level students it can be difficult because it's really slow going and it when you see them only once per week it's hard to make very much progress. I even have one intermediate level student who has the really bad habit of pronouncing the silent 'k' in words like knee and know. He said to me the other day, "Oh-oh! Kristina, I am impressing you with my k-nowledge, no?" We've been over it several times...but like I said, one class a week can be slow going.

Most of my students are upper intermediate level and like I said we work on a lot of fine tuning. Such as helping them say, "Call me back after 1pm." instead of "Call again to me in the hour of one." (Call a-gin to meee in ze howwwerrrr ov one.)

I'm in my fourth year as an English teacher and I spend A LOT of time listening to people make English mistakes...and the scary thing is, some of those mistakes are starting to sound RIGHT to me! Just the other day a student said, "I have to make a presentation." and I jumped right in and said, "DO a presentation." The student gave me a look and I said, "MAKE a presentation. Yes. Okay. As you were saying???" Oops.

Or like the time I mentioned in a blog from last year when I asked a student, 'Is this word a noun or a drink? Errr...I mean a noun or a VERB?" Oops.

Maybe it's just the kind of work that can make you a little crazy after a little while. My boss is definitely proof that! But more on him next time...