Montmartre with Christine
Christine visited Paris over the weekend! I had to share her with some of her Stanford friends, but we made the most out of a Friday and took ourselves on an Amélie tour of Montmartre, an artist-hub-turned-tourist-mecca in the 18th arrondissement. It was so lovely and delightful to have somebody from home here. And in showing her around, I realized how much I now know about Paris, and what it means to have lived in Paris for 6 months, and (worst of all) how much I'm going to miss France.
After Christine returned to Madrid, where she's studying this quarter, I rewatched Le fableux destin d'Amélie Poulain. I was shocked that (a) I recognized so much of the scenery of the film, and (b) I could understand most of what the characters said. Not all, of course, but certainly enough to discern some differences between the VO (version originale) and the English translation, which I have partially memorized. I even knew some of the proverbs that Gina makes Nino recite! Amélie is like a measuring stick of my level of French. It was really encouraging to gauge my progress.
In any case, Deven and I are in the middle of planning June journeys to Spain, Portugal, and/or Germany. Any recommendations?