Friday, 26 December 2008

Fun with French: bonjour

Arriving at Poitiers airport









  1. People here in Saint-Aignan do say rebonjour once in a while. It's in situation where you have seen and formally greeted a person earlier in the day, and then been separated before seeing each other again. It's nearly always said with a conspiratorial tone: we've already said bonjour to each other though the others you are now greeting might not know it.

  2. Merry Merry Christmas Simon and Susan. I don't know why as a natural born Texan I desire for it to be frosty and cold on Christmas as I have only every known it to be dreary (weatherwise), almost rainy and a tad humid. Yick. Your photos most certainly help.

  3. Spending time between the chilly (in more ways than one) Savoie, and the Vaucluse, can be confusing. The 'bonjours' are pretty standard everywhere, but the bise (two kisses) in the Savoie is regularly missed out, even between reasonably close acquaintances at times. Then like the day before yesterday I find myself back down south after a week in the mountains, go round to a neighbour's for an 'apero', and there's a horde of unknown kids (sub 10-ish) behind the door, for whom it's completely natural to have a single peck on the cheek, even from a complete stranger. By the time you've down the rounds of about 20 kids and parents (3 bises), you'd be lucky to escape unbugged if there are any flu viruses about.

  4. Peter: Just be thankful you are not commuting to work on a train – now that's a dead cert way of catching whatever virus is going around.