Strange Happenings

So I think I've met 6 of the 9 children (three of them live here, two of them come by fairly frequently and one arrived in Paris last night after taking a plane-maybe the one that lives in Israel?  Not sure, and didn't want to interrupt  family time last night by asking stupid questions in my poor french at 11PM).  They all seem really nice, and the family in general has been super welcoming and very friendly, but after being here for almost a month, there is always something odd and amusing going on!  Yesterday, someone (not sure if it was above my room or next to my room) played R.E.M.'s "Losing my Religion" eight times in a row!  A bit odd.  Then shortly after, they played "Awesome God", the song that's always featured on the inspirational music infomercials.

Also, my host family likes asking me about politics all the time!  They always ask "So...what do you think of..." The people they have asked about so far are Obama, Bush, McCain, Donald Rumsfeld, Sarah Palin, Bill Clinton, and JFK/the Kennedys (apparently Gabriel, my host father, really liked Bobby).  Elliot Spitzer even came up in conversation once. Very odd!

I want to ask them questions about French politics, but I don't want to rub them the wrong way or come off rude.  The only thing I've found out about their political leanings is that they are droite, meaning on the right/conservative, but I'm not sure if they support Sarkozy or not.  They are super Catholic, so they are very against abortion (avortement en français.  It took me a couple minutes to figure out what they were talking about at first), and that they don't like Le Monde- essentially the French New York Times.  They have issues with La Croix, a French Catholic paper, because they think it is a bit Marxist sometimes, and they think Le Figaro, essentially the Wall Street Journal,  can be weak on moral issues.  (On a side note, you can figure out French newspapers' political leanings by the color on the front page- blue means conservative and red means leftist).  Still need to observe more/ maybe start asking bolder questions.

Other strange occurrences include the fact that my google chrome or Mac spell check has automatically switched to French, so please excuse my spelling mistakes.  I haven't taken the time to fix it, but it's pretty weird.

In other news, the Paris weather took a turn for the better the past couple days.  There was actually sun!  And no clouds on Monday!  It was incredible.  Here's a picture I took on Monday afternoon on my phone (Monday was one of the few days when I forgot my camera) at Place Trocadero, right across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower.

Hopefully spring comes a bit earlier here than in New York.  Right now, the forecast shows the high staying above 45 degrees up until next Friday, when I leave for Barcelona.  Perfect timing!

Need to do the very minimal amount of work I have for class today.  A bientôt!