Franglais

I went to Boston this weekend (until Wed) to help out Marion (from Sciences Po) get settled into Boston College.
She was so excited about being in the US, but she was having quite a bit of culture shock, and she wasn't understanding English very well. So I was talking with her in French, and everyone else in English. I had to translate everything back and forth all weekend. It became a struggle for me to manage between the two languages, and I started messing up with my English-speaking family and friends. For example, on a car ride, I was trying to tell something to Marion in French while directing my mom in English. I started giving my mom directions in French, where she had to remind me that she spoke English, not French. Oops.
Marion's friend and classmate from SciPo, Thomas, was with us a lot of the time, too. His English was really good, so he didn't need me to help him very much. But we spoke in French because we were with Marion. Let me tell you, that guy was adorable. And cute! Too bad I didn't know him in Paris. Hopefully we'll hang out next time I'm up there, or if he ever visits. Sweet guy.
They really didn't like the weather, though.
When we picked them up at the airport, we offered to bring Thomas to his temporary stay in Cambridge. It took us 2 hours (and lots of turning around) to find this little itty bitty dead end street in the middle of nowhere, Cambridge. I had to finally stop at a store and ask for directions, upon which we were forced to Googlemap it. That was exhausting.

We met up with Eugene (one of the exchange students with me in Sciences Po last spring) in Boston, and we gave the French kids a little tour around Boston. We made Marion eat chowder, and gave a grand tour from the Aquarium to Copley Square. I think they liked Brookstone the most. Eugene and I had a lot of fun because we were laughing about American customs and things that the French kids didn't understand. It was like having an inside joke, but not being able to explain it because, "You had to be there...." Sad, but they understood.
We also hauled ourselves to the BC campus. It's a really nice (and small) campus. Very beautiful. But campuses still freak me out, so I still do not regret having a campus to live and breathe on constantly. The French kids LOVED it, though. They went completely ga ga about it all. Even though we got lost quite a bit.

Saw some friends in town. Went shopping, got a haircut, ate too much food. Went to the gym and ran outside. I had one day booked back to back with doctor's appointments, where I finally came home with a bruised arm from an inoculation, sore gums from a cleaning, and a numb nasal cavity & vocal chord for 2 hours (where I couldn't swallow well for that time period).

Before I went to Boston, I saw the Shakespeare in Central Park. Midsummer Night's Dream. It was really great. And free! They made the faeries little children in slightly Gothic Victorian outfits, singing and dancing; kinda freaky, but well appreciated. A pretty good cast, and a completely coherent attempt at Shakespeare. Even if I hadn't seen or read the play a million times, I would have been able to understand it.