Sunrise "en rose"

2 minutes, please.

Maybe I just have an odd sense of humor, but this sign at the train station tickled my funny bone:

"To ensure the on-time departure of TGV and Intercity trains, we invite the passengers to board two minutes before the scheduled departure."

When the familiar is not familiar . . .

When we were in Lyon last month, we visited a mall for the first time in France.  The mall experience was a little disorienting, and Lyon is a much bigger city than the town where we live, so all the crowds had us out of sorts.  We spotted a McDonald's at a distance, and thought, "Great. Something familiar."

As we got closer, we started to chuckle.  "I guess you know you're in a foreign country when even what you expect to be familiar isn't!"

First, the McCafé was at the entrance (think French bakery, but with McPastries under the glass).
  

 

If you were hoping for lunch instead of McCafé, the kiosks are ready to take your order.  Just choose one of six languages and have at it!

But where's the dollar menu?  Oh, here it is:  McBaguette with Béarnaise sauce?

Wowsers!  Got a kick out of this ad at another shop in the same mall.  Four hamburgers on a baguette with the fries inside the sandwich = L'Américain.

A translation problem

Last week, in response to a question from our French teacher about the day's events, I had to explain the concept of a Men's Group.  "Every Wednesday morning from 6-8," I said, "we meet at a cafe to catch up, read the Bible together, encourage and pray for one another," though my French version wasn't quite that smooth : )  This concept was utterly foreign to our teacher, who proceeded to ask lots of questions about the nature of the group.  (The idea that we meet in a public place seemed to be the main problem--religion is supposed to be practiced in private!)

When we finished answering her questions, to our surprise, she said: "You know, using the name 'Men's Group' has a certain connotation in French that the group is for gay men.  You should probably say 'Group of [male] Friends' instead."  We're still at the anecdotal stage, but the second native French speaker we asked about this confirmed the connotation.  It appears that my word-for-word translation added meaning I hadn't intended!  So now I don't tell people that the "Groupe d'Hommes" meets on Wednesday mornings.  Instead, it's the "Groupe d'Amis."

Double Digits!

On the menu: caramel ice cream and a giant chocolate brownie sprinkled with shaved chocolate and chocolate bits . . . decorated with crazy candles that wouldn't blow out.

Qui est-ce? C'est Hilary Hahn!

Congratulations to the winner of the Qui est-ce? Contest, Sara J, who won an autographed CD of Hilary Hahn performing Bach!  Hilary Hahn is our all-time favorite violinist, though we'd never had the opportunity to see her in concert.  The LORD planned for Ms. Hahn to be performing in Lyon, just a short train ride away, on January 18.  Here is a recording of a piece she played that night.  Thank you God for this wonderful gift!