If all goes well, two weeks from today I will be on a plane bound for London. “London?!” you might ask. “Wasn’t Annie going to France?!” Yes I was, and I still am, but I found a cheap one-way ticket to London on http://www.skyauction.com/. From London, I’ll take a train to Lille, in northern France, where I’ll spend a few days with my old host family before heading to my new home: Fougères. According to Russell, this is “like, the most French name ever” but it’s really quite simple. Fou is pronounced like foo’ as in ‘wassup foo’?’ The g is pronounced like… um… do we actually have that sound in English? Well, you know the song “Frère Jacques”… the g in Fougères is sort of like the J in Jacques. And finally ‘ères’ is pronounced like ‘air’, only with a little more phlegm. Let’s review…

foo’ + j + air + phlegm = Fougères

Actually, I’m not sure how to pronounce it, having never heard it said by anyone remotely French except in my own imagination, but I think that’s right. I suppose I’ll find out soon enough! Besides sporting a fantastically French name, Fougères also boasts a castle from about 1000 AD! Its moat looks perfect for skinny dipping. You can see for yourself and learn lots more when you visit http://www.ot-fougeres.fr/.

Located in the North-West, Fougères seems to be on the border between Brittany and Normandy, so that should be very interesting culturally (as well as architecturally and linguistically). It’s about 25 km from the coast and Mont St. Michael and 25 km from Rennes, the biggest city in the area. Fougères itself is about 22,000 people. I’ll be an English language assistant/TA at both a high school and a junior high from October 1^st to April 30^th. And I guess that’s that. Thanks for reading my first ever blog post!