French Dip
One of the things I was determined to do when I retired was to perfect my French. My husband’s parents were multi-lingual, he heard French spoken at home, and he speaks it fluently. But although I studied French in both high school and college, my mastery of that beautiful tongue was poor, and my husband hadn’t the patience to help. (See Parlez-vous Francais?)
So I enrolled at New York’s Alliance Francaise and took classes there for an academic year. Then as summer approached my teacher Marie-France invited interested students to join her for a two week language immersion trip to France. I signed up tout de suite, three of my classmates did as well, and we soon began our French sojourn.
Marie-France drove us in her small van around the southern coastal region of Languedoc-Roussillon, which happily for us produces more organic wine than anywhere else in France. And as we explored the countryside with our teacher, she continued drilling us in the language.
One very hot day we happened to pass a lovely lake where dozens of families were swimming. Marie-France stopped the van and we could see some of the women in the skimpiest of bikinis. But we couldn’t help noticing that many of the other women, as well as most of the men and children, were swimming in the nude.
Marie-France said she had some towels in the van and suggested we take a dip in the lake to cool off. We told her the water looked very inviting, but we had no swim suits.
”Ici la France!”, said our teacher. And so feeling very French, we took off our clothes and went in!
Mon professeur Marie-France
– Dana Susan Lehrman
Dana Susan LehrmanThis retired librarian loves big city bustle and cozy country weekends, friends and family, good books and theatre, movies and jazz, travel, tennis, Yankee baseball, and writing about life as she sees it on her blog World Thru Brown Eyes!
www.WorldThruBrownEyes.com
Ou La La
Ah oui!
Viva la France! Sounds like a wonderful trip for oh so many reasons. Great memories.
Oui, oui!
Reminds me of a long ago night on St. Croix when a bunch of tipsy college students on a dock ran out of rum, and, wondering if that nice big and apparently unattended sailboat out in the harbor might have a bottle or two, stripped down and swam out to find out. Yes, we combined skinny dipping with breaking and entering.
I assume you found the rum, and swam back tipsier yet!
I feel like I previously read and commented on this–but perhaps I only walked a bit on the beach, looked around, felt unsure how to relate to the scene, and backed off without comment!
Anyway, it’s a good story with a nice strong final sentence!
Merci Dale!