I am back in France after 9 days in Italy without internet. I stayed in a really beautiful but remote location. It was so strange to click on the wifi connections button and to see the empty list. I don't think I have ever seen such an empty space when clicking on that button.
I love visiting my father's town. I have even thought of living there, but the reality of life there makes it highly unlikely I ever will. I have this strange relationship with the place, there are so many great things about it but at the same time some really dark aspects about living there, but I am always pulled back eventually. It is always so difficult to leave; it doesn't matter whether I stay 3 months or 1 week.
As soon as I figure out how to put watermarks on my pictures I'll put one up of the town. I'm not really comfortable putting up pictures without watermarks so if anybody out there can help out this blogger newbie and tell me how you do it, I'd be really grateful.
When I went to La Poste this morning I let out the Italian si instead of the French oui. It's crazy what an affect speaking Italian had on me after only 9 days there. My Italian has suffered a lot since I moved to France and I hope to someday work on it again, but I always knew my Italian would go downhill since I speak French all the time. I have to admit, though, that I was both horrified, amused and pleased when I heard that si come out.
Speaking of being back in France...we're moving to Denmark tomorrow! I can't believe it, we are actually going tomorrow. It doesn't feel real yet, somehow it can't be true, I just got back to France. We can't be leaving?! Well, I guess tomorrow when I get there I'll believe it, haha.
I do want to keep talking about Bordeaux and France while I am there as my move to Denmark is only a temporary one. I am an immigrant in France and in Denmark I will truly be an expat. I will be moving back to Bordeaux after a few months, after all. I hope that during these few months in Denmark I will learn about the local culture and language and maybe even travel to Norway and Russia. A girl can only dream!
So I hope to see you here for more (for the few readers that I have, haha).
Wow. French, Italian, English. You are really putting my English with a smattering of Spanish. Though I admit my bonjour was so good that in Paris several times the people would respond in French ant then switch to english when they saw the look of horror on my face.
RépondreSupprimerSafe travels to Denmark. I hope to hear about life there. I don't know much about it.
I have never watermarked my bog photos so I don't know how. But Crystal http://crystalgoestoeurope.blogspot.com/ does so she must know how. I'd be interested as well. Though I doubt anybody would want to steal pics of my cat
You should talk about your trips on your blog! I was impressed to see you had recently lost weight. Great job! So you've just been eating less, no magic formula, huh?
SupprimerYes, I sorted out how to create watermarks thanks to Crystal.
Good luck with the move to Denmark! It sounds very exciting. I can't wait to hear about life there :)
RépondreSupprimerAs for watermarks...I use the free photo editing program from Google called Picasa (you can download it). There is a "text" option that allows you to add text of any size/colour to each of your pictures. It's super easy!
Thanks again for your help Crystal. It was super easy to use Picasa.
SupprimerHave you ever been to Denmark? I hope to tempt you if not with my future posts!
You speak Italian? That's awesome, so do I! Or at least I should say I did...living in France and constantly speaking French definitely killed my Italian. But I was pretty decent at one point, back in 2007, when I capped off my Italian studies by studying in Rome one summer. Came back to France that following fall to be a language assistant and started out my time there saying "si" instead of "oui" and "scusi" in the metro instead of "pardon." But since then, it's practically gone, though I hope it will come back a little if I go to Italy or try to use it again.
RépondreSupprimerCan't wait to hear more about the move to Denmark, though of course I hope to hear more about Bordeaux as well! :)
Thanks for the comment Michele. I had no idea that you studied Italian as well; that's great! Did you talk about this in blog? I read through your blog about 2 years ago so I must have forgotten if you had talked about it.
SupprimerJust curious, why Italian? Do you have Italian friends or family or was is a question of just liking the sound of the language and being interested in the culture? Or maybe the history or architecture?
I really know what you mean about forgettng your Italian. I thought it wounldn't happen to me because I used to speak Italian really well back in 2006 and my Italian was more advanced than my French. I never imagined that my French would surpass my Italian, but France took care of that. I visit every now and then, but I have to tell you, I make a lot more progress when I am in the south of Italy where there are a lot less tourists and a lot less Italians that speak English.
Ok, I'm going to look in your blog to see if you talk about Italian!
I actually don't think I ever talked about it in my blog. Probably because it was a couple of years before I started my blog...the last time I studied Italian was when I was doing my Masters in 2007.
SupprimerItalian actually because I'm half Italian...my mom's entire family (my great-grandparents) all immigrated to the US from Italy. Not a lot of people in my family bothered to learn the language, but I always wanted to, so when I got to college I decided to minor it in and continued studying it some in grad school. Though my French was always better than my Italian, my knowledge of French did help me progress more quickly in Italian than I would have otherwise so by the time I finished studying in Rome I was actually pretty decent. But of course living in France destroyed that! And it's been years since I've been back in Italy.
Why Italian for you? It's always interesting to meet other people who learn the more "obscure" (by that I mean less common) languages!