Raven's Roads
Living an interesting life: the travels and musings
of motorcycling author Linda R. Moore

I’d done my time in Germany, and because I was taking a joint major I also needed time in France. The university arranged for me to go to Tours, France to complete an intensive French-language course there.

Tours was lovely from the get-go. I found a fellow student on the same bus to the city, so had companionship from the start. When I arrived in town, it was full of flowers and my hostess met me there. I was staying with a single mother who had two teenage boys and a foster child from Belgium, as well as two other students: a young woman from Italy and a young man from Spain. The only common language was French, and as the hostess was a gentle, kind soul, we had lots of pleasant conversations.

I was there for four weeks, and failed the exam, the only exam that I’ve ever failed, before then and since. Luckily, it wasn’t required to pass, just to take the course. I enjoyed my time en famille very much (even though the Italian gave new dimensions to the craft of beeyotch), took several excursions, and spent many wonderful hours in the relaxed city center, partaking of way too many cafés au lait and discovering that too much coffee is like too much beer. It is okay until you actually have to stand up.

After the harshness of Dortmund, Tours was a refreshing visit, and short, and bearable. But I still came back speaking French with a German accent. I suppose it was an improvement: before, I’d spoken it with an English accent.

blogathon

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• Thursday Thirteen #21: 13 emotions that we’re better off without
• Thursday Thirteen #22: Better decluttering through Thursday Thirteen
• Thursday Thirteen #7: 13 Things I’d barely thought about two weeks ago
• Thursday Thirteen #23: 13 Things about the winter solstice
• Thursday Thirteen #19–13 ways to cheat outrageously at NaNoWriMo

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