I'm just not getting that whole sex thing!

French class has been so fun. Through the weeks we've learned so much, not only about the language, but about the culture. Our teacher is very Perisian, and just the way she talks about things makes us realize how different the French are from us. In one of our class discussions we were talking about where things are in relationship to each other. For instance, the rug is "under" the couch. At one point someone said the cat is "on" the chair. The teacher exclaimed, "cats don't get on chairs! Only bad mannered cats get on chairs!" She wanted us to make "logical" sentences, not nonsensical ones, so this one didn't work. But, in my mind I was thinking, "Have you ever had a cat? They go where they please!"

Then one day we were talking about meals and someone said they would have a coke with dinner. Oh my gawd she was horrified! Coke with dinner? You don't have coke with dinner, only with lunch! Then she calmly said, "well, everything is possible in this world," to which I replied "everything is possible in America!" I can't believe I said that. But the teacher laughed at least.

But some of our funniest moments have been as we were leaving class. We leave class around 9ish each evening, and invariable there are tables full of studying students in the hallway as we walk out. One day Dave and I came out of class and down the hall, near the math lab, I stopped to search for my keys. Dave asked "so how are you doing in class?" I exclaimed, "I'm just not getting that whole sex thing!" (Referring too the fact that all the nouns are male or female.) Of course, everyone around us looked up. So Dave responds "I got that sex thing down pretty well. I'm actually pretty good at it." "Well, it's giving me trouble," I pouted. Dave consoles "don't worry. You'll figure out the whole sex thing just fine when we get to France. You'll have plenty of Frenchmen there to help y0u." To this people just burst out laughing. Ha! We caught them eaves-dropping :-) Now we frequently walk out of class speaking french so people can't understand what we are saying. But every once in a while we'll throw in the word "sex" quietly in English, just to get their minds wondering ;-)