Which news you want first? The good? Ok, fine. The good news is that my teacher showed up. We arranged in advance to meet at the cafe inside the Centre Pompidou. She described herself in email as "red and curly" which I took to mean red-headed and curly-haired. As I made my way around the cafe, I noted an older lady, kinda sour, with red hair, but not too curly. Can't be her, I told myself and kept walking. Two trips around, not a single person with red hair other than the librarian I saw when I first came in.
Ok, what the heck - I walk up to her "Excusez-moi, etes-vous Florence?" I asked. What came back at me was a torrent of French. It was indeed her. She never spoke one word to me in English for the hour, I don't even know if she knows English. She spent the next hour trying to place my level. She gave me a written test, sort of a fill-in-the-blank deal to see if I could conjugate verbs, which I failed with flair. I assumed the tense to be present when in fact there were a variety, including present, past, future and imperfect. Man, I felt stupid. She mostly spoke and asked me questions that I wanted to answer but didn't know how to. I am at that stage where I can understand a lot and say nothing. I really felt like crying, I know how two year olds feel now.
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