To wish someone good luck before an exam in France, you don't tell them good luck. None of this "bonne chance" stuff. No, instead you say "merde!" and they don't repond. Supposedly that brings good luck. And perhaps it works, since I passed the DELF B2 yesterday! I was kind of surprised, actually, since it was a hard test.

To the countryside for Easter...

So, about French cuisine and Paris... The course was really good, mostly involving a French chef telling us what to do to prepare our meal. The menu was: a mushroom wrap as an entrée, cod for the plat, and pineapple-coconut crumble for dessert. Bon appétit!

Then I went to Paris for the weekend, which was a good time. There, i saw Montmartre as well as the Opéra Garnier. I also walked around the city a bit and saw a couple churches and the Eiffel Tower.



I especially liked the tour of the Opéra. It was indeed built over an underground lake as the Phantom of the Opera implies. The six ton chandelier also fell twice. Since the auditorium was closed during the tour, we got some super-cheap tickets for the ballet that night. It was... different - the first time I've ever been to a ballet. It was kind of hard to see the stage with our seats, but it was worth it just to see the room.



more pictures here.

The other day, my younger French host brother was telling me about Easter in France. Yes, you can find chocolate bunnies here, but it's not the Easter Bunny who hides eggs. No, here, it's flying bells. (les cloches volantes) Since church bells go silent the Thursday before Easter, children are told that the bells have flown to Rome. Then, on Easter when they come back, they bring chocolate eggs with them.

Yesterday, I took the DELF exam (Diplôme d'Études en Langue Français). It's a French language exam, the equivalent of the TOEFL for English. I passed! So now it's official that I can speak French.

I'll leave you with a picture from the hunt I went on today:



We didn't see a single fox, but I did see un lièvre (a hare) and un sanglier (a wild boar). After walking the whole day, everyone relaxed afterward with a glass of wine and some snacks.

This week, there's a French cooking course on Monday, and then I'm going to Paris for the weekend!