OrléansMag

Around the beginning of May, the people at le Studium, for whom Dave officially works while in France, arranged for a reporter and photographer from the local monthly magazine OrléansMag to visit our apartment. Cricket and Dave chatted with the reporter for about half and hour, then the photographer took several pictures.

When the June 2008 issue of OrléansMag came out, we were able to see the result: A four-page article about some of the people (including us) associated with le Studium. We were all quite impressed with the result, -- particularly the girls, who were amazed and very, very pleased to see themselves in a real grownup magazine.

If you follow this link to the article, take note of the quotation next to the picture: "Orléans, c'est vraiment la France" (Orléans is the real France). The context was our discussion of how difficult it would have been for us to resist the temptation of immersing ourselves in the American ex-pat community if we had lived in Paris, whereas here in Orléans we were plunged right into the life and culture of France, as had been our intent in coming here for a year. Thus, the quotation not only accurately and succinctly sums up our philosophy of going abroad this year, but it was undoubtedly a very politically correct thing for us to have said in a magazine devoted to Orléans!

We were also proud of this bit: "...intervient Cricket, tout aussi passionée et dans un français tout aussi bon que celui de son mari." Basically, it means "...adds Cricket, just as forcefully and in French just as strong as that of her husband." Which was a compliment to both of our abilities in French! Though admittedly, some of the quotations in the article are definitely not direct quotations -- the writer took the liberty of making our own tortured language sound fluent and even elegant.