Welcome to France

Semaine Six
Just so that I do not get a flood of e-mails from those who noticed that I used the English word for 6, six is spelled the same in English and French. Of course you do pronounce them differently. In French it is pronounced sees.

I am going to ramble a little about the life in France. Enjoy the rest of the page.

All the public museums are free. They are mostly art, architecture, history, etc. There are also a lot of private museums. Between Bordes and Lourdes there is a museum dedicated to the history of foie gras. It is in a large store that sells all kinds of things made from the duck. I don't think I can bring any of it into the country.

In Nay there is a museum dedicated to the history of the French Barrett. There is the story of the barrett and the making of the barrett. They even have some of the old machines that were used to knit the barrett.

This is a French clothes dryer. I don't know if most homes do not have a dryer, or they just prefer these. They are sold all over and you will see these on the porch filled with clothes. Our old house had one plus a clothes line in the yard. It was never sunny enough to use the line.
The week ended with a ski trip with the French boss. At one time I was a pretty good skier. I have skied most of the NC resorts and a few in the Denver area.

We have been having great weather here, sunny and warm days, in the 60's. and nights where it has not been below 32. Guess what that does not snow! The picture was taken some time ago when there was snow. This weekend it was ice.

I managed to get the skis on and get on the lift. When I got to the top I noticed, there was no landing area off the lift. You had to get off quick and straight then start downhill or get hit by the lift. OK, so far so good.

I got off, spead away from the lift, because it was all ice, fast and hard! I'm heading downhill, sitting back, bent knees and can not get the skis to bite enough to turn and my knees were not doing what my brain kept telling them to do.

Bottom line, warm up, start on the bunny slope and you will not wipe out and strain something in the knee. J'achète un genduillere et ketum. French lesson do pay off, just not sure if a knee bandage is male or female. Any idea June?

News round up from the rest of the weekend.

The big news in France was Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga playing in the finals of the Australian Open. We heard there were parties all around France Saturday night. The match was played Sunday morning and carried live on public television. He lost in the finals, but it was a good match. Our landlord invited us over for wine and cheese and to watch the match.

Sunday afternoon we got up with other folks from TMM for a cookout. The menu was steak, hamburgers, fries, mashed potatoes, mushrooms, salad and of course wine, bread and cheese. The charcoal here looks like coal, but not as hard. It does not burn as hot in the US, but it worked fine. No raw meat!

I am not sure of all the facts, this story loses something when being translated. Apparently, a bank trader in the futures markets lost billions of euros, before he was stopped. It has started a big investigation.

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