the french

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salut lovers and friends.



haha. so basically, everything is lovely. the woman who i am staying with, sophie, took me out to dinner last night to her familys house in bayonne, which is a town just near where i am staying in anglet. i have to say, this is probably what i have been waiting for as far as true european cultural experience goes. iit was beutiful. i honestly could not understand one word of what the entire family was saying, but i got the gist. familys are the same whether in aus or france hey?



i ate so much food, all beautiful french cheeses, cakes, salads, breads, ratatouille, drank sips of local drinks;;; a tarte cidre took my fancy, but they were also giving me local spirits, which were apparently about45 percent. hahah. one uncle came up to me and said: the best wat to underdatind a different language, is to be very very drunk..; i like that idea.. so i decided to take the advice of a local and drink drink drink. when in france hey?

it was really interesting just to sit back and observe them, i totally loved being there. the mother, too busy cooking to enjoy the food;; the cousins and uncles, drinking and smoking and laughing and eating. even though i couldnt underdstand the majority of what they were saying, just watching how they interacted , how they took 3 hours to eat a meal in between smokes and drinks, was so interesting! finally a little taste of real culture! they told me how in their family, food is like a religion.. i like that philosophy. its not a glutonous thing, to eat, but something that is done over a lot of time and with more talking than eating. more an enjoyment of each others company than a feasting i think.

after twe had returned home from the dinner sophie and i went down to a bar on the beach which is literally about 50 metres away from her apartment, and drank champagne until the wee hours. sophie is typical french lovely woman. loves cheese, champagne, chocolate. but she is also so lovely and skinny!!! someone tried to explain this to me last night, it is a french paradox.....



i also spent about an hour last night with yanni; who is sophies 8 year old son, learning english from him. he has become my unofficial teacher, and i think maybe i have become his. we spend up to an hour every night at dinner just pointing at things and them teaching them to each other in our respective languages. he doesnt understand really any english at all and i understand only minimal french, but i think its better that way because we are really forced to learn from each other and think about the wording of things. also for me it is better because a childs language is so much simpler and easier for me to get ahold of. we have a lot of times where we just look at each other and laugh about how silly we sound///... and a lot of ¨je non comprend¨¨for me, which is one of the few things i say with complete confidence.

he is here right now actually, playing right next to me and repeating the words i type. im trying to translate this email into francais for him but im struggling. he just told me the word for parents which from what i can see is just parents with a french accent. pronounced parènns.

haha he is a mad kid, im going to miss my lessons with him when i leave here.



so, ive only got about 3 weeks left to go in europe, so im thinking italy and amsterdam/... money is running very low and i am living off only baguettes and camabert which is extremely lovely and cheap. have become fat but am enjoying my lovely curves and will enjoy the challenge of getting skinny again when i return home... haha



see you all soon.. so soon.. much peace and love and health.. xxx

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