<p>Once we’ve enjoyed Barcelona, let’s swing by Paris. I’ve got my apartment picked out.</p>
<p>[Paris</a> flat, Paris apartment rentals, Luxury apartment rental Paris, Paris serviced apartment,](<a href=“http://www.guestapartment.com/properties/1_bedroom/snowdrop.html]Paris”>http://www.guestapartment.com/properties/1_bedroom/snowdrop.html)</p>
<p>A view of Notre Dame…OMG!</p>
<p>Missiepie - The apartment in Paris looks pretty good to me. It might be a little crowded, though.</p>
<p>Oh yeh, count me in on that trip, too!</p>
<p>I’m in. Or should I say “dans.”
Mais oui!
Ooohlala.</p>
<p>I appear to have forgotten that quebecois I once spoke. Just as well, the Parisians would mock me ; )</p>
<p>I am pretty sure the Parisians will mock us anyway. Still… a little mocking never stopped me from doing just about anything!</p>
<p>OK… I found out where he was going skiing, but not with whom or how many or how he will get back to his starting point. I figure if I hear from my sister than he never got off the plan come Monday night, then I will start to worry. But if S continues to be like his father, he will get bored at the airport and call.</p>
<p>I’m willing to be mocked (and I most definitely would be) to stay in that Paris apartment!</p>
<p>^</p>
<p>Me, too. And if they mock me in French I won’t understand it anyway.</p>
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<p>Mock away. How many of them get to go back to a flat with a close up view of Notre Dame?</p>
<p>Even though we didn’t understand a word, it was pretty clear what the Parisian taxi driver was saying to me and D2 when we only wanted to go a short distance! </p>
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<p>kmccrindle - my mom grew up in Montreal and she always wondered why she’d been taught Parisian French in school, when it really didn’t help her communicate with her French Canadian friends and neighbors.</p>
<p>Hmm, my daughter is going to be in Paris in March for a couple of weeks. Speaking of Montreal, she (French minor) visited Montreal last summer and she could barely understand the Quebecois accent.</p>
<p>Son seems to be doing well enough and may have found a group that wants to start a game design theme house for next year. WPI moms - housing deposits for next year are due Feb 11th!</p>
<p>Yes, Montreal was quite a rude awakening to my younger self when I set off to a college to allegedly get my bilingual certificate. I kept having the feeling I was walking around with the equivalent of a hotty-totty formal Brit accent in a jungle of mis-comprehension. They could understand me very well. I could barely make out a word they said. Eventually, I got the hang of the slang and now I have no idea if anyone would understand me at all. I am also amazed how much I’ve lost from complete lack of use. I wrote a play in French that we’d performed at the college (and it was a comedy, believe it or not) and I don’t think I could even read it today, let alone act in it.</p>
<p>Some days I’m convinced that my brain is like a really old computer that needs a good wipe and an expansion slot! Just too many bad sectors and not enough RAM ; )</p>
<p>kmmc - I don’t think I could put it in such technical terms, but yup, that sounds exactly like my brain these days!</p>
<p>but there’s hope - look what I learned to do over on the Parents of '10 thread - fireworks!</p>
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<p>Greetings to all the great people who post here. I wish you all much joy in 2010. My lad returned last Thursday from sunny Zimbabwe to friggin cold (his words) upstate NY last Thursday. I feel so much better this departure compared to the bottomless despair I was in August last year Not that I know a lot more about my Ss college life! But what I have picked up is that he is REALLY happy he loves college, has made a couple of great friends, and he came home with reasonable results, 3 As and 2 Bs. I think what I found most comforting was that exactly the same sweet affable boy who left last year, came home. He was taller, his hair almost black from no sunshine, a couple of kgs heavier, but hes a tall slim boy so he just filled out his jeans a little better. He has made a couple of academic sounding decisions to minor in computer science, which he hadnt even realized he had a penchant for previously, and that he was really interested in computer graphics as an influence for video game design. Who knew? He has also found courses for Musicals singing and drama, and intends fitting those in somehow. He was really looking forward to returning. His Dad lives relatively close to the College, and it is obvious they have really connected and are getting on so well. Sounds strange to even be noting that, but I left his Dad (a Brit) my first hubby, in NY when my son was only a baby, and although S has been to visit every year since then, the trips have only been for a couple of weeks at a stretch, bar last year when he stayed for 3 months Jan- April. Anyway Im digressing, but hey I dont post that often so I guess its allowed! We had a good break, New Year at Vic Falls was fun S and stepdad and couple of grown up step siblings did all the bunjee jumping, whitewater canoeing etc. Back home there was a lot of motorbiking in the bush, some partying as he caught up with his mates from High School, quite a bit of sleeping, but as Zim is 7 hours ahead of NY his schedule was fairly compatible with ours! He played with the pups, (fox terrier litter there were 3 left over Christmas), swam and lay in the sun, ate lots of food, dashed off to the butcher for fresh biltong regularly, (one of his few criticisms of the US man Mom that beef jerky is pretty dam awful), loved driving around and being independent - as he hasnt driven at all in the US. He left dragging his field hockey goalkeepers kit with him, telling me he was going to find a club to join where he could play. At college only the girls play field hockey. He tells me he is staying the whole year in the US, so Step Dad and I are planning a trip out end of term to visit friends in Florida who live close to the beach (Naples) and we will take him with us to relax a little there. Apparently he is going to work for his Dad in the summer. We always struggle here to find gifts to send back to the US Harare is not exactly the retail centre of the world, anyway we found some cool pottery eggcups with animal heads as the handles for his half sister (shes still quite little), and he said oh cool just the right size for shot glasses Im gonna need one for me and one for Billy from Long Island! So I guess its all good </p>
<p>Hi ZCM!! What a lovely story! Sounds like ZimSon is doing really well!
Ah yes, Billy from LI…there’s always one in the crowd.
(Insert winking smiley face here! I have nowhere near the technical expertise of PRJ. BTW, I’m so impressed, so very, very impressed!)
PS We spend a fair amount of time in Montreal- Older S is in school there. None of us have any idea of what is being said…Even S’s friends from Paris have no idea…)</p>
<p>ZCM - it all sounds so wonderful. I suggest we all go on break next Christmas/winter break at your house as it sounds so so much warmer and far more fun than anything we can do here. Seems we spent the week of Christmas snow shoveling!!</p>
<p>Today I paid all my bills… I am broke until March. How the heck does that happen?? I really need to learn to spread out gift buying. I think from now on I will do all kid’s birthdays in July because their Nov and December birthday’s preceding the rush of Christmas is just a little to harsh on my bank account, especially when you tack on second semester tuitions!! By the time I get to have a life, I will be living on cat food.</p>
<p>This weekend is stuffed full of sports ,sports and more sports all for D16. Gearing up for the season ahead while still playing for the current season. H&I did manage to get out to dinner last night, which was unbelievably nice. We really ought to do that more often. Of course, unless he’s paying we wont be going until march!</p>
<p>We had a special Christmas lunch out at friends farm, not far, about 20kms from Harare. Totally surreal. Under a beautiful white Arabian style tent on a massive spreading green lawn the wild animals wandered in and among the guests (about 60 of us, all ages but each family with their young studying adults home for Christmas from Scotland, Switzerland, Italy, the UK, the US ). Sweetpea the huge kudu actually delicately tiptoed through the tent in between the tables sniffing out her newest favourite treat mincepies! There would be just a loud whiff over your shoulder and then whumpff as these pretty doe eyes blinked at you and snaffled the pie off your plate! (Mincepies are full of sweet cooked and boozy soaked fruits like raisins) Then there was the newest orphan, Diana, the baby lion cub who played on the lawn with the little Jack Russell dogs, and rolled around like a kitty, but purring like a lawnmower, when you scratched her tummy. In a massive enclosure (open) to the left of the tent were the four lions (rescued as babies) who are now two huge maned males and equally impressive lionesses, next to them, the beautiful pair of cheetahs who go for a walk with our hostess every afternoon, but were penned for the luncheon. Across the rivulet running at the end of the lawn were the other animals, giraffe, wildebeest, sable, impala, zebra all rescued from the chaos of the Zimbabwe land resettlement events. Not a cloud in the sky, we could have been part of some weird film set! So yep next year Christmas in Zim for the CCers youll have to land at a private strip somewhere so yall dont have to deal with the reality of day to day life here, but I guarantee you a day youll speak about for years to come .!</p>
<p>^^“but I guarantee you a day you’ll speak about for years to come….!”
I don’t think so, I’m speechless just reading about it!</p>
<p>My feelings exactly… it’s not a talk about it for year’s to come kind of adventure, but one of a lifetime. Amazing.</p>
<p>PRJ please teach us your new trick!</p>
<p>ZMC I too am confounded into silence by the scene you described and am off to image search a kudu.</p>
<p>Wow, stunning description. That is where I want to live, assuming there is fast Internet.</p>