A Sad Day

Dear Friends,

Today is the last day of this wonderful adventure.  The weather is overcast and cool with an occasional shower.  It is exactly like our moods, kind of sad with an occasional tear. We walked down to the Vieille Ville for breakfast which has been our habit on weekend mornings.  The pain au chocolat, omelette and café tasted even better than normal.  The ordering, etc. was all in French and we understood the waiter's comments including his use of pronouns.

After breakfast we took a stroll around the Vielle Ville and even tried to visit the Musée Volti in the Citadel which was closed when we did our official tour three weeks ago because it had no electricity.  Unfortunately, it still has no electricity which fortunately means that we will have to return to Villefranche another time to see the museum. We were able to visit the Cocteau Chapel, which is actually La Chapelle Saint-Pierre that was decorated by Jean Cocteau.  It is a very small chapel right on the water that was for the fishermen.  Jean Cocteau decorated it with pastel chalk in the 1950s.  It is beautiful.  We also bought a birthday present for little Dobby and a table cloth in a typical Provence design.

We now need to pack since the taxi will pick us up at 4:45 am tomorrow morning, assuming that I said the time etc right when I called to arrange for it.  I guess we will see tomorrow.

We are having dinner tonight with a wonderful woman from Wyoming who was in the school in a more advanced class.  She is a great democrat and lots of fun.  She is staying on in Villefranche for a couple more weeks.  We are going to eat at a restaurant called L'Aparté.  It will be our third time eating there.  It is small and run by two women, one is the waitress and the other is the chef.  The food is fabulous, the ambience is great and the women are very friendly and helpful.

There are a couple of things that we wanted to mention that we have not included in past posts.

As we have mentioned several times, a very important part of this experience is the amazing diversity of people that we have met.  The other day during one of practical lessons, we were together with the two advanced groups.  We were put into teams to compete on our knowledge of French culture and geography.  I was on a team with another American, two Russians and a Palestinian.  We named ourselves the Équipe Guerre Froide as we had two Americans and two Russians with a Palestinian to mediate our disputes.  The other American was a young woman who had worked in NYC for a big law firm for 5 years who got tired of it and quit and was deciding what to do next.  One of the Russians was the young Russian woman in our class who loved Russia but was completely estranged from it now.  The other Russian was a wealthy businessman who owns a villa in Monaco and spends holidays there with his wife and two children.  He did not fit the stereotype of a Russian male.  The Palestinian woman was actually born in Egypt and currently lives in Geneva and works for the UN.  Her family has been displaced and now lives all over.

We also did not post about the last dinner that we had as a group from the school.  About 40 of the 60 students were there.  We took over a restaurant by the water.  It was a great time.  After dinner, Julien one of the professors who also is the one that arranges all of the outside of school activities sang some songs.  He started out with a few French songs that nobody knew but were nice songs.  After a while he was taking requests.  Somebody asked for "Frère Jacques" and Jane was able to divide the group into three groups to sing it as a round.  That was followed by a wonderful rendition by Jane with the group joining in of "La Seine est aventureuse".  We ended the evening songfest with a tribute to Pete Seeger by singing "If I has a Hammer".  It didn't matter which country you came from or how old you were, everybody knew the song.  Music is indeed the universal language.

More later (as we are not ready to admit this is the end),
Jane and the Unabashed Liberal

Jane est l'étoile

Dear Friends,

Today was our last day of school.  We started the day with a written test that included (1) a listening test in which two people on a recording would say things that were either identical or very close to being identical, we had to say if they were completely identical; (2) a listening and comprehension test with the professor describing something and we had to link to a series of pictures that we had; (3) a dictation about a paragraph long; (4) a series of pictures which told a story which we had to write about in French; and (5) several paragraphs to read and answer questions about.  We also had an oral test which involved a series of pictures telling a story which we had to describe to a teacher in a one on one session.  The test was the same test format as the first day so that they could track our progress.  It was a very stressful day.  We also watched a short film in French which we discussed in small groups and then got to watch with subtitles.  However, the subtitles were also in French.

Each student met with an instructor to review the test results.  Jane and I met with the head of the school.  As you can imagine Jane made incredible progress, and he was very impressed.  I also made quite a bit of progress, but I certainly did not catch up to Jane.  He was very complimentary of both of us (of course we paid to be at the school).

In the graduation ceremony, each student was called to receive his or her certificate.  I was called in the middle but Jane was not called and not called and not called.  Finally after all the certificates had been handed out except for 4, the head of the school said that there were four students (of the roughly 60 students) who received special recognition.  Jane was, of course, one of those.  It was a great honor and well deserved.

AND THE WINNER IS.......

After Jane received her special award, they served champagne and treats.  We also sang La Vie en rose, the famous song by Edith Piaf.  It is one of Jane's favorites and now we have all the words.  It was a great event but also sad as people began leaving for the four corners of the earth.  Many email addresses were exchanged, many pictures taken, many hugs and a few tears.  We will miss our classmates and hope to keep in touch.

Ça y est!!!

More later,
Jane and the Unabashed Liberal

A Red Letter Day

Dear Friends,

Today Jane and another of our classmates gave a great presentation and lead an excellent discussion on the issue of whether or not there is extraterrestrial life.  They had done a lot of research, and Jane was very convincing that with over 200,000,000,000 solar systems in our galaxy and over 3,000,000,000,000 galaxies in the known universe.  It is improbable that there is not extraterrestrial life.  Everybody except one person was won over by Jane's argument.  It was a fun discussion and now Jane is finished with her presentations for the course.

In another first, the main course for lunch today was rabbit.  Neither of us had had rabbit before.  Now Jane is the only one who has not had rabbit.  It was quite good.  It appeared that we were served only legs, and they looked and tasted like a chicken leg.

Now that I hang my laundry outside when the sun is shining, carry my trash and recycling to the container on the corner, eat rabbit, shop every day in different stores for dinner, walk everywhere I go, etc.  I must be French except that my French is still really not that good.  We went to the movie at school tonight.  It was a romantic comedy, all in French without subtitles.  Fortunately, one of the instructors gave an explanation before the start and from time to time during the movie.  It was fun to watch, and I could follow it with the help, but I did not understand the dialogue.

Tonight was the last movie night.  Tomorrow is the last morning to watch the news together and the last presentation.  We have only two laboratories left.  It is getting quite sad as we face the end of school and all going our separate ways.  We are giving a party for our class on Thursday night.  We will have champagne etc. but it will be sad as well.

More later,
Jane and the Unabashed Liberal

A Wonderful Weekend

Dear Friends,

We have had a great weekend!!!  On Saturday, we became truly French.  We did our laundry first thing in the morning, and since it was a beautiful day with lots of sun and a nice breeze we hung it outside to dry.

Our flat is the one on the top floor on the left.  The two windows are actually french doors on the left and a big window on the right.  They are in the living room/dining room/kitchen area of our flat.  The ones on the right belong to our neighbor.  As you can see our neighbor has more clothes drying (Mom, Dad and two kids).  The second picture is so you can clearly see our clothes.

We took these pictures as we were leaving to go to Nice to visit the Matisse Museum there.  We took the bus to the Vieille Ville de Nice.  The Vieille Ville is of course located by the sea and port.  We then realized that the museum was in the hills of Nice near the ancient city of Cimiez.  It was only a 1.5 mile walk, but it was all up quite a steep hill.  But it was a great day for a walk - sunny skies, a little breeze and 55 degrees.  When we got to the museum we were happy to find a little lunch place in the park that included ancient Roman ruins as well as the Matisse Museum.

The museum is absolutely fantastic.  Matisse lived for quite awhile in Nice, and he and his family have given many works to the museum.  

There was virtually nobody else there so we could be in a room with all these fantastic works of art without being interrupted or disturbed by others.  His colors and the simplicity of his lines are remarkable and produce amazing works.  Here is one of my favorites.

It is not one of the well know gouaches decoupées, but it should be.

By the time we got home from Nice, we were ready to rest.  We skipped a party at the home of one of the students who has a flat in Nice and just watched Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert as we ate a nice dinner in our flat.

On Sunday, we went down to the old town for a brunch by the sea where we relaxed and read the New York Times.  We walked around a little and then returned to our flat where we studied and read.  Jane worked hard on her presentation of extraterrestrial life for Tuesday.  It was a relaxing day.  

The red notebook is her class notes, and she is making an important point of grammar.

We are going to a friend's flat for dinner tonight which will be fun, and then back for the last week of school.  We are already getting sad about the end of school and saying goodbye to all our new friends.

More later,

Jane and the Unabashed Liberal