l'Ecole d'été

Summer School is drawing to a close. The three weeks have passed quickly. We have reviewed and learned several new things in the last few weeks. I have enjoyed what little time I have been able to spend with the other students. Having Angie and the kids at home keeps me from spending too much time at the language school. The Switzerland team won the award for most people present representing their country. USA and Great Britian following close behind. Other countries represented were Germany, Denmark, Norway, Canada and a couple of others. Each country represented presented their country during an evening. August is going to be a lonely month around here. Almost all of the students are will be gone and it will just be us. A lot of France closes down for the month of August for vacations. Most Doctor's offices and small shops. I hope to take the kids into Paris a couple of times to show them some sites. On our survey trip we saw a lot of the tourist sites in France. I have found that seeing touristy places gives you good insite into the culture of a country. Seeing the Eifel Tower you can get the sense of French Pride. Notre Dame gives you a sense of their Catholic Heritage that is now barely present. Attached is a castle on the top of a hill that we saw while on our trip. It seemed like every mountain top had one on it. God bless, JASON

Life in Europe.

It is different living in an area where there are multiple cultures. For instance, I noticed on the cereal box this morning that the ingredients are listed in 6 different languages, none of them English. Yet the name of the cereal is Chocolate Moons (in English). On the back the cereal there is a game that can be cut out. There is a warning in English, Kids should not use scissors without the parents supervision. This message was not translated at all. It would seem to me that that would be important to translate. In Micah's class of 3 year olds, there are 12 students who do not speak french. It is not unusual to see all different cultures of people just while walking down the street. You might hear other languages spoken as well.
We had a good weekend. Services went well Sunday. They understood my french sermon, listed below, so I guess it was good. We had few times this weekend when it snowed. The temperature dropped down to 28 degrees (-2) Sunday morning. I was sick with a slight temperature Sunday night and Monday. Not serious, but we called off our babysitter exchange and stayed home. Friday we watched the two children of a couple of classmates while they looked around Paris. Monday they were going to do the same for us. It seems we get the better end of it because they were going to watch our four children. It ended up okay that we postponed because the weather was not that good as well. Time to go back to school, lunch is over. Attached is a picture of the clouds looking out of our back window. God bless, JASON

The UPS guy drives a mercedes.

It is weird to see the UPS guy and all the big trucks being Mercedes. Here if someone has an American made car they are usually thought of as being rich, examples that I have seen are Pontiac Firebird, PT Cruiser, Hummer, Cadillac. They are several Ford cards sold here. They have some European commercials that you may (or may not) find funny. Examples http://youtube.com/watch?v=aJGtCe_26EQ http://youtube.com/watch?v=X-MZaV9uz6M CULTURAL WARNING: These are european commercials - content is not for animal lovers, or those with light stomachs!! Another cultural thing, We have a couple of German students in our class. We are always picking on them about having beer in their water thermos in class. Another student bought a beer and poured it in his thermos while he was out on break. I wasn't there we he returned and got a drink, but they said he was suprised.

Another funny word today, the French word for a dresser is commode. So, you put your clothes in a commode. There was another humerous moment, but I will let Angie share that one. Another strange thing: Words here as I said earlier are masculine or feminine. We found out today that the word feminine is masculine, try and make sense of that. I had to pray in French today. After I finished, I looked at the teacher to see what comment she had. She said," Wow". There was a moment of silence as the students, including me, didn't know how she meant it. Another student said, "Did God understand it?" She did end up meaning it positively.

Congrats, Krys (we see your name everywhere, it is a chain optometry store here, spelled the same way) for answering the last quiz, question. I will do more of those later. We had good services Sunday, attendence of 9, including my family. Angie and I both have been having many people come up to us and speak french, so we must be adapting some. We are learning more and more. JASON

Culture

Another day is finished (C'est finite). One thing humerous that we learned in language school today was the French word for a suit is costume. After school today we took the kids to a large park nearbye and let them play with several other children whose parents attend the language school. They had a great time. They were tired and fussy on the way home. I don't know what is causing it, maybe all the walking, but the kids are always hungry. We can feed the lunch, snacks, chips, drink and they will still be asking for more. The only thing we know to do is feed them more. Thursday we have a grève, a strike. All the public transportation and sevaral of the schools will not be working. Contrary to the US, things just shut down and people do without. We will have to find somewhere else for our two middle boys to be because all their teachers are striking. No one will take buses, trains, or subway. The people here in France do not seem to mind much, because they all like the freedom to do so themselves. I have found that many of the French seem to like to break the rules. It is illegal to honk your horn unless it is an emergency. You can guess how many times that gets broken. It is also against the law not to clean up after you dog has done his business on the sidewalk. All that I say is you better watch where you put you feet. Caleb has been saying a few things in french that I don't know. Nobody else does either though. He has a good friend at school that only speaks french, but they get along good. No school tommorrow but we are going to the lab to get some practice. God Bless, JASON