Even the cats say "Le Meow"

That's Maurice, second most handsome cat in the world.  He belongs to the sister of Jean-Paul, who works for the Lycée and attends to every material need of the foreign language assistants (and sometimes takes us on road trips to visit cats).  In this photo Maurice is giving Tycho props by unhinging his jaw and yowling vaguely towards the Atlantic.  I told him that Canada is a bit far and T might not hear him to which he replied (in French, roughly translated), "My dear human anglophone, how charmingly naive you are about kitty-to-kitty transcontintental exchange."  So somewhere in Waterloo last weekend Tycho twitched his feline antennae and a new alliance was formed. 

Right now: Friday October 10th.  This time two weeks ago I arrived at my dorm in Lille and crumpled gratefully onto the bed for the most satisfying jet-lagged fourteen hour nap ever.  I know that talking about how quickly time passes is number one of the Top 5 Most Uninteresting Blog Discussion Topics of All Time, but I have to say it: HOLY COW.  This week made my head spin.  I went to so many classes, raised my glass with so many people, and struggled through so many French conversations that I feel like I might explode with culture.  Like each cultural experience is about the shape and consistency of a marshmallow and now my belly is bursting with ooey gooey marshmallowy goodness and I am slowly and blissfully descending into a marshmallow coma like an overdosed Care Bear.    

Alejandra, Felipe and I the night that I ate really smelly cheese 

and LIKED IT (totally shocking for me)

I'm going to Rouen for the weekend, which is the city where I lived during my student exchange 8 years ago, and where I first fell hard for France in a shloopy sixteen-year-old kind of way.  You might already know this if you've ever been around me for longer than five seconds, but one of my favourite things to do is to torture myself with "memory lane" pilgrimages and long, self-absorbed bouts of drippy nostalgia.  In some ways I can't wait to become an old grandmotherly type, because I'll be reeeeeally good at those "I remember when" show-downs with other grandmotherly types.

As if the old, familiar city itself wasn't enough to fill me with expectation, check out the Sat/Sun forecast for Rouen:

Friday	Saturday	Sunday	Monday	Tuesday
66° F | 48° F  19° C | 9° C	68° F | 51° F  20° C | 11° C	69° F | 53° F  21° C | 12° C	66° F | 51° F  19° C | 11° C	62° F | 55° F  17° C | 13° C
Scattered Clouds	Clear	Clear	Scattered Clouds	Scattered Clouds

Oh my goodness!  Is that SUNSHINE?  Like, that warm stuff that comes out of the sky??  I didn't know that existed anymore.  It seems so last month.  Speaking of sunshine, today I had to explain the term "redneck" to a bunch of fourteen year olds.  I realized as I dropped the word into a sentence that someone in the room would ask me to explain, but by then it was too late.  So I tried to describe the "rural, poorly-educated farmer" stereotype while the PC patrol in my brain signed its resignation papers.  Is it true that "redneck" refers to the sunburnt necks of field labourers, or was that the teacher's brilliant on-the-spot invention?  Either way, I'm in awe of her.  It never even occurred to me to me that red and neck was a somewhat logical pairing.  Further adventures in ESL vocabulary...