"Je suis Lucky Luke."

This was a draft of a post I never finished so I thought I'd put it up, it's a few days old.

Today we went to two fortified cities in Ardeche. It was incredible. The kids grandparents point out all the plants, trees, rivers, cities, and everything for me and I do a lot of nodding and smiling and looking in awe at everything. The cities were both from 'le douzieme siecle'(1100's) I said in broken french that it's many hundreds of years older than anything in the states and they did native american pantomime. It was pretty fun.

I've been noticing a lot about non-Paris France and I really like it. Other than the french part they have pretty much nothing in common. I haven't bought anything here but I noticed the same mums here are 8,50 euros that are around forty in Paris. The town that the house over looks is like any small town at home and the odd assortment of McDonalds and locally owned hardware stores is comfortingly familiar. Also no one speaks English here. There is something kind of comforting about that also. I'm so used to being patronised that I forgot how nice it is to be treated like a normal person. Instead of replying in English to my first word in French they just listen, help out and then talk slowly, knowing I'm trying my best. I have actually never been spoken to like this since I got here.

Another thing about foreign language is that when you are around one you don't really acknowledge it's importance because you can't tell whats being said. Often you don't even notice that it's there. Because of this I inturrept people speaking french to eachother(not a lot, just the kids) because I didn't understand the conversation I also didn't really hear it. This happens alot here because the kids and I still speak in English to eachother but it's just sort of white noise to their Grandma so she jumps in as if nothing were being said. It's something I never would have noticed if i hadn't been really bad at French and living here.

We jsut got back from watching the movie "Lucky Luke". I think this is a French comic but it's about a cowboy. The french really like cowboys and all things "old west". Well this movie was great because I've seen some old westerns and I know the history and it really is unique and pretty cool. I mean, it's so idolized and glorified and it says so much about Americans and all the intricacies of our culture and short but full history. Also, the movies can be really exagerated and tons of fun. But this was all in French so that was an added oddity. So it was extreme western with all the ingredients but with a french angle and all in French. BUT it also had real life characters like Jesse James, Billy the Kid and Calamity Jane. There was one priceless scene where a hand holding a gun from behind a curtain tries to shoot the president. Moments later Jesse James rescues the president. Wow, Jesse James rescues the president. It was good stuff, Lucky Luke, he shoots faster then his shadow...and his horse talks...and he has never killed anyone. So that was fun.