Hi Lizbel,
Congratulations on the new baby to be and I hope all goes well for you and your family.
My age is posted (sigh). It's pretty interesting to hear from you. There's been occasions where we've been in need of translation services. Luckily we do have at least a couple of members from France, not to mention some members in this country who speak it well who we've relied on in the past, but also very recently, but it would be great if we could add you to our list in case we have trouble getting in touch with them or in some cases it might be good to have a woman's point of view on a letter we might be putting together.
I've been to France several times now and it all started because of Alizee. I've been in your area twice. Once I stayed in Tours. I visited the Saumur tank museum among other things. I went back to that area to see one of the castles. I actually drove a car from Paris to the Loire river area, stopped at one of the castles then continued on St Nazaire where I wanted to see the U boat pens. It was the site of a famous raid during WW2. I'm a history buff. Mainly of WW1 and 2.
Now my English is atrocious, I even had to look up the spelling of that word (the word English that is..................jk). It was not my strong point in school. I was more a math and physics kind of guy, but what I really excelled at was recess. But feel free to write me and I'm sure there will be many others who will feel the same way. One member you might want to get in touch with is Chuck. He lives in this country, but has a very good knowledge of the French language.
I even put together a video from when I was driving in the Loire area.
When I went to Tours the first time, I was hopelessly lost looking for my hotel. I stopped at a brasserie to ask directions. Well the man and woman who ran it knew little English but I was able to show them the address. They pulled out a map and showed me it was way on the other side of the city and the streets of Tours are much like the streets of Boston, where I'm from. They're a mess, winding all over the place. There was no easy way for them to direct me to that hotel. So this gentleman jumped in his car and led me over there, then refused some money that I offered him. A very nice gesture on his part. He was an older gentleman and I got the feeling he did what he did because of what happened during the war.
Good luck!
Scruffy