The Strange Ways of Minnesotans

Salutations, amis de retour en France! Ces Minnesotains sont assez étrange. Ils ont tellement de façons étrange et mystérieux!

[babelfish inserted...]

We can tell it's going to be quite a chore adjusting to the way people live life here. First off:

Sacre bleu! Is it cold out here! Like living in the mountains. There's a couple of feet of snow covering everything. It's quite beautiful if I must say so myself (but don't tell them I said that! ;) Here's a picture of the view out of our lakeshore apartment...

They actually have little teeny houses out on the frozen lake! What they do out there I have no idea. I'll have to ask. Our son B of course never did like shoes on his feet - and I don't think he likes his snow boots any better...

And people are so overly friendly here! Back home, people stick to themselves in the grocery store, but here! Any ol' stranger will walk up to you and strike up a conversation like you were their long lost friend or something! And smiling all the time too...

Nor is there a single fresh baguette, or a decent scrap of cheese, or tub of yoghurt to be found, even in the huge stores they have here ("Cub", "Rainbow"). It all tastes like silly putty by comparison. Don't get me wrong - with the weakness of the dollar, our euros could probably buy the whole store outright! The size of the house I could afford back in the mother country, if groceries were this cheap...

...except for the wine. Wine here is expensive - and you can only buy it in special "liquor" stores, not in the grocery stores like at home. The hunyaks also keep their stores open in Sundays - on Sundays! In fact, they brag about being open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week! Don't these people know how to take a break?

Well. To comfort ourselves, we're drinking packs of "Swiss Miss" hot chocolate (I picked up a head cold from lack of sleep), and eating what passes for cheese around here. And K got some books for B at the library, including the French classic: "Froggy Plays Soccer". ("Soccer" - the American's name for football). Have to help preserve our culture against the onslaught of vulgar American banality!

Nous vous souhaitons un Joyeux Noel!
-Philippe