Monday, April 7, 2008

Of snowfall and slipping tongues...

It snowed in Paris!! Here.. check out a shot of the school's railway station...


I thought I'd seen enough snow to last me a lifetime through my three chilly winters at Cincinnati... But I was mistaken. I was unduly thrilled when I threw open the front door this morning and saw a sheet of white over everything around. And the feel of the snow crunching under my shoes was nice as well... Yeah, you probably think I'm crazy. But snow sort of became a part of my life abroad and it was unnatural without it. The air was as always crisp... that goes with the territory when it has snowed and there was no wind... And as usual, I scooped a palmful of fresh snow and compacted it delighting in its texture and showing my husband who no doubt thinks I have lost it (he's already called me to find out if I reached college safely!)

But thats not all... You'd think with snowfall came accidents of people slipping or falling. Only in my case, my tongue totally compensated for me saving grace. In a fantastically good mood for a Monday morning, all thanks to the snow, I was humming to my Ipod and snaking my way through the monday morning rush to the other side of the train station to get on to my second train to get to school. As is customary, I bumped over someone and instead of mumbling "Pardon" or "Desolé", which would've been more appropriate meaning Excuse me or Sorry, I actually said "Merci", which is Thank You. Its probably because Merci sounds like Mercy (in English, sort of like - have mercy) or I don't know what but I reacted off the amusement on the guy's face. And I hastily corrected myself... "I mean sorry.. Pardon." His face cleared a bit and as we hurried up the steps, he said -"Tu parle anglais..." I nodded furiously, "Je parle anglais" I said claiming complete allegiance to the only European language I could. And then I lost sight of him... I suppose it could've been worse.

I leave you with one more shot of this snow all captured by my hubby's compact camera (which I now carry always in case of such emergencies). I bet the people on the street who saw me clicking away probably thought it was my first ever snow sighting. Little do they know....

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