Adventures in Europe, Part III

Today (in about 20 minutes), I am going back to France for a field trip to Strasbourg. Naturally, I thought about my host family and decided to send them an e-mail. My host brothers (well, my host parents’ son who lives in Gabon whom I’ve met once, and their nephew who lived with my host parents the second half of my stay there) are planning a tour of the world by bicycle to study the effects of climate change, and I am particularly interested to see how that is going. They leave soon, I think. I want to say in October. I wish I knew a little more about their trip, but I tried not to bug Thomas (the nephew) too much since (a) he was very busy and (b) I didn’t want to be like one of those annoying little sisters who won’t shut up, and you just tolerate her when you really want to pat her on the head, give her a cookie, and send her on her way.

In any case, I was telling them about my summer in DC and how I took up rock climbing while there. What I wanted to say was “I loved it because I felt so strong when I finished a climb.” I woke up in the morning, and while brushing my teeth it hit me: “sentir” refers more to the senses. As a transitive verb, it means you’re touching (aka “feeling”… I’m not totally crazy for using that word) something. As an intransitive, it means to smell. Now I’m pretty sure I told them that I smelled strongly after a climb. Which I didn’t. At least I hope not. So I’m sitting here wondering if I’d look like I’m putting too much thought into this if I send another e-mail 12 hours later clarifying, or if it’s best to try to pass it off like I’m a stupid foreigner who doesn’t know what she’s saying.

It could be worse though. At least saying you stink via e-mail to people you probably won’t see again isn’t as bad as announcing to your French class that you would never f*** a smoker. (I was trying to saying that I wouldn’t kiss a smoker- I’m a bit of a breath snob- but I suppose what I actually said is true as well.)