A Great Adventure

Dear Friends,

It has been a long time since I have written and even longer since I have written with any regularity.  Now Jane and I are about to embark on a great adventure, and it seems like a good time to try to write again with some frequency.  We (Jane will be posting here as well) will be writing mainly about our adventure, but we hope to include some reflections on how the United States and its current President are viewed from Europe.

Jane and I are right now frantically packing for a one month trip to France to learn how to speak French.  We love France, and we can speak just enough French to survive, but frankly it is embarrassing and rather arrogant that we only speak one language.  We will be attending the Institut de Francais (here) in Villefranche-sur-Mer near Nice.  We go to school for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week for 4 weeks.  We eat breakfast and lunch at the school and are completely immersed in French.

the school




View of Cap Ferrat from school

We have rented a small apartment that according to the brochure overlooks the Mediterranean that is a six minute walk (according to Google) from the school.

The balcony of our apartment

 

The weather forecast for Minneapolis for tomorrow predicts a high of minus 1 (not counting the wind chill).  The weather forecast for Villefranche-sur Mer for tomorrow predicts a high of 52.

We received an email from a friend of ours who is French and lives in Paris today.  He writes in part

Glad to hear you are going to come to France, Villefranche is a very beautiful place, crowded in the summer, but certainly very quiet in Jan. You are likely to get some nice sunny weather at that time of the year, good chances of being able to have lunch in the outside in the sun, but rather cool at night of course. You should see mountains with snow in the back country and even sometimes the Corsican Peaks about 100 Km across the sea.The bay is wonderful and the cape houses some of the most expensive properties in France.There is a nice walk all around the Cape. 

The Cape he refers to is Cap Ferrat. The picturesque harbor of Villefranche-sur-Mer is protected on the east by Cap Ferrat and on the west by Cap de Nice.

We leave tomorrow (Thursday) and school starts Monday.  We start with a test for placement purposes.  We both are already having performance anxiety.  We will keep you posted as our adventure unfolds.

Thanks for reading and please comment,

The Unabashed Liberal and Jane