Disclaimer: I’m very drugged up right now, for reasons I may or may not explain at a later date. Please excuse any weirdness…
Last month I took a high-speed train that got me from Paris to Luxembourg City in less than three hours. Then I had nine hours (as it turned out, the perfect amount of time) to explore the small, verdant city before catching another high-speed train back home. Pictures / drug-infused descriptions after the jump. Continue reading
I had a bunch of links I wanted to post here yesterday but I never got around to it because I went to a very fun fashion show (pictured above) instead. 🙂
I need to get into bed to wake up super early for my train to Luxembourg tomorrow, so without further ado here are the links:
A really cute / crazy international love story.
Butter shortages are hitting France, a country that eats three times as much as the United States (and where the butter is three times as delicious.)
Paris is installing free sparkling water fountains around the city.
Learning French with flashy, sassy Christine.
Can you guess which is the world’s most powerful passport?
12 English-language insults we should bring back.
I can’t vouch for the etymological accuracy of this map, but it’s fascinating.
This “most frequently used words” visualization speaks volumes.
Have a good weekend!
It is an especially happy Friday for me because my friend of almost 25 years is coming to visit on Sunday, AND she is bringing my winter coat from New York, AND we’re going to visit Sancerre together.
I also bought a ticket tonight for a day trip to Luxembourg in mid-November. At some point over the past year I realized that I was 37 years old and had been to 38 U.S. states and 37 countries, if you count Puerto Rico, England, Northern Ireland, and Scotland individually. I decided that I’d attempt to keep my country and state counts up to or ahead of my age for as long as possible. I turned 38 this week, and I haven’t been to a new country since I left Senegal in March… so no time like the present. I have heard there are lovely fall colors in Luxembourg and I’m hoping the leaves stay on the trees long enough for me to appreciate them.
In the meantime, I’m continuing to love Paris in the fall, and I’m filled with even more joy knowing that in two short days I’ll have a puffer coat to hide out in as soon as the temperature drops.
I leave you for the weekend with some interesting things I read this week:
Proof of what I have long known to be true about speaking foreign languages while tipsy.
Some useful French idioms. Avoir le cafard (to have the cockroach, i.e. to be sad) is my favorite, obviously.
Want to travel around the world for a full year, writing for the New York Times? So does like half the planet.
The official guardians of the French language have a problem with gender inclusive writing, not surprisingly (since they are textbook fuddy duddies).
Even on our own, we’re always in translation. (A beautiful letter of recommendation.)
An ‘accidental dictionary’ explores how errors created the English language.
Have a lovely weekend!
talk foreign to me 