An Education

When I got back from my last trip to Paris I decided I needed to learn French.  Crazy I know, especially since I have a proven record of being horrible at learning languages.  How do I know?  Well when I was in Italy I could say a few words in Italian but somehow I always seemed to sneak in a little Spanish too.  I never mastered Spanish in 7th grade but it sure popped up when I tried to speak Italian!

The search was on to try to find a way to take a French class and suddenly I remembered a program The Ohio State University offered called Program 60.  Bingo, age does have some privileges.  Of course I immediately sent off my application with the hopes the class would have an opening and a few days before school started I found out I was approved for the class.

I was soooo excited to finally learn a little French.  The instructor was wonderful and the students seemed eager and friendly.  We learned a few things and went over what was expected for the class.  I suddenly thought about all of the homework I was going to be required to do in order to be successful, plus traveling to get to class three times a week, and then I found out the book packet cost $250!

Fortunately I do listen in class and heard a classmate mention an online course called Duolingo that was free and once again I thought free was my ticket to learning French.

In the end I ended up dropping the class as it would take too much of my free time away from fun stuff like quilting and wasting time online.  I did check out Duolingo and thought that is probably the best way for me to learn a little French.  After all, I really don't need to know that much to travel there every now and then.

Once my decisions were made I thought I would celebrate with some fancy pastries to remind me of Paris.

They are from a cute little place called Pistacia Vera.  I had a very hard time trying to decide what to get as everything looked very French!

Au revoir!  Hey, I actually knew this word before I took my one French lesson!

Debi