Learning our A..B..C...'s

We started our French lessons on Monday, and have had 2 now. We have a private tutor for 2.5 hours, 430-7 Mondays and Wednesdays. By the time I'd hit Madrid I really had C.L.F.S. (Chronic Linguistic Fatigue Syndrome). Normally when travelling I'm keen to get on top of as much of the local lingo basics as I can... this trip, I really just did not have the energy for Spanish. It has been so tiring at times banging my head against this French brick wall. I'm really missing thinking about 'things', not thinking about how to try and convey things... eg to walk into a deli and be thinking about what i want to eat, rather than how I am going to ask for it! La Hulpe is a very French, old money, villagie kind of place. English is rarely spoken, and badly spoken French is rarely understood.

So kicking off the French lessons has been a relief, after the delays with travel, housemoves and negotiations with Jamie's work for funding. Its quite funny to be sitting there and reciting our ABC's like kids. Oh, and learning how to spell our names has been fun - and highly necessary, given that we both start with J which is pronounced G (and vice versa). Very hard to shake some of those nasty English habits. The teacher is good, and flexible to have the lessons in any shape we like. She is switching around a lot throughout the 2.5 hours which is good, as it all becomes noise after a while of just hearing French spoken. If anyone has any good tips to get those rrrrrr's rrrrrolling off my tongue - please email me!!!