Alright, my laptop has arrived! A day early, even! I have so much to share, but first: a word about French keyboards. Did you know they use a different keyboard configuration here? It's called an azerty because those are the first 6 letters of the first row (the US uses qwerty by the way). So compared to the US keyboard, the "a" and the "q" are swapped, as well as the "z" and "w". The "m" is next to the "l" in the second row instead of next to the "n" in the third row. Then, every single symbol key is different. The upper number keys even have multiple symbols. It's confusing but I like it. And now I can type all my accents without the use of copy and paste!
So I believe last time I left off, we were about to have our first house guest over. It actually turned into two guests, which was just as fine. The next day we went to a brocante, which was explained to us as a gathering where people sell second-hand stuff. Well, gathering was not the word I would use as it was in a convention center about the size of a football field. Not to mention the "second-hand" items were more like "expensive antiques", so needless to say we did not find our furniture there. It was really neat to see French antiques, though.
Next to the brocante, a small area as saved to sell used bicycles. As you can imagine, bicycling is more popular in France than the US, and a "decent" bike can cost a pretty penny. Another thing that is more popular here are electric bikes. An electric bike is a bicycle with an integrated electric motor. An e-bike can range from a small motor to assist with pedaling to a motor similar to a moped's functions. They can go from 15-20 mph generally, with the beefier ones reaching closer to 30. They're not considered electric motorcycles, even at that speed, because you can still pedal. If bikes cost a pretty penny, than e-bikes cost a pretty quarter. Even the most basic model is around $1000.
While we were leaving the brocante, we got a call from Jeremy's coworker Olivier inviting us to dinner that night. Needless to say we had a very busy but fun weekend!
Next to the brocante, a small area as saved to sell used bicycles. As you can imagine, bicycling is more popular in France than the US, and a "decent" bike can cost a pretty penny. Another thing that is more popular here are electric bikes. An electric bike is a bicycle with an integrated electric motor. An e-bike can range from a small motor to assist with pedaling to a motor similar to a moped's functions. They can go from 15-20 mph generally, with the beefier ones reaching closer to 30. They're not considered electric motorcycles, even at that speed, because you can still pedal. If bikes cost a pretty penny, than e-bikes cost a pretty quarter. Even the most basic model is around $1000.
While we were leaving the brocante, we got a call from Jeremy's coworker Olivier inviting us to dinner that night. Needless to say we had a very busy but fun weekend!