I apologize for the unedited state these posts are in

Le week-end: 7 - 8 fevrier
The French cheat. They stole our word. “Weekend” en français est “le fin de la semaine.” Which kind of has a cool ring to it, so I don’t know why it got replaced with “weekend.” I guess weekend is easier to say. The letter K, however, isn’t terribly common in the French language, I’ve noticed, actually I noticed it year two of French class, but never had the go-juice to look into it further. I’m stalling.
Thomas had school Saturday morning, I didn’t. I’m not entirely sure why I don’t have to, but I don’t. I don’t really tend argue against the ability to sleep in and not to go to school, consequence-free. Thomas, Quentin et moi avons regardé le film Final Fantasy: Advent Children en français. C’est un très bon film (I’m pretty sure “bon/bonne” is one of the adjectives that gets to ride in front of the noun). In fact, it’s one of my favorites. One of my favorite works of art too, it’s just so nice to look at. We didn’t get to finish, we went to the market with Phillippe. It was disappointingly similar to Pike Place Market, and I hope I didn’t disappoint them by not being as overwhelmed. Sometimes I think they want to overwhelm me as much as possible, sometimes I think it’s just France. Either way, it’s kind of fun. Anyways, the market was fortunately covered, because it snowed for the third time since I’ve been here, however the snow doesn’t stick. It’s probably all the concrete and cars. There was an old man playing an accordion in the courtyard area by the market, so that was a nice Frenchy addition to the experience.
Scene missing.
I went to the mall with Phillippe and Magdeleine, to buy a present for Guillaume (the nephew of Magdeleine, who’s birthday party we were driving to that night. Fun fact: He lives in Vatan, which is said the same way as a phrase meaning “get out.” For the longest time I thought they were saying his name was Vatan, and I thought “why would anyone name their child a homophone of a phrase such as that?”). We went to the Virgin store. I’m not exactly sure what Virgin is. Is it just the company of some eccentric guy who wants to own the world? Or a group of people-savvy entrepreneurs? Aliens sent down to usher us into the future 1960s sci-fi movies painted for us? Whatever it is, and whatever their motives, I think it’s kind of cool (I typed “scary” the first time…). Anywho, the Virgin store has comic books, books, CDs, video games, electronics, movies, stuffed animals (yeah, I did a double-take too), and I’m sure plenty of other treasures. Well, we (I say “we,” but I didn’t buy anything) bought 3 comics (one of which a dirty one) and an underwater themed book (the ones filled with cool pictures that you never end up looking through the whole thing), then they bought some things for themselves, then we left. This was the shopping adventure that was supposed to also include the purchase of my maillot de bain, but I got to commence the awkward conversation of “je ne peux pas nager.” But, I can’t. I can’t swim, every time I do I have to be re-taught and that’s because I don’t like to swim, I just don’t. D’accord.
And then we drove. For two hours. That’s about an hour and 40 minutes longer than I was expecting, but I slept, so it’s all good. C’est tout bon. We got there about 20h00, I was still drowsy, and I was introduced to 20-30 French-speaking family members. Most of them were nice, but I did get a little bit of the “you need to speak slower for him” (tu as besoin parler plus lon pour lui) I even got from a kid probably a year or two younger than me “I don’t speak English” (je ne peux pas parler anglais) when I was trying to speak French. Okay, I’m no good, but I try. I’m pretty sure it was all in the best intentions, or at least good humor.
Dinner lasted several hours, and involved multiple leavings and returnings to the table, but it was pretty good. There was 7 teens (including me) present, some of which (not including me) were playing a computer game that they seemed very interested in that I wasn’t awake enough to want to be taught how to play. That sentence was very poorly structured. I didn’t really do much and was happy when they wanted to watch a movie (la Voyage á la Centre de la Terre), because then I could go sleep guiltlessly. Of course, I don’t think any sleep commencing around 1h30 should carry a burden of guilt.
Oh wow, that was a week ago, I really fell behind in these blogs pretty quickly. The time has flown by…
Moral of the story: too many French people talking at the same time hurt my head, the meals can take upwards of a couple hours, Twilight is equally popular here, and Magdeleine’s sister fixed the torn pocket on my jacket. So I ended it so abruptly, I…I actually have no excuse, I’m just lazy.
Lazy, lazy, lazy,

Taylor en France