Quand Claire se lance pour de bon...

    Hejsan!

    My seventh week in Umeå has started and I realise more and more than time passes extremely fast here. That's why, dear readers, I'm really glad to let you know that...: I started speaking swedish! Well, not all day long, but i say a few sentences from time to time... Actually, I just started three weeks after the day I said I would speak Swedish by then. But as we say : Better late than never!!!

   Hmm...I don't really know what to write today...Yet I certainly have loads of news to tell you.

So..let me start with school, perhaps. I eventually finished my Philosophy homework last week, after many hours of very hard work. Yes, it IS a hard work to check every word in the dictionnary and to choose which translation should fit the most. Anyway...I'm convinced the teacher won't understand anything of what I wrote, so she will probably be secretely really grateful that I wrote less than one sheet, while we were supposed to write 2 or 3 of them.

Something else about school: I taught Lovisa and Carolina the famous french "song" "Buvons un coup, ma serpette est perdue [blablabla]", and they are absolutely great. I mean, they've never learnt one single word of this language, and yet they succeeded in singing that song in almost no time! And if you want a proof, then just watch the short video I added at the end of this article.  However, this song is sooo boring that this morning, the first thing Lovisa told me was : "You destroyed my weekend"...I didn't understand what she meant, so she added " 'cause I sang this all the time"...So I'll probably teach them some other less boring song soon...

Well, talking about French: Faten, a girl who's in my class (and who's really, really nice ;-) ) is totally incredible. She speaks French really well, though she has learnt it for like four years... well, anyway, people here are really gifted at French..Unfortunately I haven't had the occasion of hearing them much...in particular Amanda, Anny and Sigge. So come on girls, I do want to hear you!

    Oh, I forgot to write about the weather. Well, the temperatures are definitely sinking. This morning I went to school on foot, because I'm was kinda fed up with riding, and it was only 5 degrees. And my hair was still wet, so it was awful... I really have to by a big thick scarf this week...  Concerning the days length, it's obviously getting shorter and shorter. Sir Sun ( oui, c'est le même que le Môsieur Soleil de l'article précédent) rose at 6:30 and is rising down (6:37pm)...

   Apart from that, yesterday night I talked on MSN with an Australian exchange student from YFU, Luke. He arrived in last january and will fly back to Australia in late december. And since he lives not that far from Umeå, we will perhaps try to catch up some day before he leaves. In mid-october, I also have an YFU meeting in Skellefteå, where I am going to see Ande (Estonia), Anne-Murielle (Switzerland) and Frederick (Germany) again. That should be cool!

   Ohhhhh! Today I saw French people at school! That was cool, but the thing is that they've been here for already three weeks and are leaving on Friday, and neither they nor I knew about the other(s)...But we will try to do something together before thursday...which is going to be a bit difficult, though... Anyway, it was cool speaking French and, above all, seeing French people for a short while...And they are very nice ;-)

   Well, now I have to write about the strange Swedish things that I notice here...:

• ¤ Les feux tricolores font: vert-orange-rouge-orange-vert...
• ¤ Tous les vélos ont un cadenas intégré, une sorte de truc qui sert la roue quand on enlève sa clef. Très bonne invention! Chapeau, les p'tits Suédois!!
• ¤ Cependant, les vélos suédois n'ont qu'un frein, le frein avant. Pour bloquer la roue arrière, il faut tenter de pédaler à l'envers...Parce qu'en fait, on ne peut pas pédaler à l'envers, car la chaîne se bloque. Ce qui me tappe sur le système, étant donné que parfois, quand on voudrait mettre la pédale au bonne endroit pour démarrer, ce serait bien pratique. Vive les vélos francais et bien francais!
• ¤ A droite de la porte de chaque bureau du personnel du lycée, il y a comme un petit feu tricolore, avec sur chaque loupiotte un mot: "stig in" (entrer) sur le vert, "vänta" (patientez) sur le rouge, et je ne sais plus quoi sur le bouton orange... Je trouve ca assez bizarre. Il n'y aurait qu'à frapper, si personne ne te dit d'entrer, t'attends et c'est tout... Comme chez nous, quoi!

   Ahh, by the way, I forgot something else about my last week. Yesterday morning, I got up at 9.20 and around 10:30 I took the bike and went wandering in the whereabouts for like an hour. I went to Ön (this place name means "the island") and I regretted not to have taken my camera...so I think I'll go back there in the week to take some pics, because autumn here is really nice!

Now I'll stop writing...Sorry if that article was less funny than the former ones...I don't have much inspiration today.

  (Mon chere, très cher Elève Yoga, tu remarqueras que je n'ai pas trahi ma promesse; la dédicace est bel et bien présente avant la chanson:)