Europe: The Reaction .Gif Edition

So I did a thing. Your regularly scheduled program (or not so regularly scheduled program, however you want to describe this programming) has been interrupted and is instead replaced with reaction .gifs! Originally this was going to be cut into two parts, one part specifically dealing with French reactions and the other general European reactions, but then it all got super mixed in together and so I just Kanye shrugged and let it. I’ll still probably do a follow up to this because reactions to a lot of stuff I say/do/see/etc is quite gif-reaction-able and that should be shared because funny things should always be shared.

When you first realized you’d have to pay to use  some washrooms:

Au Pair Lessons: What is an au pair?

I feel like I should have led off with this. It would have made sense, really, but what’s done is done and the only way to go is forward. So forward we go and I bring information! And links! And charts! YAY!

Annecy: Re-Visited

This week has been wonderful. I don’t think I’ve ever really gotten to say that lately, so let me repeat: this week has been wonderful. It’s been sunny and we’ve been outside a lot. Impromptu picnics and then yesterday I spent the day in Annecy. 

A Little Bit Bearable

You know that moment when you realize that the day has been going really well and now it’s starting to not go so well? Mine happened at about 4:15 this afternoon, after I’d been waiting in line for a half hour already to talk about getting my own cellphone set up. There were still two people ahead of me in line and the people who were talking to the sales people didn’t look like they were going to have their issues solved quickly. That was only confirmed when I  got to talk to someone half an hour after that and the lady who was helping me kind of went, “Ohhhh, you’re a native English speaker, aren’t you? That’s unfortunate,” with her eyes while I tried very hard to remember to say ‘vous’ instead of ‘tu’. (I succeeded!)

I was out of there five minutes later, sans phone and tugging my scarf irritatedly back into place, telling myself that I should have known better. Of course, while picking up a few things afterwards, I got into the line that looked like it was going quickly, only to have it stop completely because of some issue at the till. (Though I wasn’t the one deep sighing about it. That was the lady two people behind me and I was someone was doing it for me, in all honesty.)

It was funny (in that other way that is not ‘haha’ funny) because as I was venting to my mother, I could already see the reply she’s going to send me later on this evening. I don’t know about you, but for me, I normally find someone telling me that, “You know that’s how people are like,” or, “You just need to relax a bit,” normally don’t help and I’m guilty of raising my eyebrows at my mother and telling her that really? She is not helping. But in that moment, at least knowing that my mother will give me her annoyingly true advice made it just a little bit bearable.

(Oh and yes: the weather was perfectly suited to my mood today. At least there was that.)

Things I’m Loving:

+ This mug – (Oh, and I guess this one as well.)

+ These cords – (To go with these flats.)

+ This interview – (The photos are wonderful and the house is gorgeous!)

+ This video – (Time lapse! Toronto! What else do you need to know to know it’s awesome?)

Book Club

You  know what’s great when learning a language? Finding books and authors you love to read it in. This company, Folio, has a collection of 2€, less than a 100 page books that you can buy. Which is fantastic because it makes me feel like I’m accomplishing something without having to force myself through it too often. I finished La solitude lumineuse by Pablo Neruda and have started Une drôle traversée by Ernest Hemingway.  (I’m also muddling through this copy of La Centaine d’amour by Pablo Neruda. It has the original Spanish poems on the opposite pages, which makes me feel a lot more intelligent than I really am.)

Things to get used to:

1. These: << >> as quotation marks. That just throws you off. It really does.

2. Dialogue in general. Just all of it. It’s weird and kind of bizarre and means you have to focus and my brain is wondering what is up with this. (I’ve always been one of those annoying speed readers. I allowed to leave my English class during high school when we were doing novel studies so I could work at my own pace. I finished the novel a month before everyone else and now my brain is judging me because it wants to go faster and can’t. The dilemmas I have.)

But: each of the books has a mini biography about the author that is way sweet and makes me feel good about myself because I understand it all (mostly because I spent all weekend googling the living daylights out of some of my favourite authors. I have an intense social life.)

Now I want to know: what are you all reading? Do you read one book at a time, or, like me, do you bounce around from book to book? And: do you have any suggested reading? Suggested reading is to me is what a Lulu Lemon store is to my sister: addictive.

Things I’m Loving:

I have been so ridiculously busy today that I have quite literally nothing I love to link you to. I’ll make it up tomorrow!