Ecole

I started my French course this week at the Langue Onze. The school is near Republique in the 11th quartier, hence the name (Richard just reminded me of that). The classes are wonderfully small - only 7 people in ours, so plenty of attention and chance to talk. At about 11 we have a short break, by which time everyone is ravenous. There's a Norwegian boy who each day this week has brought out a baguette and a different cheese and a big knife. Un bon idee! There's a market down the road from school which I went and engaged with recently. I found the markets a bit intimidating at first: must you separate your veggies into different bags, are different kinds of tomatoes different prices, alors! what IS that weird thing over there etc. I feared getting to the till bit with jumbled produce and having to put each thing back, grape by grape.

I like learning in this way again, I haven't done it since school. It's quite overwhelming and tiring right now though, and we have homework too (les devoirs). My brain's getting quite the spurring and I feel it responding slowly and I hope surely - the classes are conducted solely in French, so if we don't know the meaning of a word we have to find synonyms and descriptions in French. Our teacher is very good and it feels very intense. It's made me think about how much putting myself across as who I am depends on what I can say and how I can say it - I feel my personality as I've come to know it doesn't much exist during class. More incentive to learn and reassert myself!

Yesterday we had an afternoon tour by an artist around a north east quartier and a Centre Cultural. It was cold and we wandered along with him giving us some history of the local area, mostly social, about 'les Bobos' - bohemian bourgeois, relations of Babar (ha ha!) and which areas are richer or poorer. He was really nice although did admit to not knowing the area very well! I asked him about Roman roads with my new font of Parisian historical knowledge (mock ye not, but see below) in French which felt good. In fact I understood quite a lot of what he said and I think that's the course working.

** History Corner **
I'm reading a book called "Seven Ages of Paris" by Alistair Horne, which Ella sent me. It's great so far, the exact book I felt like I wanted!

Paris fact number 1: The rue Saint-Denis, a Roman highway which starts at the Seine by the Ile de la Cite, is so called after of a Christian martyr dragged up it for denying the divinity of the Emperor. On top of a hill overlooking the city he and two supporters were executed. Then according to legend he picked up his head and washed the beard, and walked 'six thousand paces' before dying. He was buried in that spot and that became a holy place. Later cathedral Saint-Denis was built there, which became the burial place of French kings from Dagobert onwards. The place of his execution became known as the 'Mons Martyrum' - or Montmartre.