vendredi

We've had another busy week, moving on to the future tenses and pronouns, with lots of games, tests, speaking and also much frowning/head-scratching! Patrick is proving himself a grammar expert in class, with the other students (including me) turning to him to explain the thornier technicalities. We often work in pairs when there are fun competitions, and this week Patrick and I have won every game! A Brazilian has been added to the mix along with an American and a Polish-American, so we've become slightly more international which is refreshing.

Palais Garner at night. 

On Wednesday after class we went on a walking tour (in French), led by one of the teachers at our school, Michael. He took us around the 15ème for a couple of hours which was very interesting, despite Michael telling us that it isn't a particularly well-known, well-loved or beautiful district, and it has a somewhat confused identity today (it houses the Tour Montparnasse, the first Parisian skyscraper (or gratte-ciel), which so horrified Parisians when it was built in the 1970s that a strict limit on the height of buildings in Paris was imposed immediately afterwards). The nice thing about being in Paris is that every day, without fail,  I walk over double the steps I usually manage in London. Paris is incredibly walkable, and, of course, we are spoilt for time so walking an hour to get somewhere is nothing to us. We are spoilt with beauty everywhere we turn. It's lovely!

We also went to the Centre Pompidou this week, which I thought was great (Patrick not so sure) although we only looked at their permanent collection before getting tired. It's really massive, I think it warrants two or three visits. There was also a lovely view, which gives a good indication of the weather we've had:

The view from the Centre Pompidou

Finally, we had some sunshine today (it is chilly though), which we made the most of by taking a walk around our neighbourhood. We just set off in a direction until we're bored, then turn around and come home.

A church.

He's happier than he looks, I promise.

Plans for the weekend: brunch tomorrow, and possibly a museum, with a trip to the Marché Aux Puces de Saint Ouen, which promises to be much nicer than the one we went to last week.

Finally, thank you so much for your post!

Word of the day:
La lune de miel
Honeymoon!