comme ci, comme ça

Bonjour! Je m'appelle Erika.
Alex is also a contributor to this blog.
We both just moved to France.

Before anything I want to make it clear that I appreciate both the United States and France and, for different reasons, they both have a place in my heart.

My recent move to Paris has made me miss a few things about Ohio: business hours, shaking hands, free water, intersections, clean air, buildings smaller than 5 stories, and the lack of openly crazy people. This last one I might be wrong about. It is possible that these so-called "crazy" people are quite well adjusted indiviuals who either murmur or shout to themselves about their productive day: an upcoming meeting, an unsucessful trip to the bank that was closed when it should've been open, going over the items they bought from the grocery store etc... I have to admit my french is not adequate enough to decifer the exact topics. I can just remark on their slightly strange choice of tone and volume. I'm sure there are similar such people in America, but as the largest city I've ever lived in was Dayton, Ohio, I haven't been exposed to very many of them.

I have been in Paris for almost a month now and, as it had been the only time in my life I have seriously considerred "blogging", I would say I'm glad I came. I'm "une jeune fille au pair" which means "au pair" in English, or a sort of nanny. I live in a room rented by my host family on the seventh floor (which is eight american floors- no elevator). The room is very small and I wouldn't say I do much living there, more sleeping than anything. The family's apartment is in the same building and here is where I watch the kids and spend a lot of my time. The "kids" consist of two girls, Emilie and Juliette, ages 6 and 8. They can be quite wondeful and they can be other things too. Their parents, Guillaume and Catherine are very kind and, overall, I feel quite lucky to be a part of this family.

I'll leave you with a french word, don't ask me how to pronounce it:

accueil : noun M 1 welcome 2 reception desk
*If you go to a French website this word is helpful as it's also what they call the homepage.