As temperatures drop in the month of November, summer can seem distant.  Yet we have lots of staff who still have Lac du Bois on their minds, and we hope that you do too!  Read on to learn how this month’s “monos du mois” — Mélanie et Angélique — are using French this fall.

“Imagine the hills of the Pyrenees suddenly opening into the Mediterranean Sea, and at this meeting point, imagine the most picturesque seaside village with yellow, turquoise, purple, pink and green houses. This was the village of Collioure where I ate a picnic of fresh baguette, fromage, vin and fruit on the beach during the All Saints (la Toussaint) vacation.  I also traveled to Carcasonne, a preserved Medieval fortress, and to Bordeaux.  I am now in Sartrouville, a suburb west of Paris, where I teach English in a French high school and share an apartment with a Brazilian language assistant.  The temperature is dropping in Paris, but we keep warm by sipping our favorite drink, le chocolat chaud!   Biz, Angelique.”

“Bonjour mes amis du Lac du Bois!  My daughter Sarah and I are in Nîmes (“la ville avec un accent“) France right now.  We arrived on October 8 and are staying with a couple from Tahiti (a Francophone country).  Sarah (who is 11 years old) is attending public school here for four weeks and I get to teach English to her class and a couple other classes at the elementary school.  After teaching French for so long it’s strange and enlightening to teach my native language.  I’ve found that Americans think the French “r” is difficult to pronounce, but now I realize that the American “r” is just as difficult and perhaps even more so.

I think of Lac du Bois often here.  Just yesterday as I was riding the bus we passed by a park where some older gentlemen were wearing bérets and playing pétanque.  Whenever I walk into a boulangerie/pâtisserie it smells like Paris at Lac du Bois when we would have chocolat chaud and croissants for le petit déjeuner.  Here in Nîmes there are les Arènes (an ancient Roman amphitheatre), la Tour Magne (a roman tower which dates back 2000 years) and la Maison Carrée (a fully preserved roman temple).  I am taking lots of pictures (just like I did at Lac du Bois) and hope to be able to share them with you next summer! Gros bisous, Mélanie”