Picture of the Week : Paris Mosque

My husband and I go at least once a month to the paris mosque located near jardin des plantes, firstly because we are Muslim, secondly it is like stepping into paradise and thirdly for the tea time.

One thing that is good about the mosque, they have tours in English and French where they give basic information about Islam. But if you want to know more about Islam, do not hesitate to ask me.

Take a look into another world :

Picture of the Week : Louvre

The Louvre is full of art, if you didn't know already. There is literally way too much to see in one day. It can take months or years depending on how long you stand and gaze at the many different styles of art work.

Here are a few statues that caught my eye last time I was there, so gaze away.

French language rant

I consider myself to be fairly knowledgable in French and speak it fairly well; considering that I have a a Bachelor's and a Masters degree in which all my classes were in French and I speak it more than I do English.

Recently I had to explain to the insurance guy that we had a "flood" or rather a water problem behind the tiles in our bathroom.  The word tile in French is carrelage. So I kept telling him carrelages (my pronunciation car lage) carrelage and he was like grillage (like a barbecue). Later did I find out that carrelage is pronunced  care lage. but really does  that change anything if I said carlage instead of carelage ?

And this got me thinking...

that the French need to take a French for foreginers 101 class in order to learn how foreigners hear certain words.  I mean I am used to the French's bad pronuciation of english words and I still understand what they are talking about.

vhere are you going, vhat are you doing ? you know where the w's sound like v's. or they forget to add the s at when things are plural (I want one of those thing.) or the th sound. the = zuh (sounds like duh but with a z).

So why do I get such a hard time for my pronunciation ?
One time someone told me the reason is, that I don't articulate and speak loud and his reason behind that was that I was afraid I was going to make a mistake when speaking. When really and truly I am just a soft-spoken and shy person, and he didn't believe that this was true.

But then again, people have said that they enjoy my cute English accent, somehow they always assume though that I am English instead of American and that gets set straight rather quickly. 

or maybe I just need to invest in a French pronunication class ?!? or the French need to invest in some English pronunication classes ?

What do you think ?
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Life with no dryers

When I first arrived in France to study abroad in 2008, I was shocked that my homestay mom was only going to allow me to do one load of laundry a week. But I soon came to the realization as to why, no dryers  and no line to hang up laundry either !


Even now in our apartment, I can easily do 5-6 loads a week, and there are only 2 of us !  All of our clothes, towels, etc all add up and add weight on our drying rack. I have already broken a few !

Sometimes I can admit I miss a dryer, especially when I spill something on my favorite shirt that I wanted to wear later in the day. In the States, I could easily slip that into the dryer, but in France I would have to wait 2 solid days to wash then dry it particulary when it's pouring rain and not a speck of sunshine in the sky.

But having no dryer does have it's perks. It saves money and electricity (because if you didn't know electricity is expensive in France and gas too.). It takes up space and there is no room for another electrical appliance in our apartment. We had to get rid of counter space for a dishwasher !

our whirlpool washer

Do you think you could live without a dryer ?

Picture of the Week USA Style : Paris, Kentucky

While I was home my family and I decided to take a trip to see Paris, Kentucky and compare it's site to that of Paris, France. You can be the judge on which Eiffel Tower is better !

Paris, Kentucky

Paris, France