French Films, Lady Liberty, and Ireland

Alright, here’s my next heroic effort at writing a lot. I don’t know that it will come to much. My host family has decided that to learn French better, I ought to watch a movie every day in French, so I’ve started doing it (with French subtitles, although it only works for French made movies. For some reason they don’t match the subtitles to the dubbed version of the movie. You would think it would be harder to translate the whole movie twice, but I guess not… or something?). It’s been a lot of fun. I had the mistaken impression that all French movies were dark and depressing and sad, but I was mistaken. We just finished a comedy about a police officer whose daughter steals a car that has a Rembrandt in the back of it, then he gets caught red-handed trying to return it (and looks like he’s stealing it in the process) then it turns out that the guy he was supposedly stealing it from stole it in the first place, so the police officer goes from the dog house to being a hero (with a parade, even. I thought the parade was a bit much—I mean, honestly, I’m not sure I’d attend a parade for a police officer who saved a stolen painting. Maybe that’s what makes the French French, and me… not French).

So, today we went on another walk (I’ve done 15 of the 21 now, so I’ll be completely done in a little while. Then I think I’m going to spend my time wandering through the Louvre and sitting in parks or cafes enjoying France. It’s not any sort of a race, but the walks are great ways to see things, so I’ve just done a lot of them). We went to a nice, large park, where they have the model of the Statue of Liberty that France built for the United States. Now, you may be thinking that you saw that statue in National Treasure 2, and if you just thought that I’m sorry, but you’re totally wrong. My world was shattered when I discovered that there is not one, nor are there two, but three Statues of Liberty standing in the world. We saw the other one yesterday on another walk (which is in the middle of the Seine on an artificial island built to protect the river). Then there is one in the Garden of Luxemburg. What a crazy, liberated world we live in. I suppose I’ll have to split my affections between the three Lady Liberties… or would it be Ladies Liberty? It almost certainly would not be Lady’s Liberty, although I wholeheartedly support and encourage that, too.

Also, it turns out I am going to Ireland tomorrow, and I will try to remember to bring my phone (so, if you’re trying to get a hold of me you will be able to, but it’ll be ridonkulously expensive for me, since I’ll be out of France). We’re going to Shannon Ireland. I think I had heard of it before I bought the tickets (or at least I know some folks named Shannon, and I had a vague idea that it was an Irish name… does that count for anything?). It will be a great trip. Well, because of a long and not too interesting story about the laundry, we now have the wonderful cultural experience of getting to go down to Bussy, the nearby town, to do our laundry, and as luck would have it, as we did our laundry on Monday an Irish guy came in to do his, too, and I started talking to him, and he’s from right outside of Shannon and had some good ideas of places to go and things to do. I think it will be great. I’m going to go horseback riding (don’t worry, I’m bringing my inhaler—I don’t think I’ve got it quite as bad as Seth, anyhow).

Well, I’ve got to go, but I hope you all have a great weekend. Much love and hugs to all.

Jeff

P.S. The last picture (bottom) is searching for hollow tiles in the church made famous by the Da Vinci Code, the middle one is the second statue of liberty (or third, I'm really not sure what order they were created in, but it's the one I saw yesterday--and sorry it's on its side) and the first one is the sunrise while waiting for the bus in the morning... and it ended up pouring. There's some saying about red skies and sailors beware but I don't remember it...