I stayed up late last night looking for a movie for us to go to this weekend. I knew that I would see Mary and Megan in French class so I wanted to be prepared to tell them our plans. The theatre we have gone to is http://www.cinemasgaumontpathe.com/cinemas/cinema-gaumont-rennes/ The theater is in downtown Rennes. There are 16 movies showing there. We are looking for those listed as VO. That stands for version original or in other words, not dubbed. There will be subtitles. If I counted right, 8 of the 16 movies are American. And of the 8 movies 5 can be seen VO. And of the 5 movies 2 are not rated R. We have already seen one of them so the movie we will see is Fair Game with Sean Penn and Naomi Watts. There may be other theatres around, but this is the one theatre that we have gone to, so we are comfortable with it. Two weeks ago when we saw Social Network I had inadvertently crushed my parking ticket so that the machine could not read it. We stood there in the garage at a complete loss as to what we should do. I young woman approached us and asked if we needed help. She asked in English. She called the number on the back of the ticket and then was told to push the button on the payment box. A man came on and after exchanging words she told us to insert our bank card to pay for the parking and a new ticket came out. I tell you the French have been so wonderfully helpful. I don’t know how we ever would have got our car out if she had not helped us. It was after midnight and there were not a lot of people around. Even now that I know the payment box has a button that will let you talk to someone I am not sure I could communicate well enough to get out of the garage.

A new student came to our French class today. She is from Taiwan. She is in her 50’s and speaks English, Chinese, Spanish, Italian, and is now learning French. Her husband teaches English at an International high school here in Rennes. Now I don’t want to draw any definite conclusions, however, Miranda’s English teacher is Asian and Antoine’s English teacher is Asian and now this man (whom I am assuming is Asian like his wife) is teaching English. There seems to be a lot of Asian English speakers. After having been in class now for over a month I recognize that there is skill in teaching another language as a foreign language. I may have a good American accent, but I don’t think I could articulate the rules that needed to be followed in learning English.

Miranda told us that her friend Katy shared with her a weird cultural experience. Again it is hard to know whether there is a general cultural difference or whether it is just the family with whom she is living. Katy arrived in Rennes soon after we did. She showed up to church and after a lot of problems she ditched her AFS program and moved in with a family in the ward. One of the daughters was shocked when she found out that she and Miranda did not know each other in the United States. She has red hair and is the same age as Miranda and is a member of the church. I can see how little Lucy just assumed that the two of them were friends in the US. She is from Alaska and is going home at the end of January. She and Miranda have all of their classes together and Miranda loves having her around. I think Miranda speaks less French because Katy is always there by her side. Katy does speak more than Miranda does. So anyway Katy was telling her that one of the boys in the family where she is staying had a friend over for the night. They are both in the ward and I believe are 15 or 16. Well what Katy found strange is that they slept in the same bed without pajamas. They weren’t naked, but still. She knows that boys in America won’t even pee next to each other in a public restroom if they can avoid it. I remember when I was a young boy my friends wouldn’t sit next to each other in the movie theatre if it was just us guys. Miranda tells me it is generally still true. I guess France is just different.