Monaco and other breakthroughs

Monaco was fabulous. It was an admittedly whirlwind tour, but I wouldn't have been able to afford anything if we had had enough time to go in places anyway... We also stopped for a tour of the Fragonard perfumerie where I bought my first real purfume! I'm a real lady now!

But, slightly more exciting (rather, a story I can tell without pictures since I can't connect my computer yet), coming home from the grocery yesterday, my French roommates invited me to have apertifs with them! I was also informed, as we all slowly got tipsy ("pompette") at six pm, that this is a regular occurance. I knew I liked these people.

It appears that one of the regular pasttimes in France, after skiing of course, is attempting to teach Americans how to say "frog." In French, the word is "grenouille," and is admittedly tricky. The French R is difficult enough for an anglophone, but preceeded by a G it's nearly impossible to pronounce. After the first syllable comes a string of vowels long enough to trip up any lazy-tongued American... It is, in a word, the reason Americans have accents. And is thus great fun for native speakers.

Next time it happens, I'm getting them to say "squirrel."

Everything else is well, aside from that one professor who likes us to sing in class.