So now I’ve actually been in Trouville for a month. Totally crazy! And of course I ask myself, how much have I seen, learned so far?
My world
.
Since I am exclusively a pedestrian, my radius is not the largest. Nevertheless, in the meantime, I was once on a great discovery tour away from the tourist promenade on the beach and the “shopping mile” in the Rue du Bain …
If I was interested in it, I would certainly have taken a look inside the big church. But I did not. Interesting I found, however, especially the tiny row houses, which seem to vie for the best view up here on the slope overlooking the sea.
Some of them, in the absence of a balcony, have cute little outdoor seats facing the respective house. And hey: by tiny and cute, I really mean teeny-tiny! I’d love to take a peek inside one of those little houses to see if it’s really possible to live in it? But I guess I’m just a luxury thing messed up by the Schwabing Altbau … Still, I’ve done very well with my mini mini bathroom here under the roof – and I’m finally happy to have become just a little person.
I’m sharing a few more photos with you today. Because in Trouville, it’s not all beach and sea. Whether it’s the typical villas, the streets and alleys of the town, or even the pretty little touques that leads Trouville visitors along its shore into the little town …
My Course
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Those who know me know that I am disciplined and hardworking (gee, that sounds awful: smarmy stuffy and completely like Fräulein Rottenmeier … well, it is what it is, right). What I mean to say is that I’m really learning.
Every day I take a lesson in my Langenscheidt learning book. It has 30 lessons and I’m on lesson 11. According to the housekeeping app, I still have 18 of 36 days left (wait a minute: that’s half-time!), but I think: I’ll crack the complete lessons with a little extra shift no matter what …
Then there’s my language learning calendar, which gave me the following quote from Albert Camus today:
Oui, j’ai une partie: la langue française. – Yes, I have a home: the French language.
Very well. It probably won’t get that far for me, but what actually “comes back” are words and sentence constructions that come to me all at once. Whereby? They don’t just come to me: they haunt me until I sleep. Because I find myself trying to form French sentences as soon as I turn off the light. It’s not easy to fall asleep when you’re wondering whether the passé composé of liegen is formed by avoir or être, and whether schlafen is more like dormir or aller au lit.
The highlight of my language learning time, however, is my private tutor from the “Acadomia Caen”. Depending on how our time allows, we have a Skype date: We then chat a bit and do appropriate exercises. As a grammar and phonetics lover, I’m happy to confess: I enjoy this immensely. He improves me in exactly the right places, he praises my pronunciation (thank you, thank you, thank you for that) and together we unlock vocabulary that I don’t yet know. So everything is as it should be. But what really makes me happy is this: In real life, my French teacher is a German teacher at a French school (he also speaks English and probably a bit of Russian). And as an ex-German teacher, I always have the feeling that we benefit from each other – I think our exchange, the give and take, is wonderful! Tomorrow is my next class. It’s coming up: